The Sheltering Sky

The Sheltering Sky
by Paul Bowles
1949 / 352 pages
read by Jennifer Connelly 10h 30m
rating:  6 / classic

At first this seemed like a really dumb story wrapped in wonderful silky language. A married American couple and their good friend  travel around North Africa  in the post-WWII days.  They have no comprehension of local language, customs, geography.  They are unaware of how dangerous what they are doing is what with unscrupulous natives, disease and animals.

It might take place in the Sahara but we don’t really learn much about that area of the world until later in the novel. It’s unexpectedly different (to the couple), wild and brutal to women.  It’s really about rich, selfish, ignorant, self-centered, hypocritical Americans going through some kind of timely existential angst  – a dated stereotype at this point (or is it?).    >>>>MORE>>>>