Bowles Books

I picked up this book expecting the advertised insight into the relationship between Prince Charles and his long-time mistress Camilla, who at long last became his wife and is now known as the Duchess of Cornwall.

It took perseverance.

The flashes of insight are scattered through a narrative that begins with the monarchs of England and their mistresses from about the year dot. Or 736. Or something. And meanders down to the present day with endless details about the ancestors and descendants of kings, princesses, mistresses, near-mistresses, cousins, courtiers, generals, admirals, and probably a few of their horses.

Reading this book is like a Sunday afternoon visit with a gossipy old uncle who knows everybody - and their dogs and cats. He rambles and rummages among a lot of boring history, can't resist going off on tangents, and yet if you listen long enough he does eventually dish the dirt. When you leave, you have learned something new, and you feel you've cheered up the old boy by engaging in the visit. Even if most of the begats and ranks and titles went in one ear and out the other.

I agree with another reviewer: this book cries out for some charts to help the reader follow all of that genealogy described in such excruciating detail.

This isn't a fast read. Nor is it uncritically admiring of anyone, including Charles and Camilla. On the subject of Charles' ill-starred first marriage, it's nowhere near as comprehensive and gifted as Tina Brown's The Diana Chronicles. But Brandreth leaves us with a portrait of Prince Charles as an intelligent, sensitive, dutiful boy who didn't respond as well as his sturdier sister to the often harsh regimens of his school days. Who grew into a dutiful and complex young man, still oddly diffident with women, and working hard to fulfill the duties of the unique lifelong role he was born into. Although it ended in tears - and worse - he began his first marriage in good faith, retained some affection and concern for Diana long after the marriage died, and was always an involved father.

The portrait of Camilla is less complete, but then she wasn't famous from birth so information is harder to obtain. Brandreth presents her as a naturally happy person who likes to have fun. She's intelligent but not an intellectual, and is devoted to horses, hunting, gardening, and her close-knit family. And, for much of her life, to the Prince of Wales. Camilla grew up in a close and happy family, and her stability, warmth and optimism no doubt play a strong counterpoint to some of Charles' more skittish tendencies. She sounds like a good person to have as a friend: ready to have fun, loyal, and unlikely to make a fuss about a little mud tracked into the house.

In Camilla, from the beginning, Charles found his soulmate. Brandreth eventually gives us a portrait of a deep and strong relationship that has survived against all odds. Whether you like these two people or not, they clearly belong together. I wonder what would have happened if they could have married each other first.

As a "portrait of a love affair" this book is cluttered with too much information, both irrelevant and intimate. I didn't need the transcript of the entire "Camillagate" phone call, but it's in there. And I don't care who begat whom in 14th Century Britain. I'll take it as read that kings have historically married for duty and taken mistresses for everything else. Some historical perspective is helpful, but Brandreth piles on too much detail.

You might while away a long plane flight with this book, but better also pack something else to read when you get fed up with Brandreth's incessant fussing and fidgeting.

After reading a previous biography on England's current monarch and spouse by Gyles Brandreth, I was keenly keeping an eye out for his next book, this time talking about the current Prince of Wales and his second marriage, this time to his long-time mistress, Camilla Parker-Bowles. Along the way, Brandreth takes a look at the history of royal mistresses, the ancestry of the couple in question, and reveals that there's quite a bit more going on than meets the eye.

The custom of a prince or king having several mistresses -- what can be called 'girlfriends' today -- is a custom as old as when the first monarch plopped a crown on his head. Until recently, most royal marriages were arranged, where King A was available, or his son was, and King B had an unmarried daughter, and would exchange daughter in return for say, a peace treaty or financial support or whatever it was that they needed at the time. History rarely records what the poor girl thought of the match, and what was expect of her was to be fruitful, bear several heirs, and if she was lucky, there would be genuine affection in her marriage. For fun, royal men have turned to other women, an arrangement that winked at, but so long as they didn't make a fool of themselves, the men got away with it. It was only recently, with the union of England's Queen Victoria with a minor German princeling by the name of Albert, that romance -- and fidelity -- began to be the norm. For the first several chapters of the book, Brandreth discusses the various peccadillos of England's royal families, and shows how the standard came to be.

The first cracks showed up with England's Edward VIII and the notorious Mrs. Simpson, a woman who was divorced, twice, and certainly not the virgo intacta that was expected of a royal wife. But Edward VIII stepped down for the woman he loved, and his younger brother Bertie -- George VI -- took the throne, and did a pretty good job of a task he never wanted. Stress and smoking made his reign a short one, and his elder daughter, Elizabeth II, is now England's queen. Which brings us to the current royal heir, Charles, the Prince of Wales, a young man of rather nervous temprament and the resources to live a life of a popular playboy.
Unfortunately, he had those ears, and somehow the good looks of his parents skipped a generation. At a polo match, he met a young woman of aristocratic stock, funny, and just as interested as he was in polo and horses.

She was Camilla Shand, somewhat pretty, and when she met the Prince, she commented, "My great-grandmother was your great-great-grandfather's mistress, so how about it?" The story, whether true or not, has entered myth, and it was rumored that the pair became lovers, and at least friends. But Charles was a bit uncertain about asking anyone to be his wife, and that lack of confidence let Camilla slip away to another man, a dashing Army officer by the name of Andrew Parker-Bowles. Camilla got married, raised some children, and remained a good friend of the Prince, while Charles went on to his chase after women, and finally, when he was in his thirties, asked another aristocratic young woman to marry him, and this time, he was accepted.

This is where Brandreth's book gets interesting. Besides all of the gossip about who's sleeping with whom, a tanscription of the notorious 'tampon' conversation, he paints a very telling portrait of the Prince of Wales. As well as looking at the outside, he also attempts to look at the why as well. This is where the book becomes the most interesting, and there's quite a few AHA! moments there for the reader who isn't numbed and dazed by all of the various begats and mudslinging.

And yet -- this isn't nearly as good as the biography that Brandreth wrote about Charles' parents. For one, it gets a bit too intimate in spots, and I was downright embarassed. It's one thing to read about someone who has gone on to their eternal reward, but quite another when they're alive and kicking. Diana Spencer doesn't come off too well in this one either, showing her as a very naive, not-too-bright young woman, who was just as emotionally needy as her husband, and didn't have the wits to be quiet about it. There's plenty of venom being flung about, and at times, it's not much more than a scandal sheet, and not too objective.

Still, out of all the various books out there (and no doubt will continue to appear), it's not too bad, and better than most. For anyone who enjoys eavesdropping on royalty, it's not a bad read at all. There are some problems -- Brandreth is a cackling hen of a writer, flooding the pages with footnotes and smirking connections among Europe and England's elite. One thing that this book really needed was a genealogical chart or several to show all of the connections and help to keep everyone straight. I had to be constantly backing up now and then to make sure I was thinking about the right person he was discussing. Too, by scattering the footnotes throughout the book, instead of lumping them at the end as most histories do, makes it very distracting to follow along.

On the other hand, there are quite a lot of photographs in several inserts, several appendices that talk about the various duties and organizations that the Prince is involved with, along with various sources and an index to track down minor royals.

Summing up, this one is actually better than what I make it sound. It's a very solid four star read, despite the problems, and one that I suspect I will reread again in the future. What it does do is help to understand a very complex relationship, and finally, a love story that managed to survive scandal, death and publicity to finally come to a settled, and maybe even a peaceful resolution.

Four stars. Recommended.

Bowles' autobiography "Without Stopping" has been referred to as "Without Telling" by Burroughs. Invisible Spectator follows it step-by-step, especially with regard to the early years. Additions to what Bowles fans want to know are largely limited to some speculations about Mr. Bowles' sexual relationships and a bits of new information from letters, interviews, and obscure publications. Historical context should have been provided given that Mr. Bowles was born in 1910, almost ninety years ago.

The last few decades are glossed over, especially considering the blow-by-blow account of the early years of career-building and travel. Again, these events are known largely from Mr. Bowles' autobiography and Invisible Spectator adds little. Little light is shed on the later years after Mrs. Bowles' death in the 1970s. These years have been highly productive for the subject, and much more interesting to this reader than the virtually prehistoric youth of Mr. Bowles. From the Beats on, the biography serves up the skimpiest information. If you have never read anything about Paul Bowles you will be entranced as his life is fascinating. If you have, there's little new here. The author is a fan, and a biography by a detractor would be much more fun. Regardless, cheers to Mr. Paul Bowles for letting the biographer have access to personal information. I wish he had done a more interesting job with it.

Paul Bowles lived in Morocco for a reason, he embraced the mystery of it,perhaps enjoyed losing his western self in it, and there is no solving in any easy rational way the mystery that is Paul Bowles. But this is a great gathering of the known facts. I appreciate the lack of speculation and reading into things ....the author allows you to accompany him through this life decade by decade, sticking to what is known. And Bowles, however good your guide, remains a territory for the most part unknown.
It may be worthwhile to compare this to Paul Bowles own autobiography Without Stopping published in early seventies.
In this biography you get a picture of Paul as a child, as well as a restless young man who cannot resist the call to Europe. You get Paul as composer of numerous film scores, poems, and a general idea of this middle period before that better known period as writer marked by the publication of that first book Sheltering Sky. Also there is an interesting portrait of Jane, his talented and troubled wife. And a picture of Paul at work with his protege Mohammed Mrabet whose oral tales he transcribed(including:Love With a Few Hairs, Lemon, Boy Who Caught Fire, others). This will give you a very good idea of Paul as glimpsed by an outsider as it is a competent and readable dossier of facts and dates. There are more speculative works about Paul Bowles available but really I think the fiction is the place to go. There you will find the most interesting Bowles, the composer of tales and mysteries, even riddles of what it is to be human. The story of Paul's life is interesting and perhaps it will help some who like to interpret stories with the support of biographical data but ultimately the facts in this case anyway do not go very far.

For over fifty years Paul Bowles wrote about the chasms that exist between east and west. A few commentators have suggested that his work provides a good guide for navigating the cultural divide so pronounced in today's world. His stories and novels, mostly written during the 1950s and 1960s, likely read very differently now than in the pre-911 world. Some even ring warning bells for careless culture hoppers. Despite its power, his work continues to squander in unjustified obscurity nearly a decade after his death.

"Midnight Mass" collects 13 stories written after 1976. Though somewhat lacking the luster of his earlier tales, familiar themes ring out. The title story finds a western man losing his mother's house in Tangier to a prosperous Moroccan family. "The Little House," "The Empty Amulet," and "The Eye" explore the cavernous gulf between "Nazarene" and "Moslem" medicine. Many stories deal with the intriguing relationships that can develop between westerners and their hired local help, such as "The Dismissal" and "Madame and Ahmed." Misunderstandings and crossed wires abound. "In The Red Room" demonstrates how well Bowles could depict the horrific confusion that results when people wander outside of their "safe zones." Though nothing really happens in the story, the suspense never lets up. Such masterful psychological manipulation pervades Bowles' work. The book's longest story, "Here To Learn," sees a stunningly beautiful village girl, Malika, traipsed around the globe by lustfully admiring men. She gets literally swept away by one man after another, but she doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The story transports Malika from her tiny village with her unappreciative mother, to Teutan, Tangier, Madrid, Paris, Cortina, Milano, Switzerland, Los Angeles, and back again; all in a whirlwind 50 pages. It reads like a very bizarre coming of age story. As she pursues each desultory route, her past dissolves. When she finally returns to the village, she finds her roots yanked out beyond hope.

Every story in "Midnight Mass," with the exception of the somewhat trite "Kitty," demonstrates the singular unique vision that Bowles injected into his work. Apart from the ubiquitous east/west theme, Bowles explores betrayal, murder, indifference, honor, the lure of greed, and devastation. An American by birth, he writes about non-western cultures with an authenticity that only a lifetime expatriate could manage. His strange obscurity remains a puzzle, though he was often referred to as a "writer's writer." Those seeking familiarity with the enigmatic Bowles should look to his novels, particularly "The Sheltering Sky", and his earlier stories rather than this collection. Though highly readable and poignant, "Midnight Mass" does not represent his best work. But those who have engulfed his other work and seek more will find much to succor here.

Paul Bowles was always a unique writer. An expatriate American who went to Morrocco and stayed. Midnight Mass is a collection of his short stories written after 1976. It is a great companion piece to his Collected Stories which gathers his stories prior to 1976. Bowles can be difficult to read because he became so emmershed in Morroccan culture it is quite, shall we say, foreign to Western readers. This is not the writing of an American. Paul Bowles became like a Morroccan in his years in Tangier. If you want to learn a little about Morroccan culture this is a good place to start. Stories like The Eye and Madame and Ahmed hit the mark. It is, overall, an outstanding collection. It is great for lovers of literature in general as well as for Morroccan neophytes.

I have a love/hate relationship with H.D. - I lack her enthusiasm for Greek and Egyptian mythology (I'd rather move a bit further to the Southeast) but I appreciate what she does with the mythology. Thus I am never quite sure to what audience I can recommend her.

The second piece in this book, "The Wise Sappho" is a meditation on the poetry of Sappho - a poetic meditation. If you have read Sappho, this is a must read piece as both Sappho and H.D. are talismen of the feminist strand of poets.

The first piece "Notes on Thought and Vision" needs to be placed in time. H.D. speaks of her discovery of a higher level of consciousness, a level she refers to as jelly-fish mind as she imagines it as a jelly-fish above us (for brain consciousness) or beside us (for womb consciousness) with tenacles into our body. Her examples come primarily from art, Greek mythology or "the Galilean" (Jesus). She specifically includes scientists among those dependent upon this jelly-fish consciousness. However, she cautions that body and mind are not to be neglected. Her description of her experience serves as an important insight into her poetry and prose and as one ray into understanding the literary circle in which she roamed e.g. Ezra Pound.

At her best, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) is a poet. Her novels all display a poet's sense of immediacy, but are sometimes confusing for their interior "scapes" which are frequently all too fluid. Her poetry, however, directs the "flow" deliberately and masterfully. "Notes on Thought and Vision" is a rare example (like Nikos Kazantzakis's "The Saviors of God") wherein the distinction between poetry and prose evaporates. These "Notes" are intimate and compelling, watery and feminine, mystical and yet (strangely) earthy--composed of octopus, seaweed, and salt. Her language is delicate, but not brittle, her point of view keenly sensitive but never timid. "Notes" is an intelligent reflection on the sub- or un-conscious, and on the source(s) of poetic inspiration, from the only person, male or female, who ever wrote openly of her experience as Sigmund Freud's patient (see H.D.'s "Tribute to Freud"). "Notes on Thought and Vision" is a short book (and a small one), which contains a very large message that celebrates the feminine and the divine as one and the same. A must-read for any woman who seeks to explore her creativity and for any man who seeks his own "anima".

It would be possible to know of Paul Bowles (1910-1999) as a writer exclusively. His first novel, The Sheltering Sky (1949), established him as one of the greatest English language novelists of the post-war generation. However, Bowles was a gifted and prolific composer as well. While he was modest about his accomplishments as a composer, Bowles' managed to compose three operas, five ballets, incidental music for over twenty stage productions, as well as many chamber works, film scores and songs. Of the two pursuits (writing and music composition), Bowles described them as being "different rooms". His creative mind could only manage one at a time and to him they were distinct. It is with interest then to learn in Paul Bowles on Music (edited by Timothy Mangan and Irene Herrmann) that Mr. Bowles was writing articles and reviews about music long before the publication of his novels and stories. In all, he managed to write over four hundred articles and reviews for Modern Music and the New York Herald Tribune where he was ultimately employed as a music critic and writer between 1942-1945. The book provides an important introduction which describes how Bowles was courted by the composer and music critic Virgil Thomson for the Herald Tribune job and how he doubted he could write under strict deadlines.

Except for a non-revealing interview (his last) at the end of the book, the rest contains his articles and criticisms arranged in chronological order. The idea is an appealing one since this `non-fiction' of his has never been compiled in one book until now. With Bowles' music reaching a wider audience of late one might be interested in what he had to say about the subject. Unfortunately, there is not much interest in reading the reviews. Bowles' intelligence, wit and musical knowledge are evident but many of the reviews reveal him as opinionated and petty: "...most of the music reminds me of the Indian stuff in old Westerns, only it's not quite so good.". Remarks like this appear without explanation. We never learn in his reviews why something is "good" or "awful" just that, from his perspective, they are. The letters and articles hold more interest and import as they reveal Bowles' passion for and careful research of topics ranging from folk music to jazz. One may want to keep the layered metaphors and psychological perception of his novels and the rhythmic precision and harmonic spaciousness of his music in different rooms as he intended.

For Bowles' scholars, this book is essential because it fills a void. Everyone else may want to start with Paul Bowles' novels and compositions before reading his criticisms. It seems, in the final analysis, that his fear of writing well on deadline was rational and the writing included here, simply does not do him justice.

I wanted to read this book of Paul Bowles's (1910 - 1999) music reviews for several reasons. I am an admirer of Bowles's fiction, including the novel "The Sheltering Sky," which he wrote as an expatriate American in Tangiers beginning in 1947. Furthermore, before he began his career as a novelist, Bowles was a rising and prolific composer. A self-taught protege of Aaron Copland, Bowles wrote ballets, suites, art songs, film scores, and scores for the theater, including plays by Tennessee Williams. Music and literature are two of my passions.

This leads me to the third reason for wanting to read this book. Bowles spent several years reviewing music of all sorts, chiefly for the "New York Hearald Tribune" and for the periodical "Modern Music". He wrote this work as a journalist, for little pay, and with tight deadlines. Yet he managed to write well and to find something important to say. It is this work-a-day world of writing that reminds me of my efforts, and those of my fellow reviewers, writing on this site It is a challenge to write short pieces with regularity on subjects one loves and to try to produce something others will find valuable. In short, Bowles's reviews, and his progress from composer to critic to novelist somehow became emblematic and inspirational to me of the Amazon reviewing process.

In this book, Timothy Mangan and Irene Herrmann have gathered together Paul Bowles's music reviews written primarily from 1940--1946. Bowles writes in a spare, understated, succinct style that will be familiar to readers of "The Sheltering Sky". His reviews cover a broad spectrum and include reviews of scores for films, record releases, and concerts. They cover too a wide range of music, including the then-recent works of Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, John Cage, and other contemporary classical composers, to folk music of Mexico, North Africa, South America, and Cuba, through American jazz and blues. I was intrigued by his references to the blues singer Memphis Minnie (p. 230), the blues pianist Champion Jack Dupree (sings "with a fine primitive self-accompaniment on the piano", p.205), and Arthur Crudup (p.230) who would become the most direct and immediate influence on young Elvis Presley.

Bowles's reviews give a lively picture of concert life in New York City during the war years as he describes for us the venues for music, and the performers and performances that he witnessed. Many young composers and performers he reviewed were just starting out and would subsequently become famous, such as the 25 year old Leonard Bernstein (Bowles reviewed the premier of his "Jerimiah" symphony) and the young 18 year old pianist Eugene Istomin. But he also reviewed concerts by composers and performers then considered to be of promise who have subsequently been forgotten. It is good to remember these composers and flegling performers and their efforts. The book allows the reader to see the manner in which musical tastes have changed from the 1940s to the present.

Bowles was a composer and writes about music from a composer's viewpoint. He writes eloquently about structures, harmonies, music periods, textures, interpretations and performance practices. One can learn a good deal about listening intelligently to music from these reviews, even though the performances, and in some cases the music he describes, has long been forgotten.

I noticed that Bowles had a predeliction for early music and, in particular for the music of the harpsichord. In a review praising a 1942 concert by harpsichordist Ralph Kilpatrick, Bowles wrote: "it is difficult not to be enthusiastic over such a concert, if only because it involves the harpsichord itself, that antidote to the poison sounds of our era's daily life. It is the instrument which allows every note of every voice of a piece of contrapuntal writing to be heard with complete clarity; remote and recessed as a voice may sound, it is never hidden." (p.58) In a 1991 interview included in this book, Bowles offered similar observations in discussing his reactions to the performances of Wanda Landowska (pp 267-269). Bowles's criticism of "the poison sounds of our era's daily life," echoed in many reviews in this collection, perhaps help explain his decision to leave New York City in favor of the life of an expatriate in Tangiers.

Bowles decried what he viewed as a growing commercialization and uniformity in all types of music, from folk, to jazz to classical and cherished music as a way of life rather than as a casual entertainment. It is fitting to quote the end of his final review, written in 1946, in which Bowles decried the increasingly sterile character of traditional folk music. He wrote:

"In Latin America as elsewhere, the radio and cinema are systematically exterminating folk music before its creators and consumers are in a position to participate in the creation or enjoymnent of art music. What fills the gap? Commercial music. But there are still thousands of small villages in that part of our hemisphere where radios and projectors have yet to arrive, and where the people still make their own music just as they have for centuries, not for entertainment, but because it is an absolute essential to their living." (p.257)

It is this ideal of music as "essential to living" that I found most lasting in these reviews by Paul Bowles.

Robin Friedman

Provocative. Daring. A voice that electrifies. Yet, the book has to be seen in a wider lens. It is and isn't about Central America. It, might be, about writers in actual times, in a globalize world. The way to go farther than a sylable. It is also a begginer's work. It is an experimental text. The main idea is far stronger than the ending. The reading is recommended. Rey Rosa is at the moment the best Guatemala has to offer.

Reading The Pelcari project led me to read everything available by Rodrigo Rey Rosa; I am comfortable recommending any and all of his works.

The Pelcari Project is an interesting study of human individuality and social engineering ... both provocative and frightening in its social implications. Think of the tale as a cautionary tale of the behavioral scientist/neurosurgeon gone mad.

This early novel by prolific western writer Dane Coolidge (1873-1940) was first published in 1913, a decade after its famous predecessor "The Virginian." There are many of the same elements in this story: an easterner who's a fish out of water in the West, a rivalry between a man of strong principle and one with none, a close friendship between two men, class differences, and a long-running and much frustrated courtship. A big difference is that having grown up in California, Coolidge knew the West and ranch life much better than Owen Wister, and he was more interested in representing the actual work of real cowboys - something entirely missing from Wister's novel. Based on his own field research, Coolidge's novels describe the business of working cattle, living conditions on a ranch, and the ins and outs of cowboy culture. He knows, for instance, the three books to be found in any bunkhouse.

Set on the Bat Wing ranch in southern Arizona, this story tells of a young Easterner, Bowles, who falls in love with the daughter of a rancher and through luck and persistence manages to prove himself as a cowboy and win her hand. Through him, we learn of the grueling work of rounding up and branding cattle. We experience the difficulty of being accepted into a fraternity of rough-riding men who labor tirelessly, amuse each other with long-winded tales, play practical jokes, get drunk in town, haze newcomers, and just as easily square off into heated disputes and fist fights. One of the more strongly drawn characters is Gus, a stereotypically grumpy camp cook. Another is Brigham, a lapsed Mormon with grievances about his church that keep him from marrying. There is some humor in all this but little romanticizing; the subduing of an unbroken horse, for instance, is described in brutal detail.

For readers interested in the old West as it was actually lived (not as it's portrayed in shoot-em-up adventures), Coolidge repays the time and energy it takes to locate his novels, now long out of print (though some are becoming available in downloadable editions). Without gunfights, chases, outlaws, Indians, and a mounting body count, he maintains our interest, rings a range of emotions, and keeps things moving along.

Of all the third-world writers Paul Bowles translated, Mohammed Mrabet enjoyed the most success-- perhaps because he managed to stay on Bowles' good side the longest. But Mrabet also has an amazingly fertile imagination that surpassed Bowles' at times. He can seemlessly incorporate elements of Western narrative innovations into his work, as he proves with The Big Mirror. Much like Mrabet's other novels and collections of stories, it's a portrait of Morocco in the 60's and 70's that's grounded in ancient ritual and myth, but in this case Mrabet seems to have tackled feelings of doom and anxiety and horror much more openly than ever before. This is the most "Western" of Mrabet's work, I would say, and perhaps also the most powerful because it so clearly walks the tightrope between cultures, between times, between logic and the inexplicable, between brutality and love. It's chilling and surreal as Jim Thompson's novel Savage Night or the juicy parts of Potocki's The Manuscript Found in Saragossa.
I'm telling you, track this one down.

The Boy Who Set the Fire is a curious collection of stories taped and translated by Paul Bowles. The author, Mohammed Mrabet, is an oral storyteller but not necessarily traditional. I would have appreciated knowing which, if any, of the stories are traditional.

Perhaps the most powerful story is "What Happened in Granada" which revolves around the disrespect of the English family running a hotel for the Moroccan driver of a man who had left his ill wife in their care. The story does an excellent job of showing the misunderstandings that can led to mistreatment.

The flip side is "The Woman from New York" where a Moroccan shows his mistrust of the American woman and the hippies (I'm assuming based upon the date of the story); their manner of living causes the Moroccan to consider them sickly, dirty and slanderous.

Some of the stories are humorous. "Doctor Safi" tells the story of a man who pulls his donkey's rotten teeth. From that he concludes he'd do well with a dental practice (human and animal). A few successes there and he fancies himself a doctor. "The Saint By Accident" follows a similar humorous path with the misunderstandings on the part of the viewers not the "saint".

Several stories deal with illness brought on by sinister powers and cured only by what we would consider religious magic e.g. "The Well". Others are stories of revenge, e.g. "The Boy Who Set the Fire".

The constants across the stories include a preference for the older, rural life style; the ever-present kif; conflict between Muslim and Nazarene. The book provides an interesting insight into the culture of the author and, as such, is well worth reading.

If you are seeking ways to develop your own creativity, while still accessing the support of a few "rules", this book is one you may want to explore. You'll be able to use the techniques in the book to start a whole new quilting experience. As a some-time printmaker, I am fascniated with the possibilities of printing my own squares, then using them to assemble Dancing Quilts. I really like the book, and only stumbled a little on a couple of the diagrams. Careful re-reading got me right back on track.