Bowles Books

This book Big Bucks! was read in one day, it was very enlightning and motivational, read it, you'll enjoy it! Thanks Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles. I look forward to reading your other books.

My profile. 43 yo begining entrepreneur.. scared to death and sceraming like mad in this freefall period.

This review refers to the audio cd book

5 stars for content 21/2 for production

First the production setback- the audio has a very low recording volume so I have to put the normal listening volume in the 27 seting of my car set, causing severe acoustic shock after I take it our and radio comes into play! Then there is the fact that each cd has 2 or 3 tracks each ove 30 min, so if you want to rehear a part, forget it!

I listened to this cd for over 2 years while being a travelling salesman for a major corp here in Vnza. The approach taken here is very original and a extraordinairy complement to the Millionare Mind and the Rich Dad series.

Three basic principles or secrets are revealed to an average Joe (I identified with him) by wealthy and successfull millionaires who are rich in advice giving as well... new paradigms come into being as common notions of wealth generations are dispelled here... be prepared to be enlighten.

Personally, I found great comfort in the first principle of " You can' make money unless you are having fun" for I know what I like to do in my life, and selling has always been part of that... but the message is, if you know what you like then set those gears of imagination moving to make a profit our of it.. do not fight your natural tendencies.. of course the other principles work on the focus and balance to be provided to his one.

Reading this book will take you on a journey inside your own world, but the perspective will be from the outside looking in. Big Bucks can help clear the FOG that sometimes clouds our minds when we are thinking about a problem and not finding solutions.

Success in business is a ongoing process and this book is like having your own Mentoring Team working with you on reaching your goals.

If you have questions in your mind about how to earn BIG BUCKS ! and are open, you will find YOUR answers inside.

I received this book along with three others for free upon joining a real estate investors group. Thus, I was not expecting too much from the volume. I also was blissfully ignorant of the authors and their prior successful works, and have not read the other two volumes in this motivational trilogy.

As such, I was pleasantly surprised by the narrative and novel style. The use of the protagonist "Len" is quite refreshing and works extremely well. His visits to the "three Wise Men/Woman" are amusing. The three lessons learned are absolute truths in the working world and totally reinforced my personal belief that having fun while making money is essential. If you love what you do you will be great at it.

I highly recommend this book to everyone with a open mind. It is a quick read (about a weekend ought to do it) and if read and followed, is sure to enrich your life both spiritually and financially.

About my only criticism is that it is somewhat derivative of other motivational types such as Lou Tice (reticular activating systems); Ivan Meisner (givers gain);and the grandaddy of them all: Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich).

In RAVING FANS, authors Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Knowles
concentrated on the importance of delighting customers . . . in GUNG
HO!, they focused on how companies could become the "employer of
choice" and attract the best employees . . . I liked both those
books and thus looked forward to listening to the taped version of
BIG BUCKS! . . . this third book promised me in its subtitle "How
to Make Serious Money for Both You and Your Company," something
that could be done by focussing my time and energy.

Like other works by Blanchard and Knowles, the points are
presented in a parable . . . here, we're introduced to a man struggling
to make ends meet . . . he goes on a journey to discover the secret
to becoming rich and meets three wise (and successful) people
who present simple truths that can be applied to virtually any
situation.

I liked the above fact; i.e., that when listening, I found myself
thinking that this stuff makes sense--and I should and could

apply it to my situation . . . there's nothing overly earth-shattering,
yet I should add that it got me thinking . . . and it made sense.

Also making sense was the conclusion, in which the authors
reviewed the simple tests that should have been learned from
either reading or listening:

The test of joy . . . you can't make money unless you're having fun.

The test of purpose . . .you can't make money unless making money
is more important than having fun.

The test of creativity . . . incomes, less expenses = profit.

And, lastly, there's perpetual prosperity . . . which comes to those
who help others.

An easy to read fictional account of Moroccos attempt to free itself from French rule. Paul Bowles is a great writer.

The spider's house, has a very appealing cover, with a equally appealing story. This book surpasses all expectations, and beyond. A historical over view is always illuminating in the backdrop of every conversation, told as if the characters were them selves speaking to the reader or even thinking out loud without any inhibitions.

It's first hand knowledge of the culture, that one can only gain from years of encounters. Paul Bowels, speaks of the Moroccan people as they truly are, the good, the bad, the awful, and their quest for a modern future, that is to bare many flaws.

The French influence, and there cruelty is also vividly detailed, and the reader is left wondering why such history is well forgotten by the new generation. Paul Bowles is not only forgiving but also critical in his judgments regarding the Moroccan people's limited perception of the other.

In all, this book covers the perspective view of every person who is encountered in this book, by that I really mean everyone.

Paul Bowles was on a hot streak in the 1950s, and of the 3 novels he wrote between 1949 and 1955 this last one is my hands-down favorite. With each book Bowles seemed to grow more confident in his knowledge of Morocco, and in the gifted teenager Amar he creates his most complete Arab character to date, giving over more of the story to him than to his American hero, the detached expatriate novelist Stenham. The novel is also exciting for the way Bowles managed to map his longstanding concern with the differences between Islam and the modern West onto the explosive political events in Morocco in 1954, when the Moroccan Independence party was fighting a hot terrorist war against the French (sound familiar?)

Bowles sees the Moroccan rebels and the French occupiers as both destroying a traditional Islamic approach to time that enjoys life for the moment and leaves tomorrow to Allah, an attractive alternative to the Western obsession with logic, causality, and progress that keeps us from seeing the present in our frantic rush to the future. Stenham recognizes his own futility in trying to save the old Morocco he loves, and Bowles is more critical here than in some of his earlier writing of his own position as the privileged outsider. In the end, it made sense to me that Amar is a teenager; it's almost as if Bowles wants to keep his charming Moroccans in a state of perpetual adolescence, forever shielded from Coca-Cola, politics, and the secular pleasures of modernity. At the same time, by taking Moroccans on their own terms, sympathizing with their approach to life rather than trying to change it in the name of progress or democracy, he comes closer than I think Americans will be able to for a long, long time to come to understanding the attractions of a very different, and on its own terms very satisfying, approach to life.

I read Paul Bowles' SPIDER'S HOUSE (1954) after first reading his earlier novel, LET IT COME DOWN (1952). In both novels, Bowles insightfully examines the subtle culture gap between East and West. He has drawn the title of his novel from the Koran: "The likeness of those who choose other patrons than Allah is as the likeness of the spider when she taketh unto herself a house, and lo! The frailest of all houses is the spider's house, if they but knew," which is also the novel's epigrah.

THE SPIDER'S HOUSE opens in Fez after World War II, just as the French rule in Morocco is about to be challenged by a fierce Nationalist uprising, and the narrative shifts between an American expatriate writer, John Stenham, and an illiterate, Arab youth, Amar. Whereas Stenham, an existentialist, anti-imperialist, is captivated with the aesthetic, "medieval" traditions still alive in the streets of twentieth century Fez--"It did not really matter," to him "whether they worshipped Allah or carburetors," Amar has his own perspective on the use of religion for political gain by Istigal, the Moroccan nationalists movement. It is through the Moslem insights of Amar that Bowles triumphs as a writer. Amar is the real protagonist of the novel. He is something of a stranger in his own culture, with his own understanding of the events unfolding around him, and he believes he has the ability to see into men's hearts. Although Amar's religious faith tells him that the duty of the believer is to fight the unbeliever to the death, when it comes to the use of violence against fellow Moslems for political reasons, he is less certain. Eventually, the paths of Stenham and Amar cross with unexpected results. Now more than fifty years after its publication, without sentimentality, illusions, or blinders, THE SPIDER'S HOUSE remains relevant with its insights into the culture conflicts between East and West.

G. Merritt

I strongly recommend this novel, written in 1954,yet totally alive and relevant to the contemporary reader. I was amazed to see Bowles capture the essence of the clash between the Islamic world view and the Western modern view in such a fresh and insightful manner.

The novel is about the final days of the French occupation of Morocco after World War II. The story is told through the eyes of an American expatriat, Stenham, and then through they eyes of a 15 year old Islamic young man. Stenham, a tired and disappointed writer, has seen the false promise of modernism, and thus is sympathetic to the Moslem determinism and process of living life embedded in faith. Amar, the Moroccan youth, also see those members of the Moroccan nationalists movement, Istiglal, who would use religion for political gain.

The story moves from luxury hotels and modest Moslem homes, to street fights and riots, to Islamic ceremonies high in the Moroccan mountains, to the cafes where Europeans gather to experience a world far different from their own, to the lairs of the subversives who plan to drive the French from Islamic lands.

Like Mark Twain's Huckelberry Finn, the world seen through the eyes of youth allows for fresh observations of the familiar world. Amar is the Moslem Huckelberry, trying to make sense of Europeans and countrymen in a struggle for power.

Yet it is the cultural interaction between modernism and Islam that Bowles captures perfectly. Bowles paints a realistic, honest, sympathetic vision of the Islamic world. The image reveals the weaknesses and barreness that modernism brings. I recommend this book strongly, especially in these times of conflict between the Western world and the world of Islam.

Paul Bowles had already established himself as an American composer when, at the age of 38, he published 'The Sheltering Sky' and became one of the most powerful writers after world war two. By the time of his death in 1999 he had become a legendary writer. From his base in Tangier he produced novels, stories, and travel writings. Bowles describes collisions between 'civilized' exiles and unfamiliar societies. In fiction of slowly growing menace, he achieves effects of horror and dislocation.

In 'Let It Come Down' ( 1952 ), Bowles tells the doomed trajectory of Nelson Dyer, a New York bank teller who comes to Tangier in search of a different life and ends up giving in to his darkest impulses. Rich in descriptions of the corruption and decadence of the International Zone in the last days before Moroccan independence, Bowles second novel is a comic and at the same time horror-like account of a descent into the pool of nihilism.

I give 4 stars because Bowles' philosophy is sometimes oversimplified and the comical can be childish. For instance one of the characters slips over a little heap of dung and he falls to the ground. But altogether this book is interesting for its mixture of adventure and vivid descriptions of Tangier and the surrounding landscapes.

What would you do if you were dropped into the middle of a small Moroccan town with a briefcase full of embezzled currency under your arm in bills too big to change, not speaking the language, high on kif, marked as a foreigner, lost in the streets & unable to ask for help for fear the police will discover you sneaked in illegally from Tangier?

That's the existential crisis "Let It Come Down" builds up to, and like Kit's similar predicament in "The Sheltering Sky," it turns out against all expectations to be a strangely liberating one for the main character, who discovers a sense of pattern and purpose in his life only at its extremes. I liked this story better than Bowles's more famous novel: the plot is more focused, the characters better drawn (especially the ancillary expatriates like Eunice Goode and Daisy de Valverde, based on personalities Bowles knew first-hand in Tangier), and the individual scenes in the bars, cafes, and great homes of Morocco's International Zone more noir and threatening than the sleepy imperial outposts in "The Sheltering Sky." Best of all, Bowles takes a stab at a Moroccan character, the sympathetic and streetwise Thami, who picks up some of the narrative slack from the story's flat anti-hero, Dyar.

Bowles wrote the last section of the book, "Another Kind of Silence," with the help of kif, not knowing where the plot would go next, just letting it come down of its own accord. It's the most experimental but maybe also the most unsatisfying part of the novel, where Bowles indulges in vague philosophical speculations on the meaning of existence while pushing his characters through a desultory plot that involves a lot of aimless walking around, eating, and descriptions of altered states of mind. I liked Bowles's honesty in exposing the plot as just a contrivance, a sort of buttering-up for the great truths he wants to deliver at the end, and the last section is where the intellectual meat of the novel is. But I thought the elements he'd put into motion in the earlier parts were too good to be dropped so carelessly. Daisy & Luis, Eunice, Hadija, even Wilcox--and certainly Thami--deserve more than the story finally gives them. Still, it's a fun read with an impeccable feel for a vanished Tangier.

Paul Bowles (THE SHELTERING SKY) lived as an American expatriate in Tangier, Morocco, where he wrote LET IT COME DOWN (1952). Set in the 1950s, Bowles' novel--reminiscent of Camus' STRANGER--follows Nelson Dyar, who leaves his mundane job as a bank job in New York to work in a friend's travel agency in Tangier, where he soon discovers that the agency is only a front for an illegal currency exchange. Dyar is a "wire-haired terrier" of a man--"alert, eager, suggestible" (p. 104), but he lacks brains and soul. Although he resides in an exotic city, Dyar, as his name suggests, is essentially already a dead man living a meaningless existence. "For years," Dyar "had gone along not being noticed, not noticing himself, accompanying the days mechanically, exaggerating the exertion and boredom of the day to give him sleep at night, and using the sleep to provide the energy to go through the following day" (p. 177). Dyar describes himself as a "victim" (p. 8), and soon after his arrival in Morocco, Bowles' protagonist is victimized by the situational, exotic culture of expatriates, drugs, alcohol, and casual sex that permeates Tangier. However, Dyar is neither a sympathetic nor a likable character, who seems to live a separate existence. He falls into a meaningless relationship with Hadija, a young prostitute, who is also the object of an alcoholic lesbian heiress's affections. Perhaps much like his former life in New York, Dyar's life in Tangier never becomes a movement toward or away from anything, he only continues to live his "life for life's sake . . . in the meantime you eat" (p. 183), all of which results not only in a darkly intriguing novel, but a highly satisfying existential thriller as well.

G. Merritt

Paul Bowles' Let it Come Down is a footpath into the woods which appears promising at its entrance, but eventually peters out. Our protagonist, Dyer, arrives friendless in post-war Tangier and quickly finds the love of his life (a prostitute), and his true calling (illicit currency exchange). He navigates past the expatriate shoals and the native doldrums, and experiences his first original thought (steal the money) when he arrives too late at the foncier. You figure out "foncier" from context, but the trail narrows further and eventually the context peters out, too. The trail's end is a hashhish induced torpor in which childhood memories erupt and the essense of irrationality is explored. No worry; we're sitting on a sunny terrace outside Thani's wife's family's shack in the hills of the Spanish Zone, the policia seem to be several miles away, and the birds are singing. Let it come down.

I am a total Paul Bowles fan and this is the crowning masterpiece of his career. I wish I could give this novel 10 stars rather than just 5. Whereas Sheltering Sky and The Spider's House are totally excellent, Let It Come Down moves beyond them into the territory of the totally blank driftless soul with no meaning, a situation that Bowles shows is the most dangerous of all states of the soul.

The basic story is that of an American average young man, but beware, he is about as average as the frightful vapid drifters that populate the novels of David Plante. In fact the protagonist of Plante's The Age of Terror is similar to Bowles' protagonist, Nelson Dyar. Nelson Dyar comes to Tangier Morocco in the 1950s to work for the son of a friend of his mother's who runs a travel agency that is involved in illegal currency transactions. A plot is hatched to scam the currency exchange and Nelson is the fall-guy. But beware the fall-guy with brains and no soul. He meets a young prostitute, Hadija, but they don't fall into love, they fall into driftless sexual obsession with no future or commitment. Hadija is also pursued by an obese alcoholic ill-tempered lesbian heiress. One of the most vivid scenes in the novel is when this lesbian, Eunice Goode, goes to a cocktail party for Americans and Europeans hosted by two successful Morrocan businessmen. She drinks too much and passes out,in her long evening gown, on the walk leading from the patio, thus requiring every guest to step over her rotund sloppy mass of fat flesh to reach their cars to exit the party. Yet Eunice is only one of numerous characters of low intentions and lost expectations.

The parade of low-life Westerners may be a commentary on the value systems of the modern sophisticated American and European consciousness in comparison to the world of North African Islam. But I think there is more being said here. Nelson goes beyond the simple greed and lust and ego-centered schemes of the other characters and enters the world of total amorality. He moves beyond greed and into the world of the emotionless and thoughtless killer.

This supreme work of existentialist terror is embedded in a novel of beautiful spare poetic language. Nelson is no witty clever antisocial Ripley from a Patricia Highsmith novel. He is far more empty, a Zen murderer, a driftless pointless danger.

wow! this is everything you want in an artwork...namely, tons of art! in an era where i have a feeling a lot of artists couldn't draw their way out of a paper bag, claudio bravo is here to remind us what real art actually looks like. a subperb draftsman who can draw as good as any of the old masters, and an excellent painter as well who pays attention to light and color and texture. save up for this one if you have to, but get it if you like realism at its best or are a fan of brillant still life paintings.

Claudio Bravo's expanded tome is packed with decades worth of his catholic (note: small "c") version of realism. In their pureness of representation and presentation objects presented often elide with the ideal and the abstract. See for yourself, just look at the painting of wool yarns shown on the dust cover.

One cannot help but come away with the feeling that Bravo's sense of color and compositional taste are spot on!

I can still remember the very day I first saw Bravo's work, it was through this book and since then there has been no other artist that has moved me to such an extent. Being an artist myself, I am in awe at his control over his medium, he is surpassed by no other. One thing I love about his work is the fact that he has distinguished himself from the all other realists and the trends therein which are rather predictable. His still lifes are a breath of fresh air, departing from the usual ho-hum, I agree fully with Adam Narcross' exclamation regarding Bravo's still lifes,"...His are the only ones I thought worth a damn". From figurative to landscape, pencil to paint and all in between, his work carries a solidity and tangibility scarcely found elsewhere. He gives the viewer a feast for the eyes, orchestrating the details and emphasizing the overall form in such an impeccable way as to hide all evidence of the hours and hours of toil and effort by human hands, camouflaging complexity in the mist of beauty. He paints from his Home studio and utilizes the glow of Mediterranean sunlight to the advantage of the work. In his work, Light and Color dominate, giving the viewer a sense that he is actually there in Tangier as a guest in Bravo's very home, like a glorified Vermeer. Unfortunately, I have never seen his originals, but the books that available are truly the next best thing, I was lucky and was able to order this one for roughly $80 and should be getting it Nov. 2004, until then I'll keep on checking it out at the library...I bet they can't wait to finally get their book back so someone else can see it for a change!

Had I known that the book would be a complete repeat of his last book I would not have purchasted it. Only a few new paintings. I was extreemly dissapointed. The publersher should be ashamed of this product.

Representational art - observing and painting what is actually seen by the artist - remains the constant in the fluctuating trends and movements in art history. There are times when realist painting is praised and times when it is loathed as passé and static. But in the hands of its masters, and Claudio Bravo the Chilean artist painting in Tangiers is certainly one of them, it is a zenith of creativity.

This lavishly illustrated book is a visual delight, including the inordinately beautiful drawings seldom seen in addition to the paintings of figures, of still lifes, of color and light and intensity as few others can imitate. As with all representational artists Bravo has his champions and his detractors, some viewers finding his work from lewd to boring while others stand in awe of the painters amazing gifts of incorporating light and mood where few other artists tread.

The accompanying written essays are interesting to a degree but hardly inform about Bravo's craft while speculating about his life. Even in the hands of brilliant writer Paul Bowles there is little to learn about painting beyond the author-drawn similarities of expatriate creative lives. Recommended for lovers of beauty. Grady Harp, December 05

Jane Bowles is, to me, unparalleled. I have bought at least 7 copies of this book to give to friends. While Paul Bowles' stories are great and creepy in an arid and detached way, reminding me of surreal Aesop's fables, Jane's seem throughly original, lived-in and lived-through. I can't think of a book I've enjoyed more than this one.

My Sister's Hand In Mine: The Collected Works Of Jane Bowles (1970) offers readers the rewarding opportunity of entering the strange but oddly homey world of its author. The volume contains Bowles' only novel, Two Serious Ladies, her single work for the theater, the uneven In the Summer House, and thirteen short stories and unfinished pieces. The book's real strengths are Two Serious Ladies and the long story Camp Cataract, works that compliment one another and successfully define the unique landscape of Bowles' vision.

Married to the more famous novelist, composer, and expatriate Paul Bowles, Jane was an apparently bisexual woman with strong lesbian leanings. Though her liveliness and wit were widely appreciated by other artists of the period, most of whom were also ardent admirers of her talent, Bowles' life was compromised by anxiety, and her final years were marked by severe illness and tragedy.

The individualistic Bowles was probably an introvert in Jung's original definition of term. Her character's fears largely revolve around the idea of "passage into the outside world," the states of existence that most people must inevitably face, embrace, and accept beyond the personalized state of the home and the nuclear family. But while confronting the outer world is a unpleasant necessity for most of Bowles' characters, family life, far from a paradise, remains a sentimentally idealized but claustrophobic circle in hell. Achieving and maintaining states of grace was also an important matter for the author, though her unsettlingly tragicomic approach to both these themes has historically kept her work from being widely understood and accepted as mainstream American literature. While other idiosyncratic writers like the vastly more prolific Muriel Spark have enjoyed decades of popularity and critical and commercial success and thus the opportunity to carefully evolve their personal vision, Bowles found the act of writing difficult, and her readership during her lifetime, in commercial terms, almost nonexistent.

Two Serious Ladies concerns Christina Goering and Frieda Copperfield, casual acquaintances who synchronistically strike out on no longer avoidable quests for personal salvation after meeting at a Manhattan party.

While Mrs. Copperfield seems to be seeking fulfilling love and all kinds of meaningful sensual pleasure, the independently wealthy Miss Goering apparently seeks spiritual development through material sacrifice, meager living, and confrontation with her fears in their social and public forms. Both women are simultaneously asexual and semi-consciously lesbian in their preferences; the married Mrs. Copperfield enthusiastically chases the love and company of other women in a Central American village, while the somewhat sheltered but more confident Miss Goering, who shares her home with both a woman and a man in an ambiguous arrangement, actively pursues first a failed businessman and then a gangster in the name of achieving her goals. Both women are weirdly naive, and Bowles never allows the reader a clear understanding of how knowledgeable, sophisticated, or self aware either character is. Both encounter and embrace a hilarious assemblage of oddball characters and misfits; like Miss Goering and Mrs. Copperfield, these eccentrics often seem incapable of objective or comparative perception, and may thus be doomed to lives of starchy parochialism. Only Mr. Copperfield, a figure unmistakably based on Paul Bowles, seems stable, clear-headed, and rationally self-motivated.

Unstable, indeterminate social conventions and mores haunt Bowles' characters. Routine train rides, visits to relative's homes, evenings out in taverns and restaurants, business meetings, and even the simple act of purchasing become comic war zones in which all present seem to enjoy a vastly different understanding of what behavior is appropriate and acceptable. Misunderstandings, breaches of etiquette, emotional hypersensitivity, and insults are common in The Collected Works Of Jane Bowles; fluid, trusting, easy, and healthy communication is sadly unknown.

The grueling Camp Cataract concerns a shrewd, secretive, and uncommonly self aware adult woman, Harriet, who is quietly and carefully planning a final break from her smothering and unconsciously incestuous sister Sadie. Unlike Two Serious Ladies, Camp Cataract contains surreal elements, fugue states, and odd flights of fantasy, but is also more far more specific about the intentions and inner workings of its characters: Harriet's desperate motivations are laid bear in a way that neither Miss Goering's and Mrs. Copperfield's ever are. During her alternately forlorn and energetic pursuit of her sister, Sadie is unpleasantly forced to confront the devouring public world she fears as well as the heavily repressed psychosexual underpinnings of her character. Though wildly funny, few works of fiction can cause readers to twist and squirm like Camp Cataract.

Throughout, the writing is simple, subtle, admirably crisp, and compellingly readable; Bowles is also a master of peculiar, perfectly timed dialogue, a talent she uses to great effect throughout. Also notable are A Guatemalan Idyll, originally a section of Two Serious Ladies, and A Stick Of Green Candy, in which a young girl learns that violating the fidelity of her creative imagination brings about the permanent end of innocent fantasy.

Jane Bowles is still an unfortunately neglected writer despite Tennessee Williams' statement that she is our finest American prose fiction writer. He wrote that in the early 70s, and it is still true today. She manages to surprise and fascinate and perplex and amuse in nearly every sentence. She is the kind of original our university writing courses and the 'searching for a hit' publishing industry are stifling.

The more of this I read, the more I reluctantly came to conclude that, to really enjoy Jane Bowles, one probably needs to be either gay or lesbian or intensely interested in women's studies.

I really wish I could jump on the bandwagon of singing Jane Bowles' praises, but I haven't been able to understand what all the fuss is about. "The greatest novelist of the century?" Whoa--this is not on my list of the top 100. I've long been a great fan of Paul Bowles--surely one of the most intense and talented writers of the last century--and Jane sounded interesting in all the reviews, but after reading both Camp Cataract and Two Serious Ladies, and several other of the stories, I was disappointed. Almost all are about odd, neurotic women with overpowering urges to escape their dreary lives of conformity, and/or who relate to other odd, neurotic women in strangely belligerant ways. All of the male characters are pathetic and superfluous, or are at least treated that way by women who have no use for them.

I found it frustrating that all of the characters constantly make decisions, or say things, that seem without any apparent motivation. It's very difficult to get a read on why any of the characters do what they do. A woman who seems to have been content all her life to live a staid, "respectable" existence decides she's going to be a prostitute. Why? Then she decides not to. Why? There's no explanation, in either inner monologue, dialogue, background plot, or anything--the characters just do things that seem...strange. I like strange--Paul Bowles, for example, can be very strange, and it's fascinating--but Jane seems to keep writing, I assume, about herself, in the obsessive manner of the narcissist who can't stop thinking and talking and writing about her personal concerns as though they were universal. And maybe they are universal, among lesbians, I can't say.

Paul Bowles is timeless--his stories could have been written yesterday. Jane's are musty and dated, as well as very unsatisfying. They may be very fertile ground for exploring Jane's psyche, but if that's not of primary interest to you, you may find yourself finishing one story after another saying "Now what was that all about?"

Incredible book. Jane Bowles has the unique characteristic of amusing and depressing us at the same time. Two serious ladies and her short fiction(Camp Catarat and Plain Pleasures are masterpieces) are unique. Her play is funny but she is not as good as in her narrative.
What you will find in this book is a complete diferent way of understanding live, you will encounter an original brain that expreses itself with the most personal sentences you will ever read. Jane stands alone in the whole literary tradition. Surrounded by her terror, obsessions and complete understanding of human heart what Bowles achieves is the perfect expression of human essence.

The birth of the great state of Texas was a bloody battle on many fronts. History can be quite interesting when told through the journal entries of a freed slave, a brother to the Cherokee, a soldier in Sam Houston's army.

Andrew teaches himself to read and write, using the Bible for his primer. In his journal he details life and death, chores and challenges and even sketches the important people and places in his life. Through his words we see the history of Texas and the people who built it. Attacked on the trail to a land grant, Andrew is wounded, his wife killed. The Cherokee take him in and heal him, adopting him as a brother. He later marries the tribe's dream interpreter, Say-te-qua and eventually they have a son.

The Cherokee are asked to be scouts for Sam Houston's army in the struggle to free the Texas territory from Mexico. Andrew and his brother-in-law, Red Bird, take up arms and join the battle. Through it all, Andrew finds comfort and guidance in the Bible, and finds a friend in Sam Houston.

Andrew's family grows with the birth of sons and the adoption of others. Their farming community develops into a settlement, complete with schoolhouse, church and blacksmith. Through trade with the forts and local tribespeople they are able to exist. For a while, the people live side by side in guarded harmony. Later, with the threat of Indian War, Andrew and Red Bird help Sam Houston to broker peace among the tribes.

This book is full of real history, from Texas being a Mexican state, through its being independent, to the days of its becoming the 28th state of the US. But more so, it is the history of the Native Americans and the freed slaves, and the settlers of the land. It is the description of the day to day living that makes this book so interesting. The realities of life and the struggles of conflict, an acknowledgement of the reality of how the native peoples were treated by our government, are details which cannot be overlooked.

The author has relayed stories that were passed down in his own family. He has compiled and drawn from research over the past 25 years in order to make this book as historically correct as possible. His illustrations add a colorful flavor to the tales and added glossaries give understanding to the reader. There are countless references to the Bible that add to the depth of the story and demonstrate the impact that it must have had on freed slaves, the native people, and settlers alike.

For anyone wishing to understand better the history of our nation or the state of Texas, I cannot think of a better source that would be as entertaining and personal.

Review by Heather Froeschl of www.BookReview.com

This book is a fun and interesting adventure from start to finish. It has maps and it is written like it was happening right in front of you. The details were great and amazing to me.
I would recommend it to history buffs from anywhere who love history and an interesting story. A great book that tells what happens before and after the fall of the Alamo. I will read it again and again. My son has this at his school library. He brought it home to do research for a report he was writing, and I had to borrow it from him. Now I own a copy I bought 2 months ago. They were using it as part of their history requirement. The author has written and illustrated this book well. It made it that much more interesting to read. It would make a nice gift item for someone special.

This story tells true events in the early history of Texas. It sets the stage and makes the reader want to see what is on the next page. I got this for Christmas and I could not put it down! The drawings of the historical persons, Indians, and maps made me understand what I did not know before: that history can be fun and interesting when the story is told in an easy to understand way. I see some things clearly that I had wondered about and it made me understand events from the pioneer's viewpoint. There was even a letter from Sam Houston to a Caddo Chief to invite him to a peace council. The Glossary in the back had words that made the story rich with facts and interesting tibits of information. This was a unique book that I would recommend to those that love a true story full of adventure and interesting characters. 5*****

The Texas Republic by Joe L. Blevins is an informed and informative historical novel of the founding of Texas as told from the eyewitness perspective of Andrew, a freed slave who served as a soldier in the Texas Army. After meeting with Sam Houston to win a land grant, Andrew is wounded and his wife killed in ambush by robbers. A Cherokee hunting party finds Andrew, saving him from death and adopting him as a member of their tribe. Andrew marries Say-te-Qua, a Cherokee woman and the tribe's dream interpreter. When Sam Houston asks the Cherokee to scout for the Texas army, Andrew, having learned to read and write by copying letters from an old Bible that he had found, documents his experiences and observations in a personal journal. Andrew and his brother-in-law Red Bird assisted Sam Houston to broker a peace treaty when an Indian War broke out in Texas, records the events of Texas as a Mexican state, the decade of Texas as a free republic, and the annexation of Texas as the 28th state of the United States of America. This engaging and highly recommended story is based on true stories of actual characters and events, and is enhanced with selected illustrations; a replica of a letter Sam Houston wrote to Caddo Chief Bintah inviting him to the 1843 Great Council; and a "Glossary of Unfamiliar Words".

This one of the most interesting books I have read on Texas history. It was a great idea to write it from this previously under reported perspective.

I highly recommend this book.

I first read BILLIARDS AT HALF PAST NINE over thirty years ago while in college. It made a strong impression on me then. Now, it does not strike me as one of the classics of twentieth-century literature, but still it is a remarkable novel which should not be forgotten in the passage of time.

In some ways, BILLIARDS AT HALF PAST NINE is a poorer (less rich), shorter, German version of Joyce's ULYSSES. In both, all the contemporary action takes place during one day (in the case of BILLIARDS, Sept. 6, 1958), but in both there are numerous flashbacks, some quite lengthy. In both, the story is told via numerous narrators, from multiple perspectives -- in BILLIARDS there are at least eight different narrative perspectives, providing the characters and events a multi-faceted depth and complexity. Finally, BILLIARDS, like ULYSSES, is rich in allusion and actual or potential symbolism. (BILLIARDS, however, is of ordinary length; it can be read over a weekend.)

For all of its narrative complexity, the basic story-line of BILLIARDS is relatively clear and comprehensible, and throughout there is an air of mystery and foreboding which helps propel the reader forward. Overall, the tone is calm and measured.

As for my interpretation of the novel, I really don't have that much to offer. It clearly contains a negative, judgmental assessment of Germany's turn in the 1930s to Hindenburg and then to the Nazis. There also is a clear, but by no means strident, endorsement of pacifism and non-violence, as well as a reminder or warning (primarily to the German people of the late 1950s, when the novel was written) that neither complete forgiveness nor forgetfulness would be possible. But beyond that, I don't know what Boll's "message" might be, other than, perhaps, that the political affairs of humankind are inevitably a muddle and that what's important in life are family, especially children. Nonetheless, over the years various commentators and reviewers (some no doubt much more knowledgeable and astute than I) have derived from BILLIARDS a wide array of meanings and messages -- similar, again, to ULYSSES.

I really don't mean to imply that BILLIARDS stands on the same plane as ULYSSES, but it is much more readable and, as I said at the start, it deserves continuing readership. I hope to be able to read it again in another thirty years.

Heinrich Boll, Billiards at Half Past Nine (Signet, 1962)

Heinrich Boll was a brilliant mystery writer. Moreover, he was capable of writing mysteries unlike anything seen before, mysteries that turned the genre on its head. He was also capable of expanding the mystery genre so that it not only bordered on, but crossed over into, literary fiction. Unfortunately, at one point Boll allowed the mystery to slide into the background and started to concentrate on the literary side of things. This leads to the inevitable question for the reader: what does a mystery novel look like when the mystery is absent, or at least so far in the background as to be unnoticeable for most of the
novel?

Billiards at Half Past Nine is your answer. While there are elements of mystery within the novel, the focus is less on what's going on around the characters than the characters themselves. This is not, in itself, a bad thing; the characters upon whom the focus rests, all of whom are members of the Faehmel dynasty of architects, are interesting enough, and it would take conscious effort to make the first half of twentieth-century German history boring in any way. We are shown that period of time through the eyes of various members of the Faehmel family in a series of recollections leading up to Heinrich Faehmel's eightieth birthday party in 1958. And were that the basis of the novel, it would have been a good, solid piece of literature; ultimately forgettable, but good.

Boll felt the need to add something else to it, and it is there that the mystery comes into play. In the opening scenes, Heinrich's son Robert, the present scion of the Faehmel dynasty, tells his maid that, while he is playing Billiards at a local hotel, he is only to be disturbed by certain people. Most of them are family, or other members of his business; there is one name, though, that stands out, because no one knows who this Schrella character is, or why Robert Faehmel considers him on a plane of import with the others. This part of the book is where it is lacking; one gets the feeling that Boll felt it necessary to impart complications into a novel that doesn't require them.

While it's a worthwhile read within the context of Boll's complete works, it's not a place for a novice to begn an exploration of one of Germany's finest novelists. The Lost Honor of Katherina Blum and The Train Was on Time are much better jumping-off points. ** 1/2

This work, in my opinion Boll's greatest, takes place duirng a single day in the life of Robert Faemel. He is an architect and ex-soldier who since WWII has turned inward, relying on routine to get him through the days. As the story unfolds, the reaader learns of the difficult and tragic events in his life that have led Robert to seek escape from the world, and ultimately gives hope that even these darknesses can be overcome.

Through his memories and those of his family, the book paints a remarkable panoramic picture of German life from ~1920 through 1960. The book really presents 3 generations of a German family and their experiences through this harrowing period. It shows both the dark side of postwar Germany, where many ex-Nazis had risen to positions of power and influence, as well as the lonely lights of human goodness and decency that remained throughout the dark period of the Nazis rise to power and the second world war.

As always, Boll's character's are expertly drawn and powerfully human. The storytelling can be difficult, requiring attention to keep up with the flashbacks and change in narrators. But it is absolutely worth the effort, as reading it will be a powerful experience that will stay with you.

Billiards at Half-Past Nine is an encompassing view of post-war Germany, both in the First World War and the Second. It chronicles the lives of the Faehmel family, and is quite challenging with its multitude of internal monologues. It only occurs in the span of one day, but this single day is enough.

We start with Robert Faehmel, a prosperous second-generation architect. We can already see in the beginning that he is not unlike a machine: his life is set like a clock. Every single day he works for only an hour, but there is little disparity, little uniqueness in his schedule. One could easily dismiss him as one who has an obsessive-compulsive disorder, but later on, one sees that this is only Robert's facade: he is trying to forgo of his guilt-laden and tragic past by offering himself no time to think about it.

This guilt-laden and tragic past comes from Nazism and Nazi Germany. Euphemized by Boll as 'the host of the Beast,' this is what mars the lives of the Faehmel family. The young ones who do not take this are battered and tortured, while those who do take it become strangers to even their own family. Robert did not take it, and he was whipped in the back with barbed wire, bloodied, and was to be executed if not for the help of friends. His brother took it, and such was the powerful psychological re-education of the Nazis that his brother was the one who told on his family - his brother was the one who wanted their family imprisoned. He became 'the husk of a child,' from the words of Robert's father, Heinrich.

The different lives of the Faehmel family are delved into with this book, and each one of them carries emotional and psychological scars from the past war. Some scars belong to Robert, who could never accept his country turning his back on him, some on his relatives, some on his friends, and in the end Boll reveals that no one got out of the wars unscathed. Not Germany. Especially not Germany.

Heinrich Boll describes Robert Faehmel as a man who is percieved by his peers as armour-like and unflinching. Slowly, you get to watch the man disintigrate and further on -- rebuild. At half past nine everday, mid-morning, our hero "locks" himself into a room and begins the endless tirade of billiards with the bell-boy of a local hotel. Does he describe the game at all that he has? Only the conversation. Does the character brag about his skill on the felt? Only to tell you that he does it everyday at Half-past Nine. I truly felt that I was reading the journal of someone who was coming to copes with a serious case of P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and you can't but help but be unnerved sometimes by the descriptions, illucidating how badly Boll was running when he wrote this. It's a very un-german approach to writing and it's most likely the reason why he was given the Nobel Prize.

Some of this work makes me feel like it's the unknown life of the ficticous Kaiser Souze. Some of this work seems a little bit on the cusp of 'needs editing'. It's a dark read, but one worth pondering.

A little Original Sin is a superb biography of Jane Bowles, the child-woman whose outre lifestyle both energized and sometimes overshadowed her fiction. She and husband, composer Paul Bowles, manned an outpost of American bohemia in Morocco where they played host to such luminaries as Tennessee Williams, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Gore Vidal and Truman Capote.

When she met Bowles in 1937, Jane was as-yet unpublished. She had been crippled in one knee by polio; he from the psychological abuse of a tyrannical father. It's possible that their marriage -- arranged to shock their families -- was never consummated. They do seem to have enjoyed a tender and childlike camaraderie. According to biographer Dillon, the two relished role-playing games. (A favorite plotline included a parrot whose single utterance, "bupple," became their pet name for one another.)

Although Jane's literary reputation rests upon a slender body of work -- a novel, a play, and a collection of short stories -- her "originality" dazzled the likes of Gertrude Stein. Fragile, kittenish and indecisive, JB could also be a headstrong explorer and beguiling conversationlist. Ironically, it was the publication of her first novel, Two Serious Ladies, that encouraged her husband to write fiction. His own first novel, The Sheltering Sky, was a literary and commercial success. As Paul grew more productive, Jane became distracted by drink, drugs and an obsessive desire for an Arabic lesbian who milked her for cash and possibly poisoned her. Her decline is harrowing, but A Little Original Sin offers a tantalizing glimpse of ex-patriot life in the International Zone of Tangier in the 1950s as well as a trip into Jane's truly extraordinary mind.

(If you enjoyed this book, check out JB's collected works in, My Sister's Hand in Mind. Farrar, Straus and Giroux Classics.)

It's hard not to appreciate the elbow grease Millicent Dillon put into assembling the facts of Jane Bowles's tumultuous life just a few years after her death in 1973. Dillon includes generous excerpts from Bowles's letters and interviews most of the major players in her circle. But I found myself wishing she'd take more of a stab at finding a larger interpretation or meaning to Bowles's career, working her into a wider context that would help make sense of her writing and her times. The roots of Bowles's desperate alcoholism, her fear of writing in the shadow of Paul's success, her original, highly unusual approach to sexuality & gender in a more stringent time and place, her tangled relationship with Judaism, her fascination with the culture (and women) of Tangier: Dillon touches on these topics, but her reluctance to take Jane's life on any terms other than the author's own, or those of her close-knit circle, give the biography a sad, claustrophobic feel: it seems like a lot of ink to spill on someone who spent much of her life searching for ways to avoid writing. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Bowles would benefit from a biographer more plugged in to the academic world, someone familiar with contemporary issues in queer studies or gender theory or Jewish-American lit, to really bring Jane's achievement to life.

Great biography about a great character. Dillon's book is full of accurate info about one of the most original writers of all time. She mixes perfectly well literature and life. Also we can see all her friends and contemporaries: Paul Bowles, Tenese Williams, Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Harper Lee, ...
So what you will find find is the perfect autodestruction of a creative mind surrounded by omens, terrors and obsessions, and the incredible pulsion of living. The good thing is that after reading this book you will feel the necessity of reading her works, and then you wil encounter the most incredible masterpieces of the 20 century. Good luck

This is a wonderfully well-written biography. It traces the interesting, complicated, humorous and intriguing life of the writer Jane Bowles. Married to writer and composer, Paul Bowles, it follows them on their many travels and their many friendships. Bowles approached life in her own peculiar way, and this aspect is captured by Dillon. The frustrations, anxieties and insecurities are caught in Bowles' many letters to friends. Dillon does a great job researching the illnesses that plagued Bowles near the end of her life, and Dillon is sensitive to how these roadblocks affected a deeply talented writer.

I have loved biographys for a long time now, this is one of my favorates. Her life style is intreaging, and it boggles me to know that each page in this book is true. Jane is far from being a good person, but her passion for life, love, and writing supass any wrongs she has done. If you love life read this book; and if you don't, find out what your missing.

Paul Bowles has been of interest to me ever since I read THE SHELTERING SKY so many years ago. Now with DAYS: TANGIER JOURNAL, the reader gets a behind-the-scenes of one of the most enigmatic writers of the twentieth century. The landscape and people of Tangier, Morocco are expertly painted in all their mysterious charm as Bowles simultaneously deflates and expands upon his own legend. If you are interested in Bowles, this book is a must read for the insight that it gives, insights not necessarily illuminated upon in the average Bowles biography or documentary. Bowles is self-effacing but his contribution to fiction is huge, and this book is like looking through a door, cracked half-open, at the man himself in all his many facets. Morocco itself also figures large in Bowles' art, and the reader gets a real taste of that exotic locale with all its danger and N. African wonder.

Paul Bowles often claimed that he lacked ambition. So when Daniel Halpern, an editor at Ecco Press, requested that Bowles start keeping a diary, he didn't seem to understand why. "I would have nothing to report", he insisted. Thankfully, he begrudgingly agreed, and "Days" resulted. Bowles recorded scattered entries from August 19, 1987 to September 5th, 1989. Contrary to his expectations, this short book burgeons with interesting slices of his life in Morocco. Everything from the inexplicable behavior of a spider in his room to the arrival of Mick Jagger in Tangier gets filtered through Bowles' unique perspective. Even the most trivial observations have interest in this context.

One of the more fascinating scenes involves the hubub over a package that Bowles receives. He quickly gets called down to the post office and told that he has a "contraband" book. They don't allow him to see it nor to find out who sent it. But from that moment on his mail gets delayed an extra day for security reasons. Some weeks later he finds out that a friend had tried to send him a copy of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses." Whoops.

Bowles also writes about day trips he takes with friends, journalists seeking interviews, health problems, his frustrations with certain biographers, aging, his friend's behavior during Ramadan, and the culture of Morocco. Many fascinating things happen. One woman finds him by pretending to be his daughter Catherine from Germany. A French journalist asks him "do you like living this way?" Another journalist keeps futilely asking him "why" questions. When Bowles tells her he won't give accurate answers to such questions, she asks "why not?" He also takes umbrage with writers who feel, by the act of writing, that they're "leaving a part of themselves behind." Bowles reflects, "This would have been understandable earlier in the century when it was assumed that life on the planet would continue indefinitely. Now that the prognosis is doubtful, the desire to leave a trace behind seems absurd." Later on he also says, somewhat uncharacteristically, "I was treated like a star and loved it."

During this time Bowles also finds out about Bernardo Bertolucci's intent of filming "The Sheltering Sky." The two meet a few times, but unfortunately the narrative breaks off before filming begins. Bowles actually appeared in the 1990 movie as himself. But, according to some later interviews, he wasn't completely sold on the project. Regardless, his acting career didn't end there. He also appeared in 1995's "Halbmond" as well as some early art films. If only he had written for a few more months.

"Days" remains a unique look at the seventy-something Bowles in Morocco. In it, he never shies away from editorializing, criticizing, or making poignant statements. None of his other writings or interviews provide quite the same perspective or intimacy. Paul Bowles died ten years after completing this mini memoir. He had spent the majority of his life in Tangier. Sadly, his diary seems to end here. Which leaves the only complaint about "Days": it ends far too quick and produces a lingering thirst for more.

I picked this volume up because of the references to the Guatemalan writer Rodrigo Rey Rosa; I am very fond of his work. I found items of far greater interest in the day to day activities of Paul Bowles. The challenges of censored mail, time disconnects (e.g. cafe closed when filming is supposed occuring), of ill-tempered fasters during Ramadan, and business concerns (copyrights, translators, contracts ...) make for interesting observations in the hand of Paul Bowles. If you have any interest in Bowles, Mrabet or Rosa, this book is worth your time.

Long after the expatriate American writer ceased to be a phenomenon in the 20th century, Paul Bowles, composer and writer, lived on in Tangier, Morocco, until his death just a couple of years ago at age 88. DAYS is a journal he kept at the request of the editor of a literary journal that was in the late 1980's planning a theme issue based on personal journals and notebooks. Bowles was not a diarist, and his first entries reflect his lack of purpose or investment in the form. The entries are not daily by any means or particularly long, but once he gets into it, his product is fascinating. He has a flair for nailing a scene or a mood in a quick sketch. Some may wish to read this for the glimpses of his well-known friends and visitors and his perspective of such social events as a Malcolm Forbes' party. I found the picture of contemporary Muslim-controlled Tangier to be striking. This was written from 1987 - 1989 during which time Salmon Rushdie's SATANIC VERSES was published and a friend of Bowles rather thoughtlessly sent him a copy which the mail inspectors confiscated, which put him in the line of fire for a time. It was also the period when Bertolucci began the process of filming Bowles' novel, THE SHELTERING SKY.

I have to admit, I came to this book knowing next to nothing about Bowles. I had hoped it would be more of a travelogue, or something like Steinbeck's working journals, and it was neither. On the other hand, I was intrigued enough to want to learn more about Bowles, to read his work, and to be sorry that the journal ends abruptly. I realized that given his reports of the stream of photographers, interviewers, would-be biographers, aritsts, celebrities and strangers who came to his door like pilgrims, that he was someone of consequence in our visitable past, and I'm sorry I was not more aware when he was alive. For those who share my ignorance of the man, there is an informative short biography...

Fairly well titled, the book collects small stories and parts of history to form a Polaroid like impression on the relationship between western European Christians and north African Muslims in a Moroccan landscape. One of the many charms of Points in Time is exactly the lack of a frame, of a recognizable structure. Even handling with concrete and logical situations, the narrative of non connected events in similar backgrounds has onirical qualities and resembles Bowles experiments with non-conscious writing seen in A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard. For those unfamiliar with Bowles it is perhaps not the best book to begin with; it would be like starting a seven course meal by the desserts.

At first glance, "Points In Time" looks like another Bowlesian short story collection or experimental novel. Everything present in his work manifests itself here: lush, vivid descriptions, misunderstandings that lead to horrible deaths, and Moroccan culture. Nonetheless, the format diverges slightly from Bowles' other work. Here, 11 sections ranging from single paragraphs to short stories relate a seemingly disconnected narrative. Those not familiar with Moroccan history will nonetheless see a theme emerge. Those familiar with it will know that "Points in Time" represents more than a collection of random tales: it tells the story of Morocco in the form of experimental fiction. Is this book "historical fiction?" In some ways. But regardless of how one categorizes this tiny work, it fits in perfectly with the rest of Bowles' writings.

The key to the book's structure appears in the "notes and sources" section. Hanno the Carthaginian (or "the Navigator") appears in the first note. His "Periplus" contains 4th century accounts of sites in northern Africa. The elliptical first section of "Points in Time" was apparently inspired by this ancient source. According to the notes and subsequent interviews, the stories within originate with actual historical accounts. Bowles apparently made nothing up, but he rewrote the tales in his own style. This gives some of the stories a more sinister and grisly aura. Section II tells the curious story of Fra Andrea, who studies the scriptures a little too well. He pays a rather painful price for his "freethinking." Section VI relates a Romeo and Juliet-esque story of a beautiful young Jewish woman's elopement with a Muslim. She meets a tragic end similar to Fra Andrea's. The Spanish enter the story, via an intriguing tale involving a stag that attacks a bridegroom, and the French inevitably follow. Gradually the stories suggest that no entity that ruled or conquered Morocco possessed a monopoly on brutality. Section VIII contains amusing 1950s Moroccan pop song lyrics. They express, probably better than any prose could, some of the cultural conflicts that resulted when Americans arrived in droves. The final section, XI, consists of a single descriptive paragraph, which stylistically echoes section I. Throughout, the writing remains riveting.

"Points in Time" appeared in 1982. Bowles would write only one more collection of stories, "Unwelcome Words," and a 1991 novella, "Too Far From Home," before passing away in 1999. His work stands on the brink of two cultures now in conflict. Many have suggested that westerners could learn from Bowles' observations of Moroccan and Islamic society. Nonetheless, his work seems strangely forgotten in such contexts. But whatever political merit Bowles' work contains - he likely would have said it has none - the experience of reading Bowles' best work remains a unique experience, particularly amongst American writers. Readers looking for a good introduction to this expatriate writer will find an enjoyable and effortless one in "Points in Time."

A short novel of stunning concision -- liberating his work from the millstone of fixed character POV or time, Bowles jumps between vastly different ages (while maintaining his chosen setting: North Africa) with breathtaking fluency and a near- total disregard for realist conventions. This short novel, acclaimed by many as a masterpiece, ought to have inspired a revolution in storytelling: it is as explosive, in its own way, as Breton's *Nadja*. Instead, it simply sank from view. Some of the sections are only as long as a paragraph; others are bona fide short stories. But what endures in the mind is the way that Bowles' writing shifts, as if by magic, into the most voluptuous shapes.