Lost in the Desert
Finishing up "The English Patient" while taking a break from that nasty book by Marquis de Sade. It's good, but it reminds me of "The Sheltering Sky" and just makes me want to re-read that one instead. What a great read that was. The movie was not so good, but it was enough to get me interested in reading the book so... good deal. My take on "The Sheltering Sky" is that it was Bowles response to coming face to face with the mystery of life. Some people might call that God. He moved to Tangier and almost never left. Living at the edge of the desert--"in the shadow of God" so to speak, after finding that what else is there?
One of the main themes of the book seems to be about how short our time on earth is and how easily we forget that this is true:
"When he had followed the river's complete turning, he found himself facing the sun in the west, looking up a small valley that lay between two gently graded, bare hills. At the end was a steeper hill, reddish in color, and in the side of the hill was a dark aperture. He liked caves, and was tempted to set out for it. But distances here were deceptive, and there might not be time before dark; besides, he did not feel the necessary energy inside him. "Tomorrow I'll come earlier and go up," he said to himself. He stood looking up the valley a little wistfully, his tongue seeking the fig seeds between his teeth, with the small tenacious flies forever returning to crawl along his face. And it occurred to him that a walk through the countryside was a sort of epitome of the passage through life itself. One never took the time to savor the details; one said: another day, but always with the hidden knowledge that each day was unique and final, that there never would be a return, another time."
Like I said, I'm just finishing "The English Patient". It's good, but it just makes me want to read "The Sheltering Sky" again. I can't recommend this book enough, it's one of the best I've read in the last several years.
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