Paul Bowles : The Centennial

Yacout Info: What makes The Sheltering Sky a great novel?

Cherie Nutting: As I am not a literary critic I can only give you my personal opinions about the value of The Sheltering Sky as a story. What I can say is that it deeply touched my heart in a way that no other book has ever done. I first read the book in 1978 when I was given the novel as a gift. It was accompanied by a note which read "This book was written for you". So I suppose that I loved the story because I could identify with certain aspects of the book's main characters "Port" and "Kit". They are in love with each other but they are also alienated from one another. They are trying to escape the modern post WWI Europe by entering an alien culture. Port, the male character is seeking mystery and self-discovery and Kit, his wife of 11 years follows him with trepidation. Both lose their identities. Both are compelled by their subconscious to follow their fate which leads to escape and to final oblivion.For me, the story is both a romance and a tragedy.

In 1960 when I was 10 years old, my mother and I sailed on the S.S. Constitution to Morocco. I later returned as a young adult. From the moment that I placed my feet on Moroccan soil, I fell in love with the country and it's culture.The landscapes are more important than the people in Bowles' novels. Although the novel takes place in Algeria and Mali, the setting felt much like Morocco and it was the first time I had read anything that pictured the culture so precisely. It brought back intriguing memories of my childhood.



Q: He was a well known composer as well as a writer. You have said his music reflects his cheerful side whereas his writing reveals the darker aspects of Bowles' creative nature. How true is this ?

A: He was happy creating music.He loved his music much more than he liked his own writing.He enjoyed composing but created less music in Morocco.In his time it was too difficult to tune a piano or see one's work in production while living here.

Though lighter in mood than his writings, his compositions seem whistful and lonely to me. There is something unobtainable about his work which implies a longing for the key to some untold secret.

Q. Paul Bowles recorded tribal music in the Atlas and elsewhere in Morocco, These recordings are now in the Library of Congress, Has this side of his work been fully explored ?

A: In the late 1990's a musicologist named Phillip Schuylar once telephoned me in NY and asked me to bring a CD to Paul for review. It was a CD of the Jewish music that Paul had recorded in Morocco.I think therefore that this music has been released but all the other music has not been issued commercially.

I remember a man called "El Gordo" who kept bothering Paul about the recordings. After many visits he arrived with a large recording device. He told us that he was working with a producer named Bill Laswell but this was a lie.Believing his statements he was let into the apartment. Paul was in bed suffering from sciatica and semi conscious. The man copied all the tangled tapes that Paul had stuffed in a mess into a cabinet. I later heard that Harvard University was involved with these recordings but that is all that I know about this venture.

I have read that when Paul travelled through the country, he only taped a small sample of the music he had hoped to record.The Government at the time was not happy about preserving this ancient music and he was stopped mid process. Because of the difficulty with the caids of that time he recorded simply what he was able to record in a short amount of time. I know that later he wrote that he had focused more on collecting the sounds of certain Moroccan instruments rather than his original plan of recording all Moroccan music.i[

Q: He worked with Moroccan authors and story tellers and translated their work such as Mohamed Choukri, Ahmed Yacoubi , Larbi Layachi and Mohamed Mrabet, whom you knew. How important was this collaboration?

A: Paul was interested in the illiterate mind rather than the schooled minds' of the upper classes in Morocco. He felt that once educated, the intuitive unconscoius mind is suppressed and we change. These story-tellers were illiterate and they were a voice of the side of Morocco which was of interest to him. Paul did not attempt to be an historian reflecting all sides of the country's countrymen. He wrote about what was interesting to him.

Some in Morocco have said that "Mohamed Mrabet" did not exist and that the words are all Paul Bowles' words.It is true that you hear Paul Bowles' voice in the translations but I have watched Mohamed Mrabet tell a story and he is a poet and entertainer in his own right.Seeing how rapidly Morocco is modernising I think that these stories will prove to be more important as time goes by.


Q: What attracted Paul Bowles to Morocco?

A: I once asked Paul this question. His answer was that when he was away from Morocco he was very sad and that when he returned he was happy. Why? He did not say. I imagine a part of it was the mystery and excitement one continually finds living in an unknown culture. It is an escape from the modern world he knew well and a return to childhood living here. For me life here is a constant novel. Dreams come true.



Q: What do you think is Paul Bowles's legacy as a writer ?

A: For me, he is the best American writer of the 20th century. He writes lyrically and tells a suspenseful story which can move the heart. Apart from his artistry as a story-teller, at this time in history I see Paul Bowles' work as becoming increasingly more important. He understood the Moslem Culture better than most Westerners. I think that by reading Bowles, Westerners might be able to learn something about their Moslem brothers.

Q: He travelled widely by ship and overland and took time record what he saw. How do you rate his travel writing?


A: In his travel pieces he describes places and people with detailed precision. His accounts are often humorous as well.

In his younger days he was always looking forward to travelling to the next destination, this changed when he grew older.Travelling was very important to him and he said that he tend to stay in one place.

Paul was a traveller and not a tourist. He did not wish to fly to the Hilton hotel and sit by a pool. Travel became less interesting for him when ship sailing was exchanged for air travel .

Also when one ages it is harder to withstand the discomforts during a trip and one tends to stay in one place.