Review: The Sheltering Sky By Paul Bowles

Since my first encounter with The Sheltering Sky some years ago, the novel remained in my mind as one that really meant something. It moved me; I found it wholly engaging, complex, mysterious and somewhat disturbing. That isn't half bad, considering that all I read, no matter how much I revel in the experience at the time, gets cast to the bookcase and the back of my mind to be slowly forgotten.

I returned for a second round recently as I had reached that point on my reading journey where I wasn't sure of the next step. So, as much in search of comfort as satisfaction, it appeared logical to revisit a firm favourite. And my conclusion - yet more captivating and thought provoking this time round.

First published in 1949, the author Paul Bowles made his career first as a gifted composer, only returning to his childhood habit of writing fiction in 1945, age thirty-five. He had, in addition to becoming a highly regarded composer and published writer of poetry, also travelled extensively in Europe, North Africa, Mexico and Central America. This perhaps lends itself to the clarity of vision he creates in his descriptions of the places encountered by Port and Kit, the central protagonists of The Sheltering Sky.

Despite the evocative imagery of the deserts, sand dunes and untidy settlements of people spread across this rather abstract North African stage, it does, at least to me, feel like an imaginary place. Perhaps this reflects my unfamiliarity with North Africa, because it appears that is how the protagonists seem to observe their surroundings – as if not quite accepting of the reality and remaining firmly detached.

From the very start, we begin to understand how Port and Kit think. The novel opens with "He awoke, opened his eyes. The room meant very little to him; he was too deeply immersed in the non-being from which he had just come". Of course, the reader's knowledge and insight of these complex souls deepens and broadens as the novel progresses, but I kept wondering whether Port does ever fully awaken. That the room meant very little to him is symptomatic of the sense of dislocation that is palpable throughout the story.

And it is almost as if we are kept at arm’s length throughout the story – not from the protagonists themselves, but from the setting. We remain the objective observers. I believe this is undertaken deliberately to convey a sense of how these American travellers might feel in response to the inhospitable landscape, but also to their own actions. There is always the gulf between “them and us” – the French in which they converse with “the natives” is not translated, neither is Arabic heard in conversations, or the Arabic nouns and adjectives that appear throughout.

Port and Kit are a married couple, recently arrived in North Africa whence we cannot be certain; however they originally hail from New York. The book is as much a narrative of their travels through North Africa as it is an exploration of their relationship and their own personal inner demons.

Port is quickly revealed to be a restless traveller. For Kit, maps bore her, she watches her husband's "meticulous movements" with "amusement and exasperation", indicative too of her role in the marriage; a reluctant and powerless passenger, motivated to keep the marriage ship afloat, or fearful lest it sink that she'd be floundered and alone.

The novel is set in an unspecified period after the second world war. The couple drift in the company of fellow American, Tunner, whom they've picked up at some point along the way. There is no predetermined plan. Port is adrift; running away from something perhaps, demonstrably without any sense of self-control. Kit's life, or rather her response to it, is by contrast, directed by meaning. Her "omens" determine her reactions, what she does or does not decide. Her physical activity is beyond her control; she later declares that "other people rule my life" but her emotional journey is a complex passage entirely of her own creation.

There is an element of manifest destiny in the actions and reactions of the protagonists; a lingering sense, also, of colonialism and xenophobia: they are the outsiders, and the "natives" they encounter are met with incomprehension and mistrust. In conversation Kit announces, "It's impossible to get into their lives and know what they're really thinking", and Port in response declares, "I feel that this town, this river, this sky, all belong to me as much as to them".

The Lyles, a British mother and son duo travelling the country in a noisy Mercedes, are typical of the kind you might expect to encounter in a strange land at this time. Eccentric and utterly impractical, the pair keep popping up, much to the irritation of Port and Kit. She is haughty and assumptive; he not inspiring of trust. An impromptu game of cat-and-mouse ensues – Port and Kit trying to outrun the Lyles, yet when in each others’ presence doing everything to keep up the charade of comradeship; a stiff upper lip and pulling together as foreigners in an inhospitable land. All the central characters have an air of duplicity. Kit later observes that the conversations of the natives are “unbelievably superficial”, and it is with some irony that we make the same observation of the central characters themselves.

Fleeing from the Lyles is a motif repeated in the unacknowledged but oft-assumed desires of both Port and Kit to rid themselves of Tunner. Tunner, succinctly described as a “a simple individual irresistibly attracted by whatever remained just beyond his intellectual grasp” does not understand Port, Kit or their relationship. He therefore falls into a pattern of gentle mocking; neither Port nor Kit like how they find themselves responding to him and here again is duplicity – what one can get away with when backs are turned.

The evocative descriptions of the landscape strengthen the sense of displacement. The townships awaken from their "sun drugged stupor" as the sun sets; there is a languid, indolent sense to the pace of daily life. The hotels, the foods, the train carriages and the smells are all described to convey a sense of filth. The weather is inhospitable, the dust and the heat oppressive. The feeling that the couple are in flight is perhaps because they are searching for something better at the next junction, albeit subconsciously. Later Kit will mourn the "wasted years", but as we explore their minds and relationship, we discover, as do they, their interdependence. Kit believes she may find peace if she can be sure that there is nothing to hope for; she thinks time "in some unforeseen manner...would bring about a change which could only be terrifying, since it would not be a continuation of the present", again suggesting her reluctant and powerless passage on Port's journeys, yet her weakness and fear of breaking the mould.

My descriptions may well convey juxtapositions, but juxtaposition is in itself one of the novel’s themes. Stronger is the sense of objectivity, indifference, however much interest you take in the characters. The final book (the novel is split into three) should be distressing. You do care, but you can't care - you cannot feel compassion. One wonders throughout the novel where and how the story will conclude. On reaching the denouement – it isn’t one that could have been predicted, but the feeling of it is one you had come to expect – we find bleakness. The repetitive themes of objectivity and indifference conclude with the feeling that what you are observing is not a person, it is simply an object.

A beautiful, moving and mesmerising exploration of human nature and conflict in the North African desert of the post-war era. An artfully crafted novel that asks many questions but which also resonates. I would recommend that you lose yourself in this unfathomable landscape for a day or two – it is an experience you won’t easily forget.


The Sheltering Sky was originally published by John Lehmann