Paul Bowles : in the American grain / Barry Charles Tharaud.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tharaud, Barry, author.

Series:

Studies in American literature and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bowles, Paul, 1910-1999--Criticism and interpretation.

Bowles, Paul.

Bowles, Paul, 1910-1999.

Criticism and interpretation.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xiii, 220 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Rochester, New York : Camden House, 2020.

Summary:

"Paul Bowles has often been considered a cult writer, a literary renegade: he lived more than fifty years as an expatriate in Morocco, and according to Norman Mailer, his works "let in the murder, the drugs, the incest, the call of the orgy, the end of civilization." In recent decades Bowles has found greater acceptance as a serious writer, as evidenced by the two-volume, 2,000-page Library of America edition of his works published in 2002. Still, he has rarely if ever been seen as having written in the antinomian tradition of Emerson and his literary descendants. The present book makes the case for doing so by demonstrating basic Emersonian attitudes and objectives in Bowles' life and works, especially in his focus on human consciousness and perception and on the need for the individual to escape from the trammels of social and cultural conditioning. Bowles' intellectual pursuits seem to have developed at first from his own spontaneous attitudes, which were then reinforced by his conservative and individualistic New England background on both sides of his family and deepened by a serious study of anthropology, Emersonian transcendentalism, and related "Oriental" thought such as the theosophy of Krishnamurti. Despite his half century in Tangier, Bowles is a writer who is thoroughly "in the American grain.""-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Paul Bowles as a Canonical Writer

Paul Bowles on Intercultural Understanding: Too Far from Home

The Discovery of Existence: Without Stopping

Emersonian Shadows

Culture and Existence in Bowles' Short Fiction

Gide and Bowles in North Africa: The Sheltering Sky

Language, Noise, Silence: Self and Society in Let It Come Down

The Spider's House: The Social Construction of Reality

Existence and Imagination: Up Above the World

The Letters: In Touch.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Tharaud, Barry. Paul Bowles

ISBN:

9781640140806

1640140808

OCLC:

1230251732