Port laughed abruptly. "And now you know it's not like that. Right? It's more like smoking a cigarette. The first few puffs it tastes wonderful, and you don't even think of its ever being used up. Then you begin taking it for granted. Suddenly you realize it's nearly burned down to the end. And then's when you're conscious of the bitter taste."
And Port had said: "Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It's that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that."I read The Sheltering Sky because a professor recommended it as one of the best books of this century. I cannot say that I agree with this professor. However, give me fifty years and I may be brought round to his point of view. The Sheltering Sky is a very tired book. Had it been only this, I might have had much more respect for it. Instead, it grows frantic in its exhaustion and in my mind spoils it all.
Bowles writes well and he notes a good deal about life which is often felt but rarely said. The book reads fairly smoothly and is believable...something you will no doubt be surprised at by the end. But there is also something very dirty about it. I cannot put my finger on it, but Bowles is too disgusted with life to remark the disgusting aspects of it. He tries, I think. There are many disgusting scenes, many dark and revolting thoughts in his characters minds, but Bowles the author is too present in these thoughts. I do not mean to say that he peaks out from behind his characters, like an actor breaking character in the middle of a play; instead it's something like a play in which all the actors have the same mannerisms and give away the fact that there is really only one actor up there.
And I could not bring myself to accept the ending. Without spoiling it, it was too outrageous to believe. I enjoy outrageousness in stories, but Bowles is too caught up in disliking it to allow for the amount in his story.
There is a large portion of The Sheltering Sky though which I do not believe I am qualified to address: love. More than anything, I got the feeling that this book was about love and the contortions people go through in its name.
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