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Lost & Found

adult book group

The Stories of Paul Bowles

Please join us on 26 August 2021 for a discussion of Paul Bowles's short stories. Bowles, who was a brilliant composer before focusing on prose, is perhaps most famous for his novel "The Sheltering Sky", which was filmed in 1990 by Bernardo Bertolucci and which Modern Library named as one of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century. But it is really his stories that have beguiled talents as various as Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Flannery O'Connor, Tobias Wolff, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Jay McInerny, Robert Stone and Joyce Carol Oates. About Bowles, Mailer is quoted as saying, "...He opened the world of Hip. He let in the murder, the drugs, the incest, the death of the Square... the call of the orgy, the end of civilization." And McInerny said, "Paul Bowles's sense of what can go wrong is as acute as that of any American writer since Poe. In 'A Distant Episode', one of his best known stories, a professor of linguistics in search of new dialects ventures beyond the walls of a desert town one night and descends into a valley settlement -'an abyss'- realizing as he does that 'he ought to ask himself why he was doing this irrational thing.'" What McInerny fails to mention is that the fate of the benighted professor is just possibly more disturbing than anything in Poe.

Bowles's work is marked by a unique, delicately spare style, and a dark, rich, exotic mood, by turns chilling, ironic, and wry—possessing a symmetry between beauty and terror that is haunting and ultimately moral. In "Pastor Dowe at Tecaté," a Protestant missionary is sent to a faraway place where his God has no power. In "Call at Corazón," an American husband abandons his alcoholic wife on their honeymoon in a South American jungle. In "Allal," a boy's drug-induced metamorphosis into a deadly serpent leads to his violent death. Here also are some of Bowles's most famous works, including "The Delicate Prey," a grimly satisfying tale of vengeance, and, of course, "A Distant Episode," which Tennessee Williams proclaimed "a masterpiece." You will not be required to read this entire collection as it is comprehensive and we simply wouldn't be able to talk about it all. Rather, Lost & Found's monitor, Gregory Lowry, will select the titles for you to read; there will be a list accompanying each copy of the book. Of course, don't hesitate to devour the whole thing if you are moved to but be warned: danger lies ahead. It is probably best to read no more than one or two a night - if you care anything at all about your mental health, that is!  As always, feel free to enjoy an adult beverage during the discussion! We look forward to seeing you!

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