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  1. Ballard's Drowned World is 1962.

    So far it gives me strong Bradbury, Pynchon, and Delaney feels.

    Ray and JG were contemporary and I think it shows. In a good way!

    It reminds me a lot of Dhalgren (1975), which I may rereread next because I kept losing interest carting around an enormous paperback that has since disappeared. No gay sex yet tho.

    I won't reread Gravity's Rainbow (1973) again (I think), there's others I want to cover. Still have that kilo of a tome.

    This is all probably somehow the fault of Paul Bowles.

    @bookstodon #JGBallard #DrownedWorld #Pynchon #GravitysRainbow #Bradbury #PaulBowles

  2. Ballard's Drowned World is 1962.

    So far it gives me strong Bradbury, Pynchon, and Delaney feels.

    Ray and JG were contemporary and I think it shows. In a good way!

    It reminds me a lot of Dhalgren (1975), which I may rereread next because I kept losing interest carting around an enormous paperback that has since disappeared. No gay sex yet tho.

    I won't reread Gravity's Rainbow (1973) again (I think), there's others I want to cover. Still have that kilo of a tome.

    This is all probably somehow the fault of Paul Bowles.

    @bookstodon #JGBallard #DrownedWorld #Pynchon #GravitysRainbow #Bradbury #PaulBowles

  3. (4/4) I’ll end my intro with a cheerful and uplifting quote from The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles, 1949. It’s too long, so here is a screenshot of text, which feels quite hacky 😑

    I didn’t know about the Brandon Lee connection. He planned to use this quote on his wedding invitations, but instead it went on his tombstone. Ugh!

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shel
    commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil

    #introduction #intro #krib #bookstodon #literature #paulbowles #theshelteringsky #todayilearned

  4. ‘Good-bye,’ says the dying man to the mirror they hold in front of him. ‘We won’t be seeing each other any more.’ ”
    —Paul Valêry

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #bookstodon #PaulBowles #theshelteringsky #paulValêry

  5. ‘Good-bye,’ says the dying man to the mirror they hold in front of him. ‘We won’t be seeing each other any more.’ ”
    —Paul Valêry

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #bookstodon #PaulBowles #theshelteringsky #paulValêry

  6. I have this weird collection of junky first editions of books because they look wonderfully used. And I read them!!

    At today's estate sale - for $2 - a first printing of "The Other Side of Midnight" (by Sydney Sheldon, the same guy who wrote I Dream of Jeannie) without its luxurious early-70's dust cover.

    I just love finding books like this tucked away in collections. Nothing around it matched, although plenty of other pop fiction. These things are what catch my eye.

    I also have an awesome copy of Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Anais Nin's Little Birds, and All The Kings Men (not read yet). Several of and related to Paul Bowles. 💜

    #SydneySheldon #PaulBowles #BookCollector

    @bookstodon

  7. I have this weird collection of junky first editions of books because they look wonderfully used. And I read them!!

    At today's estate sale - for $2 - a first printing of "The Other Side of Midnight" (by Sydney Sheldon, the same guy who wrote I Dream of Jeannie) without its luxurious early-70's dust cover.

    I just love finding books like this tucked away in collections. Nothing around it matched, although plenty of other pop fiction. These things are what catch my eye.

    I also have an awesome copy of Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Anais Nin's Little Birds, and All The Kings Men (not read yet). Several of and related to Paul Bowles. 💜

    #SydneySheldon #PaulBowles #BookCollector

    @bookstodon

  8. “I suspect that a good many people will read this book and be enthralled by it without once suspecting that it contains a mirror of what is most terrifying and cryptic within the Sahara of moral nihilism, into which the race of man now seems to be wandering blindly.”

    #theShelteringSky #paulBowles #tenneseeWilliams #bookstodon

  9. “I suspect that a good many people will read this book and be enthralled by it without once suspecting that it contains a mirror of what is most terrifying and cryptic within the Sahara of moral nihilism, into which the race of man now seems to be wandering blindly.”

    #theShelteringSky #paulBowles #tenneseeWilliams #bookstodon

  10. “Why are you afraid?” he said. “I know. Because you are rich. Because you have a bag full of money. Rich people are always afraid.”
    #theShelteringSky #paulBowles

  11. “Why are you afraid?” he said. “I know. Because you are rich. Because you have a bag full of money. Rich people are always afraid.”
    #theShelteringSky #paulBowles

  12. “There was no end to the world’s intense monotony.”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #theShelteringSky #paulBowles
    #bookstodon

  13. “There was no end to the world’s intense monotony.”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #theShelteringSky #paulBowles
    #bookstodon

  14. “The coming of day promises a change; it is only when the day has fully arrived that the watcher suspects it is the same day returned once again—the same day he has been living for a long time, over and over, still blindingly bright and untarnished by time.”
    #theShelteringSky #paulBowles #bookstodon

  15. “The coming of day promises a change; it is only when the day has fully arrived that the watcher suspects it is the same day returned once again—the same day he has been living for a long time, over and over, still blindingly bright and untarnished by time.”
    #theShelteringSky #paulBowles #bookstodon

  16. .. 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. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #TheShelteringSky #PaulBowles #bookstodon #death #existenialism #dying

  17. .. 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. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #TheShelteringSky #PaulBowles #bookstodon #death #existenialism #dying

  18. HE OPENED HIS EYES. The room was malignant. It was empty. “Now, at last, I must fight against this room.”

    #theShelteringSky #PaulBowles #bookstodon #existentialism

  19. HE OPENED HIS EYES. The room was malignant. It was empty. “Now, at last, I must fight against this room.”

    #theShelteringSky #PaulBowles #bookstodon #existentialism

  20. “…and in some as yet unforeseen manner time would bring about a change which could only be terrifying, since it would not be a continuation of the present.”
    #TheShelteringSky #paulBowles

  21. “…and in some as yet unforeseen manner time would bring about a change which could only be terrifying, since it would not be a continuation of the present.”
    #TheShelteringSky #paulBowles

  22. “If she could only give up, relax, and live in the perfect knowledge that there was no hope. But there was never any knowing or any certitude; the time to come always had more than one possible direction. One could not even give up hope. ”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #theShelteringSky #paulBowles #bookstodon #extistentialism

  23. “If she could only give up, relax, and live in the perfect knowledge that there was no hope. But there was never any knowing or any certitude; the time to come always had more than one possible direction. One could not even give up hope. ”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #theShelteringSky #paulBowles #bookstodon #extistentialism

  24. “I used to think that life was a thing that kept gaining impetus. It would get richer and deeper each year. You kept learning more, getting wiser, having more insight, going further into the truth—” She hesitated.
    Port laughed abruptly. “And now you know it’s not like that. Right? It’s more like smoking a cigarette.

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #theshelteringsky #paulbowles #bookstodon

  25. “I used to think that life was a thing that kept gaining impetus. It would get richer and deeper each year. You kept learning more, getting wiser, having more insight, going further into the truth—” She hesitated.
    Port laughed abruptly. “And now you know it’s not like that. Right? It’s more like smoking a cigarette.

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #theshelteringsky #paulbowles #bookstodon

  26. “It takes energy to invest life with meaning, and at present this energy was lacking.”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #TheShelteringSky #paulBowles #bookstodon

  27. “It takes energy to invest life with meaning, and at present this energy was lacking.”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #TheShelteringSky #paulBowles #bookstodon

  28. “Then he remembered having heard that Americans did not speak English in any case, that they had a patois which only they could understand among themselves.”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #TheShelteringSky #paulBowles #bookstodon

  29. “Then he remembered having heard that Americans did not speak English in any case, that they had a patois which only they could understand among themselves.”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #TheShelteringSky #paulBowles #bookstodon

  30. “And it occurred to him that a walk through the countryside was a sort of epitome of the passage through life itself. One never took the time to savor the details; one said: another day, but always with the hidden knowledge that each day was unique and final, that there never would be a return, another time.
    Under”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #theShelteringSky #paulBowles #bookstodon

  31. “And it occurred to him that a walk through the countryside was a sort of epitome of the passage through life itself. One never took the time to savor the details; one said: another day, but always with the hidden knowledge that each day was unique and final, that there never would be a return, another time.
    Under”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #theShelteringSky #paulBowles #bookstodon

  32. “Yes,” said Kit, “but I’m not sure I prefer the warm countries. I don’t know. I’m not sure I don’t feel that it’s wrong to try to escape the night and winter, and that if you do you’ll have to pay for it somehow.”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #theShelteringSky #bookstodon #paulBowles #africa #Algèria

  33. “Yes,” said Kit, “but I’m not sure I prefer the warm countries. I don’t know. I’m not sure I don’t feel that it’s wrong to try to escape the night and winter, and that if you do you’ll have to pay for it somehow.”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #theShelteringSky #bookstodon #paulBowles #africa #Algèria

  34. “His attention, however, did not spur him to additional thought. On the contrary, it merely provided him with an emotional satisfaction vis-à-vis the idea, making it possible for him to relax and admire it at a distance”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #bookstodon #paulbowles #theShelteringSky

  35. “His attention, however, did not spur him to additional thought. On the contrary, it merely provided him with an emotional satisfaction vis-à-vis the idea, making it possible for him to relax and admire it at a distance”

    The Sheltering Sky
    Paul Bowles
    #bookstodon #paulbowles #theShelteringSky

  36. Latest read, The Circular Valley (1950) by Paul Bowles, from Big Book of Modern Fantasy; Bowles expresses a loneliness that suits dark fantasy and here he writes of a spirit that possesses animals large and small, monks, bandits, soldiers, & lovers.
    192 of #400FantasyStories
    #Books #ShortStory #Fantasy #PaulBowles

  37. Latest read, The Circular Valley (1950) by Paul Bowles, from Big Book of Modern Fantasy; Bowles expresses a loneliness that suits dark fantasy and here he writes of a spirit that possesses animals large and small, monks, bandits, soldiers, & lovers.
    192 of #400FantasyStories
    #Books #ShortStory #Fantasy #PaulBowles

  38. Inspiration I could have done with back then:

    "Two months after my 18th birthday..I became aware..there were two possible choices to make. One was to swallow the contents of a bottle of sleeping pills..the other..to go away, leaving no traces..I knew I had no desire to be dead so..I wrote..to my mother..saying I needed $125 for textbooks..& please to send it immediately."

    A week later #PaulBowles booked passage for $125 on the next transatlantic steamer to Europe.

    My #stencil from 2009

    (1/2)

  39. ‘It's very hard to write about that which is always beautiful and pleasant and good. You don't get anywhere with it. There's no friction in it. There's no trouble. You have to have trouble. Somebody's got to get in trouble, or no one wants to read it.’

    Paul Bowles

    #amwriting #nanowrimo #paulbowles