Customer Reviews

Black Star at the Point of Darkness

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Any one who saw the movie The Sheltering Sky, with Paul Bowles as narater, knows just how distinctive and mysterious his voice really is. It penetrates directly into ones subconcious. His words, heavy with sugestive, sinister under tones slithers into your head, pirates your imagination, and leads you on a journey through a dangerous alien landscape - his mind. Between reading's is the recorded music of North Africa where his stories are set. They complement each other perfectly. Each adding to the others bizzare sense of the un-real, of wonder, terror, panic, and disolution of self. A truely magical experience that no Bowles fans should miss. Fans of William Burroughs should check it out too.

Paul Bowles's wonderful and chilling stories and poems are here punctuated by North African music samples as well as the author's own compositions. Bowles was a composer, novelist, poet and nomad who settled in Tangier for the remaining fifty-two years of his life. One of the least acknowledged of the "Beat" writers of the fifties, Bowles transcended the genre to produce works of haunting beauty and terror not encountered since Poe. His music is more lyrical and lighter, his fiction dark, incisive and unsettling. For a more compelling rendition of his spoken work see "Baptism of Solitude" by Bowles with music by Bill Laswell.