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The Spider's House

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It may be an anachronism, but Paul Bowles' THE SPIDER'S HOUSE can best be characterized as a "post-political" novel par excellence. Nearly 50 years after its publication, it is nothing short of prophetic in both tone and content. The meaning of the book unfolds ironically from the epigraph, taken from the Q'uran: "The likeness of those who choose other patrons than Allah is as the likeness of the spider when she taketh unto herself a house, and lo! the frailest of all houses is the spider's house, if they but knew."

The novel portrays the last days of French rule in Morocco through the eyes of an American expat writer on the one hand and an illiterate Arab boy on the other. Stenham, the American, is in love with the past -- alive all around him, he believes, in the "medieval" streets of 20th century Fez. The Moroccans, or the "Moslems" as Stenham refers to them (with purpose), both attract and exasperate him with their fatalism (Mektoub, "it is written") and dogmatic faith in their God and their traditions. Stenham can affirm none of these things intellectually yet he envies the Moslems, if only because he yearns for such psychological comfort himself. In his unbelief ("It did not really matter whether they worshipped Allah or carburetors -- they were lost in any case"), Stenham also finds their medieval path superior because its aesthetic qualities appeal to him. The ugliness of the modern world, in both its Western and Soviet guises, pains him. Contemplating the factories and housing projects of the French colony, Stenham observes that the capitalist landscape looks no different from the communist one: "After all, he reflected, Communisim was merely a more virulent form of the same disease that was everywhere in the world. The world was indivisible and homogeneous; what happened in one place happened in another, political protestations to the contrary."

In the character of Amar, Bowles reveals Morocco through Moslem eyes. Here is where Bowles really shines. He doesn't tell, he shows: the unmistakable sign of a great writer. Unlike Stenham, Amar is comfortable in the world -- at least when we first meet him. There are believers and there are unbelievers. The certainty of this division and what it means forms the bedrock of Amar's identity. The French, or "Nazarenes" (Christians), are the enemies of the believers. The duty of the believer is to fight the unbeliever to the death. But when Amar crosses paths with members of the Istiqlal, the Moroccan nationalists, his certainties are shaken. Amar learns that the Istiqlal, like all political movements, uses religion for more worldly ends.

For Amar and Stenham, the promise of a political solution to human suffering (physical or existential) proves empty. Amar cannot reconcile the behavior of the Istiqlal -- killing fellow Moslems for political reasons -- to his faith, and he struggles with the idea that they are not the "purely defensive group of selfless martyrs" that he needs them to be. Stenham also hates the nationalists, but for different reasons. So long as he is comfortably outside the system, Stenham prefers Islam to modernization. As a former communist, he sees that the real enemies are the do-gooders and busybodies from the West preaching liberalism and communism. These are represented by the character of Polly Burroughs. "Hers was the attitude of the missionary," Stenham observes, "but whereas the missionary offers a complete if unusable code of thought, the modernizer offered nothing at all, save a place in the ranks. And the Moslems...now were going to be duped into joining the senseless march of universal brotherhood; for the privilege each man would give up only a small part of himself -- just enough to make him incomplete, so that instead of looking into his own heart, to Allah, for reassurance, he would have to look to others. The new world would be a triumph of frustration, where all humanity would be lifting itself by its own bootstraps -- the equality of the damned."

This book is not for the timid and it is a far more satisfying and mature work than the SHELTERING SKY. Bowles captures an unforgettable meeting between East and West. There is no "clash of civilizations", but neither is there the happy ending mandated by current liberal-multicultural fantasies. Written before the age of political correctness, THE SPIDER'S HOUSE offers a sympathetic yet honest -- and therefore disturbing -- view of Islam. But honest readers should also be disturbed by our own Western pieties. "Happy is the man who believes he is happy," says Stenham, "...and more accursed than the murderer is the man who works to destroy that belief."

"The likeness of those who choose other patrons than Allah is as the likeness of the spider when she taketh unto herself a house, and lo! The frailest of all houses is the spider's house, if they but knew."

The Quran

Fragility. That is the defining quality of Paul Bowle's vivid illustration of Fez circa 1954. Or rather, the reverie of an unadorned, exotic place that vaguely resembles Fez. For the characters, the reality of the medieval city plagues that reverie. The Fez of the novel is at war. With the French occupiers, and the Istiqlal (independence) fighters upping the stakes, raising the level of brutality. In Bowles's explicitly detailed streets, alleyways, cafes, there are conspiring students and those who inform on them. Arrogant French soldiers and disdainful natives. Faithless Berber collaborators and angry Moroccan mobs. But Fez, fragile and frail its condition maybe, is not the subject of this book. It is the reverie of two relatively apolitical onlookers. The likeness of that reverie is that of a spider's house.

At the Merinides Palace resides John Stenham, an American writer who has been in Fez for several years at the time of his introduction. His mordant wit and ill-temper are that of man of shattered ideals. He is the type of pseudo-cynic, the reader senses, was once a romantic. His neighbor, and frequent companion, is Moss, an English businessman, who, like the American, is in Fez for ambiguous reasons. Their daily routine consists of silly little mind games, where Moss pretends to be a chaste of the orient, with Stenham as his acquainted guide. But Moss, we learn, is sly old bat. He is a millionaire, a true cynic whose cynicism has served him well. The writer's case is much graver than that.

Stenham is an ex-communist, with a fuzzy desire "to be saved". It makes sense that he did not choose Casablanca or Rabat, it is only Fez, the 9th century Islamic city, whose way of life might have seemed alien enough that it would poccess the attraction of an uncorrupted Utopia. He has learned to speak Arabic, learned the unspoken cultural rules of the Medina, but he has never connected with Moroccans. And he hopes he never has to. That would complicate the picture. But before The Spider's House turns into one of those condescending "Westerners in a strange land" stories, Bowles gives the tale a brilliant twist; He introduces Amar, a fifteen-year-old Fessian. Amar is a Cherif (his family lineage can be traced directly to the Prophet). That is not to say he is rich. In fact, his family lives in relative destitute, with his father's income as a healer proving barely adequate. He is illiterate, yet possesses an astounding faith. Amar is, for the most part, the primary protagonist of The Spider's House. And Bowles, an American, affords him such a singular, authentic world view that the novel takes on a whole new dimension. Amar, a character who is more resonant than the Westerner neither negates nor proves Stenham's asinine view of Moroccans. Yes, like Stenham, his vision of the world will be shattered by the end of the novel, but that vision is so far away from Stenham's, that it may seem reasonable to assume that the boy and man, Muslim and Nazarene (Western Christian), are separated by an unbridgeable divide.

It is a given that Amar's and Stenham's paths cross. What happens then, I will leave you to discover. Bowles, who has lived most of his life in Morroco, writes in a stately, elegant fashion. A style that is neither obtrusive nor bland. His theme is that way too; neither stated nor retracted. I don't think he endorses protagonists' view that they are so fundamentally different they can never communicate on equal terms. For Stenham, a Fez populated by people whose ambitions and hopes he can comprehend is tantamount to its destruction. Amar discovers that the world has "come nearer, but in coming nearer it had grown smaller. As if an enormous piece of a great puzzle had fallen unexpectedly into place, blocking the view of distant, beautiful countrysides," He has hit a black wall of certainty. In the beautifully subtle closing scene, one of them will reach out, the other will value his sand castle, his spider's house, too much for that.

The gap in understanding between cultures, a theme of "The Sheltering Sky," is dramatized with brutal honesty in this novel set in Fez, Morocco during a 1954 nationalist uprising. Totally relevant to today's political situation in the Middle East and elsewhere, richly descriptive of its setting, and uncompromising in its characterizations

Reading "The Spider's House" was a bittersweet experience for me. Because I have already read his other novels and since his passing last November, I knew this would be it. There would be little more than rereading the passages I have bookmarked and concentrating on his short stories. I truly love Bowles' style of writing and this novel IS far better than the others. Yes, I loved "The Sheltering Sky" as most others do, but that was merely from the P.O.V. of outsiders, 'travelers' if you will. "The Spider's House" also shares that P.O.V., but it also provides that of a young Moslem boy and an expatriot who has lived in the region for many years. Their perceptions of one another are approached in such a way that the reader understands their motives/actions, though the characters do not necessarily understand one another. Politics and religion play a large part in facilitating those perceptions and makes for an exciting read.

I highly recommend this novel for anyone who: - liked the other works of Bowles and/or - enjoys stories involving religion/politics/exotic places/romance (Those fond of the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez will especially like this one)

Whats fascinating about Paul Bowles is that he uprooted himself from his own culture and immersed himself completely in a culture as different from his own as he could find. And the reason for this is clear in all of his fiction and travel books-- he enjoys feeling like a stranger. For Bowles this immersion into another culture was a great success. However whatever it was that Bowles himself found in Arab culture seems to elude the characters in his fictions who seem to be seeking a similar kind of immersion but somehow never get it right. In fact more often than not Bowles characters usually find out the hardest way possible that they simply are unsuited to the life they are attempting to lead.

In Spiders House there are two lead characters Aman , a young Arab, and Stenham, an American writer. The first 150 pages of the book are devoted to Aman who is coming of age and awareness of the world around him just as that world is about to change as this is 1954 and French rule in Morocco is about to be challenged by a fierce Nationalist uprising. Aman's family is deeply rooted in their cultures traditions but Aman is not. Aman is responsive to the changing world around him and his own philosophy is provisional and unbound by adherence to any faith. We witness the stirrings of political revolt through his eyes and he is fascinated with all he sees but he does not interpret events nor involve himself in them for he is a kind of stranger within his own culture who believes himself to have the ability to read what is in other mens hearts. Aman remains on the fringes of his own culture, almost an outsider looking in. His perspective is fascinating and gives us a unique look at Arab life from an insider/outsider perspective. Then Bowles leaves Amans narrative and for the next 150 pages tells Stenhams story. In the last 100 pages of this 400 page book the two will meet up. Stenham is also an insider/outsider within his circle of friends. Being a writer Stenham has an excuse to isolate himself from the other expatriots living in Fez. In his isolation Stenham has devised and cultivated his own very personal relationship with the city. For Stenham the appeal of Fez is its medieval atmosphere and he despises the encroachments of modernity whether they be French or Nationalist. Stenham more than any other character in the book lives in a world of his own devising and he himself knows his world cannot last. But there are many "Spiders Houses" in the book--each characters reality is a Spiders House-- and in the last 100 pages they all come crashing down.

This is a much more analytical book than Sheltering Sky. Sheltering Sky succeeded brilliantly because in it Bowles presented a vison which he then pursued to its ultimate lurid end. There is really nothing particularly lurid in Spiders House, no sex, and no drugs. There is violence but it is political violence, not the usual kind associated with Bowles. Though a book which has a political uprising in it this is not a political thriller. In fact the politics are never more than perpipheral to Bowles main interest which is in his main two characters' psychologies. How you feel about Stenham will largely determine how you feel about the book. Stenham is self-involved and it makes sense that he only registers things in so far as they affect him. Much of the book is Stenham ruminating about Stenham. Furthermore Stenhams views of the Arab people are often less than flattering--ie he describes them as "unevolved" at one point. Bowles realizes he has a less than sympathetic lead character with a narrow vision so he counterbalances that character with young Aman who is still young and receptive to multiple realities. Amans presence challenges Stenhams conception of the Arab people. Bowles does not necessarily suggest there will ever be understanding between the east and west but he does find value at least in dispelling some of the myths that each culture has about the other. A facinating read by one of the few authors who can look at the east through western eyes and (at least attempt)to see the west through eastern ones.

I strongly recommend this novel, written in 1954,yet totally alive and relevant to the contemporary reader. I was amazed to see Bowles capture the essence of the clash between the Islamic world view and the Western modern view in such a fresh and insightful manner.

The novel is about the final days of the French occupation of Morocco after World War II. The story is told through the eyes of an American expatriat, Stenham, and then through they eyes of a 15 year old Islamic young man. Stenham, a tired and disappointed writer, has seen the false promise of modernism, and thus is sympathetic to the Moslem determinism and process of living life embedded in faith. Amar, the Moroccan youth, also see those members of the Moroccan nationalists movement, Istiglal, who would use religion for political gain.

The story moves from luxury hotels and modest Moslem homes, to street fights and riots, to Islamic ceremonies high in the Moroccan mountains, to the cafes where Europeans gather to experience a world far different from their own, to the lairs of the subversives who plan to drive the French from Islamic lands.

Like Mark Twain's Huckelberry Finn, the world seen through the eyes of youth allows for fresh observations of the familiar world. Amar is the Moslem Huckelberry, trying to make sense of Europeans and countrymen in a struggle for power.

Yet it is the cultural interaction between modernism and Islam that Bowles captures perfectly. Bowles paints a realistic, honest, sympathetic vision of the Islamic world. The image reveals the weaknesses and barreness that modernism brings. I recommend this book strongly, especially in these times of conflict between the Western world and the world of Islam.

I read Paul Bowles' SPIDER'S HOUSE (1954) after first reading his earlier novel, LET IT COME DOWN (1952). In both novels, Bowles insightfully examines the subtle culture gap between East and West. He has drawn the title of his novel from the Koran: "The likeness of those who choose other patrons than Allah is as the likeness of the spider when she taketh unto herself a house, and lo! The frailest of all houses is the spider's house, if they but knew," which is also the novel's epigrah.

THE SPIDER'S HOUSE opens in Fez after World War II, just as the French rule in Morocco is about to be challenged by a fierce Nationalist uprising, and the narrative shifts between an American expatriate writer, John Stenham, and an illiterate, Arab youth, Amar. Whereas Stenham, an existentialist, anti-imperialist, is captivated with the aesthetic, "medieval" traditions still alive in the streets of twentieth century Fez--"It did not really matter," to him "whether they worshipped Allah or carburetors," Amar has his own perspective on the use of religion for political gain by Istigal, the Moroccan nationalists movement. It is through the Moslem insights of Amar that Bowles triumphs as a writer. Amar is the real protagonist of the novel. He is something of a stranger in his own culture, with his own understanding of the events unfolding around him, and he believes he has the ability to see into men's hearts. Although Amar's religious faith tells him that the duty of the believer is to fight the unbeliever to the death, when it comes to the use of violence against fellow Moslems for political reasons, he is less certain. Eventually, the paths of Stenham and Amar cross with unexpected results. Now more than fifty years after its publication, without sentimentality, illusions, or blinders, THE SPIDER'S HOUSE remains relevant with its insights into the culture conflicts between East and West.

G. Merritt

I read this book because I had read Paul Bowles' "The Sheltering Sky" and I found his style of writing to be poetic and enchanting. I am glad I read it because of the open and complex portrayal it gave of a culture often misunderstood by Americans. Paul Bowles should be considered a classic American author. It's too bad he's not more well known.

Paul Bowles was on a hot streak in the 1950s, and of the 3 novels he wrote between 1949 and 1955 this last one is my hands-down favorite. With each book Bowles seemed to grow more confident in his knowledge of Morocco, and in the gifted teenager Amar he creates his most complete Arab character to date, giving over more of the story to him than to his American hero, the detached expatriate novelist Stenham. The novel is also exciting for the way Bowles managed to map his longstanding concern with the differences between Islam and the modern West onto the explosive political events in Morocco in 1954, when the Moroccan Independence party was fighting a hot terrorist war against the French (sound familiar?)

Bowles sees the Moroccan rebels and the French occupiers as both destroying a traditional Islamic approach to time that enjoys life for the moment and leaves tomorrow to Allah, an attractive alternative to the Western obsession with logic, causality, and progress that keeps us from seeing the present in our frantic rush to the future. Stenham recognizes his own futility in trying to save the old Morocco he loves, and Bowles is more critical here than in some of his earlier writing of his own position as the privileged outsider. In the end, it made sense to me that Amar is a teenager; it's almost as if Bowles wants to keep his charming Moroccans in a state of perpetual adolescence, forever shielded from Coca-Cola, politics, and the secular pleasures of modernity. At the same time, by taking Moroccans on their own terms, sympathizing with their approach to life rather than trying to change it in the name of progress or democracy, he comes closer than I think Americans will be able to for a long, long time to come to understanding the attractions of a very different, and on its own terms very satisfying, approach to life.

Eerily prescient in its depiction of Islamic populations wishing to establish sovereign Islamic governments and free themselves from tyranny in North Africa and the Middle East, this 1955 novel should have been a wake-up call to the western world half a century ago when it was written. Paul Bowles (1910 - 1999), an American expatriate author, was an eyewitness to the uprisings which occurred in Morocco in 1954 after the French deposed the much-loved Sultan Mohammed V. The tumult that developed in Fez and the many factions that evolved within the local population will strike a familiar chord among contemporary readers who are now seeing the same issues being addressed by residents of many other countries in the region, with the same kind of attendant violence provoking the same perplexity among western powers.

When John Stenham, an American author in his late thirties, an old hand in Morocco, leaves the home of a friend in Fez, his friend insists that he take a protector along with him that night as he travels back home to the Medina. No sooner does he arrive back at the hotel where he lives, however, than he receives a phone call from Alain Moss, also living at the hotel, who must see him immediately. It is 1:20 a.m. The focus of the novel then shifts abruptly to that of Amar, a fourteen-year-old boy brought up in a poor, strictly traditional Moslem household. As Amar, a naïf, moves around the city, unimpeded, talking to his boss, his family, and his young friends, the reader discovers through his eyes the many factions at work in this fraught time in Moroccan history.

His father, like many others, wants the Sultan back on the throne and hints at promoting jihad against unbelievers. The brother of a friend, arrested for bringing grenades into Fez from Spanish Morocco, is a member of Istiklal (meaning "Freedom"), a group of young men who plan oust the French and all other foreigners by violence. A group of young intellectuals has entered the country to promote Marxist/Leninist ideals, and the French themselves have enlisted groups of Berbers to undermine the effects of the jihadists. The Mokhazni, a group of Arab locals who work with the French, spy on their own people, and uphold French values.

In Part II, the author reintroduces Stenham and Moss, and also introduces Mme. Veyron, the former Polly Burroughs, an adventure-seeking American who has escaped her French husband to travel abroad. She and Stenham connect, and it is their "adventures" which broaden the picture of what is happening in Fez and the immediate surroundings, though it is their inevitable connection with the more appealing character of Amar that gives the full picture. Stenham and Polly Burroughs are flat characters and do not come alive anywhere nearly as much as Amar, but the overall depiction of life in Morocco is compelling. Many philosophical digressions serve to explain some of the mysteries of Islam for western readers. And when Amar prays to Allah that Allah "might help them discover new refinements in the matter of causing pain and despair, might show them the way to the imposing of hitherto undreamed of humiliation," the reader begins to understand some of the current issues there, and in other parts of that area. A novel to fascinate anyone interested in the current issues rending North Africa and the Middle East, The Spider's Web is an especially enlightening novel. Mary Whipple