“…they all sat there in another world…” #1952Club #PaulBowles #LetItComeDown

My final read for the #1952Club is not a title I was particularly thinking of picking up for our Year Week, but somehow I ended up being drawn to it. I had, as usual, made a big list of possibilities and this was on it, but I had regarded "Go" as the Big Read of the week and was thinking of something a little lighter to round off 1952.

https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2025/04/27/they-all-sat-there-in-another-world-1952club-paulbowles-letitcomedown/

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

Mitten im Sommer kam eines Nachmittages ein Hund durchs Dorf gelaufen und blieb gerade lang genug, um einen jungen Mann, der an der Hauptstraße stand, zu beißen.

— #PaulBowles, erster Satz von »Der Fqih« (1974).

Kif/Haschisch-Redensarten aus Marokko, aufgezeichnet von #PaulBowles in den frühen Sechzigern; siehe Vorwort zu »A Hundered Camels in the Courtyard« (1962; DT. ???).

— Die Augen wollen schlafen, aber der Kopf ist kein Kissen.
— Die Erde bebt und der Himmel hat Angst, und die beiden Augen sind keine Brüder.
—Eine Kif-Pfeife vor dem Frühstück verleiht einem Mann die Kraft von hundert Kamelen im Innenhof.

Entdeckt über Mike Jay »Psychonauts« (2023)

#CannabisKultur

(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!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sheltering_Sky
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bruce_and_Brandon_Lee_graves_02.jpg

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

‘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