The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

By Michael Hooper

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles wrestles with some very difficult issues, including existential despair, ignorance of Arabic culture, the complexity and challenges of a triangular love affair, sickness and death. 

Bowles wrote the Sheltering Sky in 1947 and 1948 in Morocco under the influence of hashish and majoun, a cannabis jam. His prose is vivid, intense and evocative.

Bowles was quite a talented man who wrote musicals before he became a novelist. He had an open marriage with his wife Jane Bowles, also a successful author. They each had affairs with people of the same sex. 

The main characters in The Sheltering Sky are Americans Port and Kit Moresby, husband and wife who have been struggling with their relationship and are hoping to reignite it on their trip to Northern Africa.

At the last minute they decide to invite their friend Tunner from New York.

This triangular relationship does not lend itself to intimacy for Kit and Port. Indeed Tunner wants to have a relationship with Kit. In a strange set of events, Port joins an English mother and son on a drive to their next destination and encourages Kit to take the train with Tunner. Tunner is thrilled at this opportunity. They get drunk on the train and sleep together. This complicates everything. Port wants to be alone with his wife so he works to try to get rid of Tunner.

A triangular affair never ends well. There's always jealousy. One time I was traveling with two women in Greece and one worked hard to get rid of the other so she could be alone with me. This was all before I met my wife of course. There's countless other examples where the third wheel doesn't fit in with the couple. In this case, Kit doesn't really want to have an affair with Tunner but she's scared and superstitious, and likes to drink and seems easily persuaded. 

Meanwhile Port is traveling with a couple of snooty English people who look down in disdain on the local people in Algeria.

Port's philosophy about travel is this: He believes "a tourist hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or a month but the traveler, belonging to no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly over the years from one part of the earth to the other."

Snooty Americans want everybody to bow down to their customs and preferences for food and housing, but the locals really don't like it. If you want to be a good traveler, find a way to blend in, learn some of the language, study the local customs, don't go into a new country making demands on people. Instead find a way to be a benefit or at least neutral but not an asshole.

Even though Port has lofty intentions he's also a bit of an arrogant, demanding tourist at times and is quite reckless with his lust and passions. He sees a blind girl and wants to have his way with her and tries to arrange a meeting with her but this turns out to be an act of futility.

The title of the book comes from a moment between Kit and Port. He says, "the sky here is very strange. I often have the sensation when I look at it that it's a solid thing up there protecting us from what's behind."

Kit shuddered slightly as she said, "from what's behind?"

"Yes."

"But what is behind?" Her voice was very small.

"Nothing, I suppose. Just darkness. Absolute night."

"Please don't talk about it now," she said. There was agony in her entreaty. "Everything you say frightens me, up here. It's getting dark and the wind is blowing and I can't stand it."

It's obvious that the couple have no solid footing in the world, they seem to be running, running, running without any grounding in their lives. They are trying to find pleasure, but upon running into difficulties, they fall apart.

Eventually Port gets sick. It seems it's either meningitis or typhoid. There's been an outbreak of meningitis in El Ga'a.

Such an outbreak reminds me of today's challenges with Covid-19. I was at Walgreens recently with my mask on and the person behind me was buying a covid-19 test kit because she thought she might have the virus and she wasn't even wearing a mask. Unreal.

When Port is dying it seems like he cannot connect with his wife. She seems so distant to him. She said she'll prepare some milk for him but he says, "please stay here."

He says, "I feel very sick, I feel awful. There's no reason to be afraid but I am. Sometimes I'm not here and I don't like that. Because then I'm far away and all alone. No one could ever get there. It's too far and there I'm alone."

The great tragedy in this story is Kit's departure while he's dying.

She actually leaves him and goes away to the desert. The locals find him dead and bury him. Tunner shows up and finds out the news that Kit has gone and Port is dead. Tunner is disappointed that Port is buried in a Christian cemetery because Port was not a religious man at all.

Meanwhile Kit ends up staying outside in the desert and then hooking up with an Arab man who has multiple wives and wants to take her in. She gets beaten by his wives, as they can't stand her. They steal her jewelry.

Eventually Kit escapes and is rescued. The story implies that Tunner is going to show up at her hotel but the story ends and we don't know if they get together but they probably do.

These Americans were really unaware and disrespectful of the lifestyle in Northern Africa. They don't like the food. They complain of flies with claws that are constantly swarming around them. At one point Port says he can't get warm, he is cold all the time, even cold in September in the desert. Well of course deserts can be very cold at night.

I can imagine how this trip started. It probably sounds exotic to go to Morocco or Algeria. I could just see people in New York saying this would be so much fun. 

Be careful. Do your research and respect the local people. Otherwise you may be in for some trouble.