This book takes place in the city of Fez, Morocco. It takes place in the 1950s, when the French are in control. The Muslims hate the French, and the French take many underhanded ways of trying to control them. The three main characters are Stenham an author, Madame Veyron, and Amar, a Muslim boy. To get an idea how much the Muslims hate the French, here is a musing by Amar:
P.129
"under his breath he began to invent a long prayer to Allah, asking him to see to it that every Frenchman, before he was dragged down to hell, which was a foregone conclusion in any case, might suffer, at the hands of the Muslims, the most exquisite torture ever devised by man. He prayed that Allah might help them discover new refinement in the matter of causing pain and despair, might show them the way to the umposing of hitherto undreamed - of humiliation, degradation and agony. 'and drop by drop their blood will be licked by dogs, and ants and beetles will crawl in and out of their shameful parts, and each day we will cut away one more centimeter from each Frenchman's entrails. only they must not die, ya rabi, ya rabi. Never let them die. At each corner of the street let us have one hung up in a little cage, so when the lepers come by they can use them as latrines, and we will make soap of them, but only for washing the sheets of the brothels. And one month before a woman is to give birth we will pull the child out and make a paste of it and mix it with the flesh of pigs and the excrement from the bellies of the nazarenes' own dead, and feed their virgins with it.'

Stenham prides himself on understanding the natives of Fez. He has spent 5 seasons living in Fez, and is regularly invited to dinner at the home of a Muslim family, who like him so much that they regularly ask him if he would not like to join the Muslim religion. But Stenham is an atheist, and one day, musing on what the Muslims said happened upon death, and what he himself believed, he thought:
P.197
"as a child of six he had known that when the physical organism ceased to function, consciousness was extinguished, and that was death, beyond which there was nothing.... matter was conditioned by time, but not consciousness; it existed outside time. Was there any valid basis for assuming that it was possible to know what went on inside the consciousness at the moment of death? It might easily seem forever, that instant when time ceased to function and life closed in upon itself, therefore it could prove to be inextinguishable. The immediacy of the experience had left him with a sensation of nausea; it was impossible to conceive anything more horrible than the idea that one was powerless to stop existing if one wanted, that there was no way to reach Oblivion because oBlivian was an abstraction, a fallacy.

Amar sees the world through the teachings of his religion, and his father, who is descended from the Prophet. Therefore, he strictly controls his feelings of greed when Madame Vervon gives him money to buy a gun, to protect himself in the war against the French.
P.361
"he folded the money carefully and put it away again. Then he took 200 francs out of the handkerchief in which his own money was tied and put it into his other pocket. When he came out, Mohammad was standing there, looking anxiously toward the door, as if he were afraid AMar might simply vanish. This was a mystery Amar had never been able to fathom. The rich were not ashamed to let it be seen that they cared about money. Where a man with only 20 rial in the world would as a matter of course use those 20 rial to pay for all the teas at the table, another with a thousand rial in his wallet, when the time came to leave the cafe, would begin to fumble inside his clothing and murmur aloud: 'let's see, there are six people at 15 francs each, that's 18 rial. I have only 15 francs change, which is exactly my share. Each one had better pay his own.' for the poor man such behavior was unthinkable : his shame would be so great he could never face his friends again. But the rich gave it no importance. 'that will all change when the French leave,' Amar was fond of thinking. The concept of Independence was easily confused with that of social equity." ( )

This was the third novel by the American author Paul Bowles, originally published in 1955, set in the 1954 Moroccan uprising against the occupying French in the city of Fez. It is the story of Amar, a poor, illiterate Muslim boy; and of John Stenham, who has lived in Fez for a number of years and knows Arabic, admires Islam from afar, but doesn't know that the reason for the nationalist rebellion is the Muslim hatred of all non-Muslims. ( )

"Bowles, Paul, The Spider’s House, New York, The Sparrow Press, 1955

The story revolves around two characters from totally different cultures. Alain Stenham is an American author living in Morocco, where he has been for many years. He is writing a novel and is trying to understand the Moslem culture about him. To that end he has learned rudimentary Arabic. Amar, a Cherif, a descendent of Mohamed, is completely untutored but believes he has a spiritual insight which often gives him the confidence to meet new situations in an open and honest way that serves him well.
The story involves a plan of the Istiqlal(the Communists) to begin the uprising that will eventually lead to the withdrawal of the French, and independence for Morocco. Stenham would like to hold back the changes which the future will force on the Moroccan /Muslim culture.
Thru Amar we learn about the fundamentalist belief which guides him and the entire rural population. The appreciation for all Allah has given, no matter how very little, the fatalism involved in the will of Allah, which precludes any fear of death., the recognition that Christians and Jews are tools of the devil, with western women as the most visible with their immodest fashion, makeup, and independence which reveals them as whores, all, with the word of the Koran, underscore his existence as being blessed by Allah.
When Stenham, and an American tourist who eventually becomes his girlfriend and lover and Amar finally meet at the point of a religious celebration and the abortive uprising they begin their struggle to recognize the similarities and most obviously, the differences between their beliefs. It becomes evident that their attempts, outside of their mutual commitment to tolerance, will fail to bridge that chasm. They listen, talk but do not understand that finally the distance between western pragmatism and Eastern fatalism is too great. The story ends with what may be a fatal misunderstanding.
Interestingly, the Communists, or Isqitlal, have the same difficulties that the other Western cultures have. In order to succeed they have to depend on a change in Moslem-based thinking that doesn’t happen. Ultimately, neither the French nor the Communists are able to redirect the fundamental beliefs of the Moslems. As far as I know, not a single Moslem country has ever been converted to a Communist or a Democratic state. 5-03
(less) " ( )

It was interesting to read while traveling through Morocco, as Bowles' insights into the culture are always dead-on. However, I think I prefer his non-fiction work better. I just don't find his prose that interesting and realize that I'm more fascinated with the setting rather than his storytelling abilities. ( )

Given to Matthew Hayes - 05/11/2023