Up Above the World

From the opening scene of "Up Above The World" the atmosphere is ominous - every detail emphasized, like it is going to be very important later to remember exactly what happened up to the point of crisis. And you know without a doubt a crisis is coming. It always does in Bowles’ novels.

Paul Bowles is a fabulous writer. His quirky novels generally take place in exotic remote places, foreign lands, away from American tourist sites - also away from the safety of American law and order.

Dr. Slade and his young wife are world travelers. They like to drift about with no planned schedule and no firm destination in mind. This is a cautionary tale of what can happen if you are friendly and naive, and get too comfortable and confident in show more strange environments. Of course, the story takes place prior to the existence of cell-phones which increases the danger.

Bowles is good at character development, descriptions of scenery, dialogue, and above all building suspense and creating a mood in a shroud of mystery.

Written in the third person, you - the reader - are well aware everything is not as it appears to the Slade’s. In fact, at times they seem ridiculously trusting and naive - especially Mrs. Slade, who recklessly offers to share sleeping quarters with a complete stranger. From that moment on - you know Mrs. Slade is going to eventually get herself into big trouble.

"Up Above the World" is not Bowles’ best novel - in fact, it is more like a novella - just over 200 pages. But even so, it is far better than many other books of the suspense - thriller genre. And Bowles cleverly manages to present a surprise Hitchcock type crescendo to the plot. show less

Been on a recent Paul Bowles bender of late -- just his novels, autobiography and letters -- not the smoke of incense or hashish wafting out of the waiting pages of, say, Midnight Mass or A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard, two of his story collections. Perhaps its the close proximity of svelte palms ensconced in the seagrass'd hollows of sand dunes, the drowsy ssh of the evening waves, the warm aroma of Lamb Tagine carried on the offshore breeze from the Moroccan take-out just down the beach -- "Tariq's" -- that makes Bowles so resonate with me this past relaxing week on holiday.

"At lunchtime the hotel's dining room was crowded with the sleek upper-class local population. Here where they don't need it they've got air conditioning…"

So show more true, Mr. Bowles, even here on the California coast, half a century later, our balcony sliding glass door is open to the ocean with the air conditioner going…

"You'll never be happy until you do what you know's the right thing. That's what life's about, after all."

"What life's about!" he cried incredulously. What is life about? Yes. What's the subject matter?" He stirred the sauce. "It's about who's going to clean up the shit."

"I don't know what you mean," she said, her voice hostile.

Life, I've found, is about stirring the shit just right so that it's palatable to both sides, be it protagonist and antagonist, husband and wife, politician and constituent. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Bowles?

"Words were deceptive, the very short ones most of all."

A short deceptive novel -- Up Above the World -- from which the above italicized quotes, excerpted with purposeful obfuscatory intent, were taken. Overshadowed by The Sheltering Sky, Bowles' iconic first novel, this last novel by Bowles, published in 1966, regardless looms high like a dark cloud above a Spanish villa with a panoramic view of both the Atlantic and Pacific from its prominent, though precipitous, perch above the proletariat jungles of a slender, unnamed Latin American nation. Panama, anyone? Or a panorama, that is, except when it rains. And it rains down cats and death -- and literal rain indeed -- in Up Above the World, a book whose outlook might be even bleaker, its relationships stormier, than Bowles' desolate, Saharan debut.

I've said enough (or not nearly enough) about this novel already, except the bit about the arson, curare, matricide, the "Slade" couple whose age difference was reminiscent to me of the late Anna Nicole's and J. Howard Marshall IIs -- around half-a-century (though in the former's case perhaps I exaggerate, but first impressions are genuine impressions after all) -- and that the novel was good but not quite great.

And I don't care if, like Luchita -- shrewd teenage duper of the alleged good doctor and his barely legal, brittle bride (and whose hostile voice is quoted above) -- you don't know what I mean. show less

Up Above the World is the story of two Americans, a retired doctor and his young wife, travelling through Central America and of what befalls them when they encounter another couple, one of whom may be intent upon doing the travellers harm.

I suppose it wouldn't be stretching things too much to liken the book to The Comfort of Strangers but written by someone with the eye of an artist, the ear of a musician (naturally--Bowles was in fact a musician), the prose of a poet and the ability to re-create one's worst nightmare. Bowles excels at depicting landscape, from scrubby plain to dry jungle, and its inhabitants, from crickets singing in the sultry nights to unwordly spiders to inscrutable humans. No doubt that's the reason his books are show more so full of atmosphere. In this one, the atmosphere from the start is one of menace and doom; I can't convey how oppressively ominous it is but shall say I put it aside for a few moments now and again simply for relief.

It's a shame Bowles seems to be something of a cult writer and perhaps as famous for his life as for his books: he's a far more skilful writer than many better-known ones are.. If you've not tried him, he's certainly worth a go and if you've read only The Sheltering Sky, this one is at least as good as it is. show less

I'm familiar with Paul Bowles' work as a composer of art song, but not as a novelist, so when I saw this book at Ken Sanders the other week, I was intrigued.

The blurb on the back sets the scene:

"On the terrace of an elaborate hilltop apartment overlooking a Central American capital, four people sit making polite conversation. The American couple - an elderly physician and his young wife - are tourists. Their host, whom they have just met, is a young man of striking good looks and charm. The girl, who is his mistress, is very young and very beautiful. Sitting there, with drinks in their hands, watching the sunset, the Slades seem to be experiencing the sort of fortunate chance encounter that travelers cherish. But amidst the civilities

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and small talk, one remark proves prophetic. The host says to the American woman: "It's not exactly what you think." Masterfully - with the poetic control that has always characterized his work - Paul Bowles leads the reader beneath the surface of hospitality and luxury into a tortuous maze of human relationships and shifting moods, until what seems at first a merely casual encounter is seen to be one rooted in viciousness and horror."

The terrace setting and that last sentence made me think immediately of Ian McEwan's The Comfort of Strangers, which has a similar setting, (but in a city that is likely Venice, instead of a Central American capital) and in which a meeting of a friendly stranger also eventually leads to viciousness and horror.

Up Above the World proves to have exactly the same slow-acting subtle build of suspense as The Comfort of Strangers, and I heartily recommend both to readers who enjoy a good story of suspenseful psychological horror.

Things that I liked in Up Above the World:

• Up until about the last 20 pages or so, Bowles cultivates a deliciously dangerous ambiguity. The friendly stranger may be plotting something sinister, or he may just be eccentric. The Slades may have been drugged, or they may have just caught a bug.

• What adds to the ambiguity is the discovery that almost none of the main characters is a completely reliable source. All of them are fully realized characters, with their own biases and failings.

•Bowles' writing is beautiful in its economy. Another blurb on the jacket, from The New York Post, says that he is "capable of evoking mood, character, and the fullness of emotions with mere strokes of words." That is true. When you read the conversations between Dr. and Mrs. Slade, you get the distinct impression of a author/painter outlining their relationship, without over-explaining anything. He pays the reader the compliment of leaving many things to be inferred. He also adds to the suspense by leaving certain information unrevealed or unexplained until later on in the story.

•Bowles is a master at writing dream/hallucination scenes in the first person. You get the clear sense of the person gradually losing the connection to reality, and even as they recover, you see the separate stages as they slowly come back to themselves. show less

My immediate reaction is ambivalence. I was annoyed and disappointed that the story little resembles the description on the back (or on this site), since the synopsis itself was intriguing. The narrative is choppy, and switching perspectives between 4 or 5 equally unsympathetic characters does little to involve me as a reader. The dialogue and characterization is sometimes clumsy as well. The ending twist is rather fantastic and implausible, but it has me considering a re-read for the near future, in order to garner all of the subtle conversational clues that are sprinkled throughout the narrative.

But still, there is something about the book (and Bowles' style) that is simply hypnotic. The man sets a tone like few I have seen, and he's show more a master at narrating subtle shifts in mood and psychology among his characters. I really love how he introduces each new setting with a paragraph or two of description, hitting upon the sights, sounds, and smells, just masterful. A sense of despair, disconnect and supreme isolation permeates both of the Bowles books I have read. You wonder why his characters can't just be straight with one another, and air out their grievances. I read The Sheltering Sky several years ago but didn't get it, and this book leaves me with a similar opinion/mood. Time to re-read both I think. show less

Leaving aside that the Latin Americans in the novel are mere cartoony props (the closest to being a fully realized human is a feral Cuban whose main characteristics include non-stop pot smoking and being wild in bed), the high points of the novel (hallucinatory fevers and creeping paranoia) are undermined by a cheap denouement.

Read this as part of my MA degree. It’s one of those tales that’s good in parts rather than on the whole.

The plot has little going on but it is believable. Certain mundane events were not boring because the author’s use of language made everything vivid. He’s especially good at evoking the senses.

I liked the first part the best, after this it was all hit and miss. Didn’t like the ending.

Scenes featuring one of both of the Slades appealed to me the most. They struck me as very “real” and I could relate to them. I didn’t take to the other characters.