[.ca] The Spider's House (ISBN 0060578912)

the struggle between knowledge and wisdom:
This is a very moving look at a particular situation but it is also far more. TSH looks at the problem of progress vs the phenomenon of faith in a way that is both committed and unflinching. As I have come to expect from Bowles, the story is as captivating as it is intelligent.

curiousity value from a historical perspective...:
The Spider's House is certainly not one of this author's better efforts. Of course we have the usual Moroccan vs American/French culture clashes circa 1950. But unlike his great The Sheltering Sky the author fails to tackle deeper, complex emotions. In part this is perhaps because in The Spider's House the lead character is a young Arab boy, confused by the cultural pollution caused by the French ... and the impending battles for Moroccan independence. Not only is the boy confused, the author seems confused in equal measures. So while I think this book is an interesting snapshot of a turbulent Morocco I was disappointed in the meandering story. The author also throws is lots of Arab and French words, either to give a sense of realism or to show off his intelligence. I would have preferred if Mr Bowles had concentrated on writing a more engaging story. Bottom line: best left to folks interested in demise of French imperialism in the 1950s and how a resident alien (the author) interpretes the local Moroccan psyche during it all.

Mektoub vs. Modernization:
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."

In the Spiders Eye:
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.

Excellent as usual:
At about the middle of this book, I started having misgivings, because it seemed like it was going to turn into a romance novel. *laughing* Silly me. The ending... the ending will stay with me forever. And of course, as always with Paul Bowles, your understanding of the culture is increased, but you know you've only seen the tip of the iceberg. Paul Bowles was an excellent writer.