another kind of silence

there's a certain sadness to finishing a book
a little hole in the heart left
after many afternoons shared
like when an old friend moves away
or when a summer romance ends

i finished Let It Come Down
a couple of days ago
i've been flirting with other new books
fresh projects, of alligators and mysteries
and challenges of over 1,000 pages

but now & then, i wish i hadn't finished
my old book, it was comforting to know
i would read a little of it every day
i knew the characters
but i never knew how the plot
would end...
it's a great book but also it's not the best book
i've read, i just know i miss it

and then i realized
that almost every time i finish a book
i feel the same little sweet pain
the little déjà vu
a subtle melancholy's there

yes, like another short love story
that has come to an end

another kind of silence
Paul Bowles would've said



now to start another romance
to engage page by page

the return of the Literary Gato

Herr Gato favorites another book



now he's been cuddling on my Paul Bowles'
Let It Come Down copy
that is a very entertaining reading
rather dark with long existential passages
written under the influence of kief



i am afraid Herr Gato's getting
a little high himself with all these Moroccan
adventures & dark characters that Bowles creates...
i mean those big dark dilated pupils are not a natural thing
i say...

he likes good books! remember?

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

my bits and random sentences on The Sheltering Sky (by Paul Bowles) was... and then transports you to the dusty eternal dryness of the desert, to that desert induced sopor... read & read & read one after another beautifully arranged sentences... the vastness of the desert, the immensity of the sky as the painful beauty that is a taste of life...


The Sheltering Sky is divided into 3 books

The characters, the structure, a bit strange sometimes, not too deep in details and then trying to deeply tell about them through small bits & pieces... not sure if it worked, 'cause, sure i wanted to know what happened to the characters, but it was somehow obvious, and strangely not so important for the book, yet i never got tired of the plot... was of that encounter, almost randomly, of those beautiful sentences, so painful, so lovely, so like life and death, that i really felt in love with


Title page of the 1st Edition of The Sheltering Sky

not sure if all i wrote above makes sense, but hope you read the book, anyway.
and some photos of my 1949, 1st Edition copy of The Sheltering Sky to show



a profile on Bowles


my small 3-book collection of Bowles books

the soul

"The soul is the weariest part of the body."
~Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

Memorial day weekend, Paul Bowles, and easiness

i am not sure if it's the American life(style) or
my age, or the always-busy internet era, or what...
but even if i live a pretty calm life:
a regular 8 hours a day of work, practice of yoga,
prepare my meals, chase/take care of the cats,
and i only drive 10 minutes to work
somehow, i live in sort kind of 'rush'

it's not that i am stressed, not at all!
but it is just this strange internal drive
this awareness of time and that there's always...
'something else i could be doing' or
'some book that i am not reading' or
'some show that i am missing'... that
human attempt that feels like needs to be fed

this internal rush, this agony
of wanting to know 'where am i going?'
this strange fear to trap and make
life 'countable' by one's progresses,
by one's achievements...

but this weekend, while reading Paul Bowles'
The Sheltering Sky, i realized that apart from yoga
and its wonderful awareness of not being aware
(which is pretty hard to do...)
the only other activity that makes me shake off this
counting-in-life-what-i-am-doing feeling is... reading!!
reading, NOT online, but reading an old-fashioned
pages-of-paper book... 'cause
even when watching films i am somehow 'aware'
of my existence slipping by...
but when i read, a great book specially, i do get lost
in time... so just like the 3 characters on the opening
pages of The Sheltering Sky, this weekend i felt like
those three Americans seated on a North Africa cafe
who conversed quietly and "...in the manner of people
who have all the time in the world for everything..."

so for 3 days, i forgot about schedules
about achievements, about being or not being
and i cooked light meals, made some café de olla
went to Bread & Cie. but overall, i read, read,
and read... and had the least possible contact
with other humans, which always makes me feel
at ease... human interaction bring the time-counting
back to my life, solitudes, most of the times, makes
me smile and relax...


ingredients for café de olla, coffee (of course!) piloncillo and cinnamon
traditionally café de olla has to be prepared on a clay pot
but i didn't have one (mexican shame on me!) but my own pewter pot
worked very fine too... if you can, do try café de olla, it's delicious!


my order at Bread & Cie., the bread platter
3 sorts of breads (your choice) plus jams, butter, and cream cheese
i got multigrain, fig & anise, and walnut raisin breads


a berries and nuts salad with good Olde Cape Cod
Sweet & Sour Poppy Seed dressing, pretty good!



and i even had the 'time' to spell the short version of my name
with Trader Joe’s Cinnamon Schoolbook Cookies
now that's what i call a lovely waste of time
exactly what i was looking for...

reading Paul Bowles on my patio, and Kenzaburō Ōe before yoga and the in kitchen

i have read a couple of Japanese authors
some books i got as gifts from my friend Lisa
[post from May 2006, about an e-mail from her on Japanese authors]
and some i got myself

so I've read the elegant and superb Yukio Mishima,
the visual strangeness and symbolism of Kōbō Abe's
The Kangaroo Notebook...
the story of a man who sprouted radishes on his shins
to later travel on his hospital bed accompanied by a vampire nurse
and other surreal characters to even more surreal places
yes! it is a very strange book...

but also, I've been delighted and thankful for having spent many hours
entertained by the postmodernism of masterful Haruki Murakami
with his collections of short stories,
the Rat's appearances in A Wild Sheep Chase, and
the adventures of tormented teenager Kafka
and mister Nakata and his friends the cats on
Kafka on the Shore

and now i finally read another famous Japanese author
Kenzaburō Ōe,
i read 2 short stories
Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, and
Aghwee The Sky Monster
another gift from Lisa too
the stories are both a mixture of reality and imagination
images and sentences that leave you after reading
a similar sensation to having waked up from a
visually overcharged strange dream


so Ōe, what i've been reading when i arrive
early to the Yoga studio, but also in my kitchen
while waiting for the water to boil for tea
...
these surreal visions that drip into everyday reality
seem to be a common theme in modern Japanese literature
along with references to the Western World reliquaries
like the pork noodles in broth accompanied by a Pepsi-Cola
that the fat man and his mentally challenged son Mori
share in the tale of Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness
or the reference to Jimmy Stewart and his gigantic
bunny character Harvey in Aghwee The Sky Monster...
yet... every single Japanese author voice
is radically different from the others
you could not confuse even for a sentence
the words of Murakami, with Abe, or Ōe
even if being all so modernly Japanese...

but then after getting some e-remainders
about Paul Bowles, and needing a break from
Ōe, last night i decided to use Bowles
as a modern-Japanese-intensity chaser...


reading my used copy of Paul Bowles Collected Stories on my little patio
& chubby mourning dove hanging out on electricity cable, behind

& oh it worked!... I've read a couple of Bowles
the Collected Stories a while ago, when i bought
this pretty copy (i think the covers are made of Canson paper)
only this time I payed more attention
he sounded so much familiar than Ōe!!
but of course, not only the native writing
in English, that in spite of not being my first language
it surely is my second... made it easier than reading
the awkwardly formed sentences of Ōe
being translated from Japanese
but also sure helped that the landscape
narrated was undoubtedly my country Mexico
or a latin/mexican lost paradise in Bowles mind
and the fact that the characters has names like
Señora Sanchez, señora Lucha, Federico, y Roberto
and said phrases like "A veces..."

Paul Bowles sounds timeless, and wise...
and legendary!, like García Márquez or José Saramago
those authors that read like they are writing
"from above..."
and yet Bowles is refreshingly more humane
not sure how to explain...



magical Bowles and his
"The dinning room smelled of kerosene and oranges."
and his
"The night was thick with eternity."

Eternity indeed mister Bowles! i say...
and a sound thank you to my dear friends
for their soulful recommendations of authors
and the gifts of books
they are like smiles for the soul