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In Let It Come Down, Paul Bowles plots the doomed trajectory of Nelson Dyar, a New York bank teller who comes to Tangier in search of a different life and ends up giving in to his darkest impulses. Rich in descriptions of the corruption and decadence of the International Zone in the last days before Moroccan independence, Bowles's second novel is an alternately comic and horrific account of a descent into nihilism.… (mais)
Paul bowles writes very cool books, for example, "the sheltering sky." But, dammit, he's such a misogynist. He loves to write women characters, and make fun of them. Especially, making them fat, very comical. This one's about a bored New York bank teller 30-something man. He's got a friend who lives in Morocco, Tangiers, who has a travel agency. He thinks he's got a job to go to there, working for him, but it's not the kind of job he has in mind. He's very naive. He should never have smoked or inbibed hashish. Not everybody can handle drugs.
Nelson Dyar is really a loathsome character, witness what his youth was like: "occasionally he would go out with two or three of his friends, each one taking a girl. They would have cocktails at the apartment of one of the girls, go on to a Broadway movie, and eat afterward at some Chinese place in the neighborhood where there was dancing. Then there was the long process of taking the girls home one by one, after which they usually went into a bar and drank fairly heavily. Sometimes, not very often, they would pick up something cheap in the bar or in the street, take her to Bill healy's room, and lay her in turn." See what I mean about being misogynistic?
Dyar meats Daisy Valverde in Tangier, a marquessa. She's really a good woman, and friendly, and actually tries to save Dyar's life in the end. But he won't have it. He finds out from her that his "friend" Jack, with the travel agency, has no way possible to pay him as an employee: " 'Jack told me you were coming, but somehow I never thought you'd actually arrive.' 'why not?' He felt a little better now. 'Oh, you know. Such things have a way of not coming off. Frightfully good idea that Misses fire. And then, of course, I can't see really why Jack needs anyone there in that little office.' 'you mean it's not doing well?' He tried to keep his voice even. She laid a hand on his arm and laughed. As though she were imparting a rather shameful secret, she said in a low voice: 'my dear, if you think he makes even his luncheon money there, you're gravely mistaken.' She was studying him too carefully, trying to see the effect of her words. He would refuse to react. He felt hot all over, but did not speak. Hugo entered carrying a tray of bottles and glasses. They both took brandy, and he set the tray down on a table at Dyar's elbow and went out. She was still looking at him. 'Oh, it's not going well,' he said. He would not say what he was sure she was waiting for him to say: how does he keep going? 'not at all. It never has.' 'I'm sorry to hear that,'said Dyar. 'There's no need to be. If it had gone well I daresay he wouldn't have sent for you. He'd have had just about all he could manage by himself. As it is, I expect he needs you far more.' "
Though daisy Valverde is the only one who is being kind to him, and trying to tell him the truth about Jack winston, the author still insists on having dyar's character be a misogynistic pendejo: "he kept looking at her. She was too old, that was all. Every now and then, in the midst of the constantly changing series of expressions assumed by the volatile features, there was a dead instant when he saw the still, fixed disappointment of age beneath [the marquesa is 40-something]. It chilled him. He thought of the consistency of Hadija's flesh and skin [a sex worker], telling himself that to do so was scarcely just; the girl was not more than 16. Still, there were the facts. He considered the compensation of character and worldly refinement, but did they really count for much? He was inclined to think not, in such cases. 'nothing doing there,' he thought. Or perhaps yes, if he had a lot of liquor in him. But why bother? He wondered why the idea had ever come to him, at all. There was no reason to think it had occurred to her, for that matter, save that he was sure it had."
eunice goode is an American living in Tanger who has money, and is competing with dyar for hadija's affection: "when dyar came into the room Eunice goode looked at him and said to herself that even as a girl she would not have found him attractive. She had liked imposing men, such as her father had been. This one was not at all distinguished in appearance. He did not look like an actor or a statesman or an artist, nor yet like a workman, a businessman or an athlete. For some reason she thought he looked rather like a wire-haired terrier -- alert, eager, suggestible. The sort of male, she reflected with a stab of anger, who can lead girls around by the nose, without even being domineering, the sort whose maleness is unnoticeable and yet so thick it becomes cloying as honey, the sort that makes no effort and is thereby doubly dangerous. Except that being accustomed to an ambiance of feminine adulation makes them as vulnerable, as easily crushed, as spoiled children are. You let them think that you too are taken in by their charm, you entice them further and further out on that rotten limb. Then you jerk out the support and let them fall." How I wish I had the talent and cognition to do this when I was young, before I ended up hating men for using me.
Daisy Valverde gives us the history of meeting her husband, the marquis, Luis. He's a mujeriego, but that's okay when you have money ( I guess ). "... the man was magnificent, she decided, and it was not surprising that from being inseparable friends they soon turned to be being passionate lovers. Daisy was slightly over 30, her face radiant with a healthy, strident kind of beauty that perfectly suited her statuesque figure. It was inevitable that a man like Luis should fall in love with her, that having done so he should perceive much more in her character than he had suspected, and thus determined to marry her, in order to own her completely. It was also inevitable that once having added her to his list of possessions he should cease to be in love with her, but Daisy knew this beforehand and did not care, because she also knew that she would never cease to admire him, whatever he might do, and she was sure she would be able to keep him, which for her, an eminently practical woman, was after all the main consideration." Hm.
It's too bad the character of dyar didn't pay more attention to his one true friend, daisy. ( )
More intricately plotted than Sheltering Sky- Almost like a non-Catholic Graham Greene novel. Harrowing and pitiless, and peopled with some pretty grim, vicious characters (especially the main one): it is not a light, pleasant read to say the least. However it is funny and full of beautiful details and tragic loneliness and moments of breathtaking poetry. I loved every minute of it. ( )
Dyar, die al 15 jaar als kassier bij een bank in New York werkt, ziet zijn leven aan saaiheid ten onder gaan. Als bij toeval hoort hij dat zijn oude schoolvriend Wilcox in Tanger een reisbureau runt en iemand nodig heeft. Hij bedenkt zich geen tweemaal en vertrekt. Het Tanger van de beginjaren '50 lag in de Internationale Zone en was een waar broeinest van geldwisselaars, smokkelaars, spionnen, avonturiers en snobs. In deze smeltkroes komt Dyar terecht en gaat er onafwendbaar in kopje onder. Meesterlijk weet de auteur de spanning te doseren, door afwisselend de verschillende leefwerelden - de diverse Marokkaanse én de diverse westerse - te beschrijven waarin de hoofdpersoon in verzeild raakt. Ook de niet aflatende winterregens geven het verhaal een speciale sombere, vochtige, kleffe atmosfeer. Daarbij komt dan nog het overmatig gebruik van alcohol en hasjies. Kortom, een psychologische thriller van de bovenste plank met een ijzingwekkend verrassend slot.
Let It Come Down is an odd fish these days: an existential thriller. Set in the 50s in Morocco where Bowles spent a lot of his life it has a wonderful sense of place. Pace, however, is another matter and this essentially readable novel lurches along in a kind of staccato. The anti-hero (Dyar), and there are only anti-heroes in this Camus inspired piece, is a thoroughly unlikable man on the run from a failed life in the states to a failed life in a partitioned Morocco. Bowles draws the ex-pat community with a sharp eyed insight that to this day chimes with ex-pats worldwide. For this alone the book is worth reading. HIs prose is well tuned and his dialogue sure. If the narrative stumbles the moral, dialectic thread is as sure footed as a mountain goat. We follow the further fall of Dyar almost open mouthed as the ex-pats around him mouth their racist opinions of the Arab host population who themselves are stereotypically portrayed by Bowles . It is a good book. Not a great book and certainly not one of Bowles' great works: for that you should go to his short stories. In some ways it is a a curio and an oddly dated one but that said it is worthy of your attention.
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
BANQUO: It will be Rayne to Night. 1ST MURDERER: Let it come downe. (They set upon Banquo.) MACBETH, Act III, Scene 3
Dedicatória
Primeiras palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
It was night by the time the little ferry drew up alongside the dock.
Era ormai notte quando il battello si fermò vicino alla banchina. Mentre Dyar percorreva la passerella, per un improvviso colpo di vento calde gocce di pioggia gli percossero la faccia. Gli altri passeggeri, pochi, erano poveramente vestiti; portavano valige di fibra e sacchetti di carta. Egli restò a guardarli, mentre in piedi di fronte alla dogana attendeva pazientemente che la porta si aprisse. Una mezza dozzina di arbai cenciosi si erano già accorti di lui dall'altro lato del recinto, e cominciarono a gridargli "Hotel Métropol mister!" "Ehi, Johnny, venire qui!" "Cercate un albergo?" "Grand Hotel, ehi!" Proprio come se avessero visto il suo passaporto amercano. Non ci badò. La pioggia si fece più intensa, per qualche minuto. Quando il doganiere aprì la porta egli era tutto pervaso da una spiacevole sensazione di umidità.
Citações
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
La parola "infinito" gli aveva sempre procurato una sensazione di orrore fisico. Se almeno si fosse potuto dividere l'esistenza in sezioni limitate allo spazio e al tempo presente, senza riverbero di echi del passato, né ansiose aspettative del tempo a venire! Fissò con maggiore intensità il suolo, finché non riuscì a facilitare le cose e tutto si ridusse a una macchia lucente. Ma allora un battito di palpebre, come un granello di sabbia, non poteva venire impoderabilmente spinto in basso dallo stesso elemento paralizzante? Ogni cosa era parte di uno stesso elemento. Non c'era parte di lui che non fosse derivata dalla terra e che non fosse destinata a ritornarvi. Egli era un'estensione animata della terra bruciata dal sole. Ma nemmeno ciò era del tutto vero. Sollevò la testa, si stropicciò gli occhi e accese un'altra volta la pipa. C'era una differenza, si disse, mentre soffiava fuori il fumo in una lunga colonna bianca che subito si ruppe e si dissolse. Era una differenza piccola, evidente ed assurda, ma poiché era la sola differenza che in quel momento gli venisse in mente quella fu anche la sola spiegazione possibile che potesse trovare dell'essere vivo. La terra non sapeva di esistere, esisteva e basta. Perciò vivere significava soprattutto sapere di esser vivi, e la vita senza questa certezza era simile alla non esistenza. Per questo senza dubbio gli veniva fatto continuamente di domandarsi: sono realmente qui? Era naturale desiderare una tale assicurazione, provarne una disperata necessità. La pietra di paragone di ogni volta consisteva nel poter sempre rispondere, senza esitazione: "Sì". Non doveva siussistere un briciolo di dubbio. Una ivta doveva possedere tutte le qualità della terra dal cui derivava, più la consapevolezza di possederle. Lo intuì con perfetta chiarezza, in un ragionamento senza parole, una serie di idee che gli si susseguivano nella mente con la spontaneità della musica, la precisione della geometria. In qualche remota parte di se stesso stava esaminando la sua vita, con un telescopio rovesciato, vedendola nei più intimi dettagli, lontanissimima ma con tremenda chiarezza, e mentre guardava gli sembrò che ora ogni circostanza venisse contemplata nella sua prospettiva finale. Aveva sempre pensato, anche prima, che sebbene l'infanzia fosse ormai tanto lontana ci sarebbe stato un giorno, un avvenimento che gli avrebbe dato l'opportunità di vederla definita nelle sue angosciose delizie. Un giorno si era svegliato per accorgersi che la sua infanzia se n'era andata, era finita mentre lui non badava e i suoi elementi erano rimasti indefiniti, il suo disegno nebuloso, le sue armonie tutte insolute. Eppure si era sempre sentito legato ad ogni parte di essa da migliaia di fili invisibili; pensò di avere il potere di resuscitarla o trasformarla, semplicemente toccando quei segreti fili della memoria.
Últimas palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Si fermò nel patio un momento, con la pioggia fredda che lo bagnava (un posto nel mondo, una situazione definita, un rapporto preciso col resto degli uomini. Anche se doveva essere di aperta ostilità, era suo, creato da lui). D'improvviso chiuse la porta e rientrò nella stanza. era stanco, desiderava sedersi, ma c'era solo la stuoia, per cui rimase in piedi in mezzo alla stanza. Presto sarebbe stato buio; infisso nel pavimento c'era il mozzicone di candela che l'altro aveva spento, la notte precedente, quando era acceso il fuoco. Non sapeva se c'era un'altra candela, in cucina, e non sarebbe andato a guardare. Più per fare qualcosa che per il desiderio di un po' di luce, si inginocchiò per raccogliere la legna rimasta e si frugò in tasca, in tutte le tasche, in cerca di un fiammifero. Non trovandone, si alzò e si diresse alla porta. Fuori, nella foschia, non c'erano né vallate né montagne. Pioveva a dirotto, e il vento aveva ricominciato a fischiare. Si sedette sulla soglia e cominciò ad aspettare. Non era ancora buio del tutto.
Autores Resenhistas (normalmente na contracapa do livro)
Idioma original
CDD/MDS canônico
LCC Canônico
▾Referências
Referências a esta obra em recursos externos.
Wikipédia em inglês
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▾Descrições de livros
In Let It Come Down, Paul Bowles plots the doomed trajectory of Nelson Dyar, a New York bank teller who comes to Tangier in search of a different life and ends up giving in to his darkest impulses. Rich in descriptions of the corruption and decadence of the International Zone in the last days before Moroccan independence, Bowles's second novel is an alternately comic and horrific account of a descent into nihilism.
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1
This one's about a bored New York bank teller 30-something man. He's got a friend who lives in Morocco, Tangiers, who has a travel agency. He thinks he's got a job to go to there, working for him, but it's not the kind of job he has in mind. He's very naive. He should never have smoked or inbibed hashish. Not everybody can handle drugs.
Nelson Dyar is really a loathsome character, witness what his youth was like:
"occasionally he would go out with two or three of his friends, each one taking a girl. They would have cocktails at the apartment of one of the girls, go on to a Broadway movie, and eat afterward at some Chinese place in the neighborhood where there was dancing. Then there was the long process of taking the girls home one by one, after which they usually went into a bar and drank fairly heavily. Sometimes, not very often, they would pick up something cheap in the bar or in the street, take her to Bill healy's room, and lay her in turn."
See what I mean about being misogynistic?
Dyar meats Daisy Valverde in Tangier, a marquessa. She's really a good woman, and friendly, and actually tries to save Dyar's life in the end. But he won't have it.
He finds out from her that his "friend" Jack, with the travel agency, has no way possible to pay him as an employee:
" 'Jack told me you were coming, but somehow I never thought you'd actually arrive.'
'why not?' He felt a little better now.
'Oh, you know. Such things have a way of not coming off. Frightfully good idea that Misses fire. And then, of course, I can't see really why Jack needs anyone there in that little office.'
'you mean it's not doing well?' He tried to keep his voice even.
She laid a hand on his arm and laughed. As though she were imparting a rather shameful secret, she said in a low voice: 'my dear, if you think he makes even his luncheon money there, you're gravely mistaken.'
She was studying him too carefully, trying to see the effect of her words. He would refuse to react. He felt hot all over, but did not speak. Hugo entered carrying a tray of bottles and glasses. They both took brandy, and he set the tray down on a table at Dyar's elbow and went out.
She was still looking at him.
'Oh, it's not going well,' he said. He would not say what he was sure she was waiting for him to say: how does he keep going?
'not at all. It never has.'
'I'm sorry to hear that,'said Dyar.
'There's no need to be. If it had gone well I daresay he wouldn't have sent for you. He'd have had just about all he could manage by himself. As it is, I expect he needs you far more.' "
Though daisy Valverde is the only one who is being kind to him, and trying to tell him the truth about Jack winston, the author still insists on having dyar's character be a misogynistic pendejo:
"he kept looking at her. She was too old, that was all. Every now and then, in the midst of the constantly changing series of expressions assumed by the volatile features, there was a dead instant when he saw the still, fixed disappointment of age beneath [the marquesa is 40-something]. It chilled him. He thought of the consistency of Hadija's flesh and skin [a sex worker], telling himself that to do so was scarcely just; the girl was not more than 16. Still, there were the facts. He considered the compensation of character and worldly refinement, but did they really count for much? He was inclined to think not, in such cases. 'nothing doing there,' he thought. Or perhaps yes, if he had a lot of liquor in him. But why bother? He wondered why the idea had ever come to him, at all. There was no reason to think it had occurred to her, for that matter, save that he was sure it had."
eunice goode is an American living in Tanger who has money, and is competing with dyar for hadija's affection:
"when dyar came into the room Eunice goode looked at him and said to herself that even as a girl she would not have found him attractive. She had liked imposing men, such as her father had been. This one was not at all distinguished in appearance. He did not look like an actor or a statesman or an artist, nor yet like a workman, a businessman or an athlete. For some reason she thought he looked rather like a wire-haired terrier -- alert, eager, suggestible. The sort of male, she reflected with a stab of anger, who can lead girls around by the nose, without even being domineering, the sort whose maleness is unnoticeable and yet so thick it becomes cloying as honey, the sort that makes no effort and is thereby doubly dangerous. Except that being accustomed to an ambiance of feminine adulation makes them as vulnerable, as easily crushed, as spoiled children are. You let them think that you too are taken in by their charm, you entice them further and further out on that rotten limb. Then you jerk out the support and let them fall."
How I wish I had the talent and cognition to do this when I was young, before I ended up hating men for using me.
Daisy Valverde gives us the history of meeting her husband, the marquis, Luis. He's a mujeriego, but that's okay when you have money ( I guess ).
"... the man was magnificent, she decided, and it was not surprising that from being inseparable friends they soon turned to be being passionate lovers. Daisy was slightly over 30, her face radiant with a healthy, strident kind of beauty that perfectly suited her statuesque figure. It was inevitable that a man like Luis should fall in love with her, that having done so he should perceive much more in her character than he had suspected, and thus determined to marry her, in order to own her completely. It was also inevitable that once having added her to his list of possessions he should cease to be in love with her, but Daisy knew this beforehand and did not care, because she also knew that she would never cease to admire him, whatever he might do, and she was sure she would be able to keep him, which for her, an eminently practical woman, was after all the main consideration."
Hm.
It's too bad the character of dyar didn't pay more attention to his one true friend, daisy. (