“The Sheltering Sky” by Paul Bowles – The Emptiness Inside

The Sheltering Sky, by Paul Bowles, is a book which tells story of three American travelers wandering in the cities and deserts of North Africa during the Second World War. More precisely, we follow the adventures of Port and Kit, a couple entangled in a lifeless marriage, and their friend George Tunner, who decides to join them in their adventures more out of impulsiveness rather than anything else. 

While the trio had hoped their journey across North Africa would breathe life into them, nothing of the sort happened; rather, they just found themselves in another type of prison. 

As such, the trio decides to head out into the great reaches of the Sahara, where they make some interesting encounters, some of them being quite sinister. As time goes on, the three friends start wishing they had never set out on this adventure in the first place, for in the end, each one is subjected to a harrowing gauntlet.

I’ll try not to give away as much as possible as one of the great things about this book is discovering the events by yourself and drawing your own conclusions from them. Many things aren’t revealed outright, or are simply left up to your imagination. I believe that in the end, this story is an exploration of the workings of man’s soul. 

As the events pile on top of each other and make the characters increasingly miserable, they have no choice but to turn to themselves. You get to witness first-hand the transformation each one undergoes and the reasons for it happening. 

With that being said though, the book never really becomes a character study, focusing more on the story as well as general themes that come out of it. The characters in this book aren’t exactly as fleshed-out as you would expect them to be; as a matter of fact, they stand more as symbols than anything else and vehicles for the delivery of a message and the progression of the story.

All in all, it is a truly fascinating story to read, regardless of whether you are doing it for the entertainment value or trying to learn more about the human spirit. I definitely recommend it to anyone with a bit of time and thinking power on their hands.

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Paul Frederic Bowles  (December 30, 1910 – November 18, 1999) Personal site Living from 1910 to 1999, Paul Bowles was an American expatriate who made a living as a translator, composer and author. He honed his skills and knowledge of the world by traveling around it, inspiring many of his stories on what he saw, as is the case with one of his most famous novels, The Sheltering Sky, inspired by his visit to North Africa back in 1931.