The Sheltering Sky / Let It Come Down / The Spider's House

This is a distressing and disturbing story of two spoiled and ignorant Americans who travel to North Africa while attempting to salvage their marriage. It all goes horribly wrong, costing the man his life and the woman her sanity. I did not enjoy this novel, but felt guilty about not liking it more than I did. I suppose it???s about existential angst and culture clash and the enormity of the African sky, but it seemed to me to be about two people I would not have liked one bit doing incredibly stupid and reckless things and paying a very high price. The writing is excellent, and the descriptions evocative and powerful. But the novel is ultimately about venal, stupid, self-obsessed people behaving badly, and that isn???t interesting or meaningful or eternal or important. If it were an allegory of American involvement in the Middle East (which it is manifestly not, as it dates from 194) then it might be an interesting political commentary. As it is, it???s about spoiled, ignorant and idle fools going places they do not understand and cannot cope with, and losing everything as a consequence. Not fun to read, and no characters to like or care about (although they are well-drawn and realistic, they are also odious and hateful) I disliked this book a lot.

Dead words. Not female or male but a dry scenery of prose that stuck halfway between Andre Gide and some expansionist mentality. It technically works, it technically points to certain curves of human fate, which are always peculiar, but reading it feels like hard labour. Constant digging of stones, tunnels, exploration of caverns which are mysterious but filled with nothing but dust and gravel. Or: looking at paintings devoid of their inner glow; touching your sleepy face early in the morning.

An A+ novel.