Up Above the World, (Paperback)

from PhilSyphe

Read this as part of my MA degree. It's one of those tales that's good in parts rather than on the whole. The plot has little going on but it is believable. Certain mundane events were not boring because the author's use of language made everything vivid. He's especially good at evoking the sens...

from blake.rosser

My immediate reaction is ambivalence. I was annoyed and disappointed that the story little resembles the description on the back (or on this site), since the synopsis itself was intriguing. The narrative is choppy, and switching perspectives between 4 or 5 equally unsympathetic characters does li...

from giovannigf

Leaving aside that the Latin Americans in the novel are mere cartoony props (the closest to being a fully realized human is a feral Cuban whose main characteristics include non-stop smoking of marijuana and being wild in bed), the high points of the novel (hallucinatory fevers and creeping parano...

from dbsovereign

Creeps up on you. Eerie. Goose bumps. Bowles has a unique gift for portraying cutural disparity and just about drowning you in dread.

from SirRoger

I'm familiar with Paul Bowles' work as a composer of art song, but not as a novelist, so when I saw this book at Ken Sanders the other week, I was intrigued. The blurb on the back sets the scene: "On the terrace of an elaborate hilltop apartment overlooking a Central American capital, four people...