Paul Bowles (1) (1910–1999)

Considerada como una de las 100 mejores novelas del siglo xx, El cielo protector narra el viaje al desierto del Sáhara de Port Moresby y su esposa Kit, acompañados de su amigo Tunner. Organizado inicialmente como una forma de salvar el matrimonio, el viaje se convertirá en una pesadilla. Llegados de Nueva York, los tres protagonistas chocarán con una realidad para ellos incomprensible donde nada es nunca lo que parece y que les llevará a descubrir en sí mismos la profundidad del mal que anida en todo corazón humano. Como dijo Tennessee Williams, ésta es «una novela salvaje y aterradora, una alegoría del hombre y sus desiertos».… (mer)

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.… (mer)