Caponi, Gena Dagel (Bowles, Paul)

Paul Bowles: Romantic Savage

ISBN: 0809319233
Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994. First Edition. Hardcover. Described by its author as an "interpretive biography," Caponi's "Paul Bowles: Romantic Savage" aims "...to penetrate the underlying imaginative structures common to all and then to link them to a larger cultural context." In crafting the work, Caponi "...relied heavily on Bowles' autobiography, "Without Stopping," to a great extent. I have done so for two reasons: first, through family letters, newspaper clippings, and his friends, I have been able to confirm many of the events he relates, enough to lead me to believe that the autobiography is largely trustworthy. In various interviews and conversations, Bowles repeated most of the same details the autobiography contains, yet "Without Stopping" is a deliberately constructed autobiography, firmly intended to present a particular persona, and no other, to the reader. I read the autobiography as another of Bowles's (sic) finely crafted fictions, and I analyze it alongside the fiction to understand the imagination that created both." (from Preface). So writes Gena Dagel Caponi, author of this most interesting work on the great Paul Bowles' life and work. While writing of "cultural context" may give a discerning reader the whiff of some standardized analytical constructions to be at the heart of this work, Caponi's scholarly efforts to record Bowles--particularly when considering the impressive roster of people she interviewed to assemble "Romantic Savage"--beckon the reader find out for themselves. Among those interviewed were such luminaries as Gore Vidal and Ira Cohen--the latter of which would have a particularly informed understanding of and viewpoint on Bowles, who is still today regarded as one of the greatest fiction writers of the twentieth-century. Bowles--like William S. Burroughs--is of uniquely kaleidoscope intrigue; the type of writer and thinker who must be examined exhaustively, a globetrotting talent of perpetual fascination. Though a man of his milieu and no longer hosting the conveyor belt of disciples who came to visit him at his home in Tangier, Bowles is of equal worth to those who come to him now as he has ever been. Book in very fine condition, virtually as new. Dust-jacket also in very fine condition, virtually as new. Very Fine / Very Fine. [Item #3915]

Price: $45.00