A natural born drifter: Paul Bowles\'s writings as diasporic spaces

FROM BRAZIL TO MACAO Travel Writing and Diasporic Spaces Editors

Alcinda Pinheiro de Sousa Luísa Flora Teresa Malafaia Co-editors

Ana Daniela Coelho Inês Morais Cover Design

Inês Mateus Work Cover

Biombo Namban, século XVII [1603-1610] Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga. Photo by Francisco Matias Edition

Centro de Estudos Anglísticos da Universidade de Lisboa University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies Printing and Finishing

Europress - Indústria Gráfica Print Run 150 copies ISBN 978-972-8886-24-0 Legal Deposit 368900/13 2013

PUBLICATION SPONSORED BY

FUNDAÇÃO PARA A CIÊNCIA E A TECNOLOGIA

From Brazil to Macao Travel Writing and Diasporic Spaces

Editors

Alcinda Pinheiro de Sousa, Luísa Flora and Teresa Malafaia Co-editors

Ana Daniela Coelho and Inês Morais Preface by

Tim Youngs Introduction

Alcinda Pinheiro de Sousa and Teresa Malafaia

CD Contents / Conteúdos Essays / Ensaios

I. África e Portugal — viagens e topografias identitárias: deslocamentos, errâncias e representações discursivas Introdução Inocência Mata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

81

A viagem na reconstrução das identidades em tempos de guerra: uma leitura comparada entre A Costa dos Murmúrios de Lídia Jorge e Ventos do Apocalipse, de Paulina Chiziane Débora Leite David

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89

Literatura e imprensa nas relações Ibero-Afro-Brasileiras: percurso de uma escritora viajante Elisabeth Batista

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99

De Muhipiti a “Lisabona”: a inadiável viagem da poesia Jessica Falconi

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107

A viagem como criação de sentido: topografias do Sul Lola Geraldes Xavier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

117

O mundo e o cais: “Cosmopolitismo periférico” na literatura caboverdiana Roberto Francavilla

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127

Moçambique mon amour: o mito do eterno retorno Sheila Khan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

137

On another road: women travelling to other centres Vicky Hartnack

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149

II. Discovering and disclosing: landscapes in the discourses of explorers and tourists Introdução Eduardo Brito-Henriques

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175

Travel books and scientific explorations: from body to theory Ana Francisca de Azevedo

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179

Paradise, plenitude, savagery, and sin: traveller’s tales of Amazonia, 16th century to the present Anna T. Browne Ribeiro

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189

The discourse of high-tech tourists and the change of perceptual paradigm in travel writing Anna Maj

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203

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CD CONTENTS / CONTEÚDOS

If this is Thursday then this must be Aubervilliers – La Courneuve reading Roissy Express as a travelogue Emilia Ljungberg

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219

Views about Southeast Asia: social representations built by Portuguese young people during their stay in Macao Inês Pessoa

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231

III. Ao encontro do outro: viajantes estrangeiros em Portugal Introdução João Paulo Pereira da Silva / Maria Zulmira Castanheira

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243

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249

Ronald Bodley: a dramática história da fuga de um inglês para Lisboa Ana Isabel Calado

William e Elizabeth Younger sob o luar de Portugal Carla Sofia Vieira

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261

Imagens de Portugal em Journal of a Lady of Quality Catarina Crespo Coelho Correia de Castro

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271

O Portugal Finissecular (1889-1890): a visão de um americano Isabel Oliveira Martins

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283

Alguns traços dos percursos lusitanos de William Kingston: imagens de Portugal Maria da Conceição Emiliano Castel-Branco

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297

Mosaico de si: John Berger, um viandante em Lisboa Maria de Deus Duarte

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311

O Portugal de Roy Campbell Maria do Rosário Lupi Bello

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323

Retrato da sociedade portuguesa num relato britânico da primeira metade de Oitocentos: do desenho à palavra Maria Zulmira Castanheira

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335

A viagem em família: motivações e condicionantes. O caso de Portugal; or, the Young Travellers (1830) Marina Calado

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349

Their own private Portugal: the travel guides of Rose Macaulay and Ann Bridge Marlene Baldwin Davis

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359

Ut pictura poesis: Sintra romântica na encruzilhada das artes Miguel Alarcão

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371

The beginning of a century, the end of an era: the Portuguese seen by two English travellers (1908-1909) Ricardo Marques

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387

Macau in the early 1840’s: the unpublished “Chinese Diary” (1841-1842) of Mary Parry Sword (1812-1845) Rogério Miguel Puga

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397

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CD CONTENTS / CONTEÚDOS

IV. Between worlds: the Americas at the crossroads of the seas Introduction Teresa F. A. Alves / Teresa Cid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411 Configuração alternativa de lugar, identidade e linguagem em Their Hands are Green and Their Heads are Blue, de Paul Bowles Anabela Duarte

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415

America in the post-1989 Romanian travel writing: an analysis of Stelian Tănase’s travelogue L.A. vs. N.Y. American Diary Costinela Drăgan

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427

Boston-Ponta Delgada 1815 Edgardo Medeiros Silva

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437

El terreno. An island within an island. Visions of travellers on a southern neighbourhood. Eduard Moyà Antón

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451

A Natural born drifter: Paul Bowles’s writings as diasporic spaces Hermínia Sol

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459

Ver-se no outro: brasileiros relatam suas viagens nos EUA na virada do século XIX Karen Macknow Lisboa

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469

Alexander Mackenzie’s Voyages: Indians, the fur trade and Northwest expansion Robert Sayre

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483

Rewriting travel literature: a cosmopolitan critique of exoticism in contemporary Latin American fiction Rosario Hubert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

495

V. As Ilhas Britânicas: viajando em, para e de. Imagens, discursos de viagens, identidades: do século XIX até ao presente Introduction Luísa Maria Flora

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507

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511

Camões the Traveller Landeg White

Travelling in the short story: sketching, reporting and storytelling Alda Correia

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525

Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World: A voyage towards hope Adelaide Meira Serras

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535

A taste of the “Spicy Subcontinent”: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Mistress of Spices Ana Cristina Mendes

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549

Património e paisagem nos relatos de viagem: o Alentejo no século XVIII Antónia Fialho Conde

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561

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CD CONTENTS / CONTEÚDOS

India Calling: Relatos de viagens na autobiografia de Cornelia Sorabji Cristina Baptista

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573

Percursos em Diálogo: o Ensaio Ficcional de Virginia Woolf Joana Vidigal

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585

An involuntary apprenticeship in the interpretation of Japan Maria José Pires

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595

The revealing voyage of Jaime Batalha Reis in the fin-de-siècle England Vanda Rosa

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607

VII. Mapping the voyage: cartography as Travel Narrative Introduction Francisco Contente Domingues

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615

Looking for the land in the sky and the sea: Early 16th century Portuguese Roteiros and Diários de Navegação and the recognition of Southern African Coast Ana Cristina Roque

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621

VIII. Modos, géneros e discursos da Literatura de Viagens de Língua Portuguesa Introdução A. P. Laborinho / J. D. Pinto Correia

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649

Dos Estados Unidos da América ao Oriente: as viagens de Mendonça e Costa no início do século XX Ana Cardoso de Matos / Elói de Figueiredo Ribeiro

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653

Conto “A Viagem” de Sophia de Mello Breyner: a orfandade do desejo na diáspora dos lugares Gilda Nunes Barata

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667

Miguel Torga: a África colonial e a sua percepção do outro Isabel Maria Fidalgo Mateus

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677

A “Mala para o Brasil” — correspondência eciana na imprensa carioca (1880-1882) Isabel Trabucho

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697

O descobrimento dos sentidos na Peregrinação Maria Alice Arruda Ferreira Gomes

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709

Paisagens femininas nos orientes de Wenceslau de Moraes Marta Pacheco Pinto

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727

Gabriela: esporos do Novo Mundo no Portugal contemporâneo Roque Pinto

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743

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CD CONTENTS / CONTEÚDOS

IX. Travelling as requirement and instrument of labour — Forms of transhumance, conveyance and mobility around space-time in the making of science and of art Introduction Anabela Mendes

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761

Mobility in knowledge through translation in Medieval and Renaissance Europe Ana Maria Bernardo

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765

Neptuno contra Vulcano? Representação estética e geognósica em Johann Wolfgang von Goethe e Alexander von Humboldt Anabela Mendes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

779

Diasporic spaces: an exile’s view of Brazil – Richard Katz’s Brazilian Travel Books Jennifer E. Michaels

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791

O mundo natural das Índias nos relatos dos viajantes medievais: o testemunho de Jordan Catala de Sévérac Teresa Nobre de Carvalho

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803

X. Real, fictional and fantastic geography in the ancient and the modern world Introduction Marília P. Futre Pinheiro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 817 Colin Thubron’s Journey Into Cyprus; or a journey into the tunnel of greek-cypriot and turkish-cypriot tension Eroulla Demetriou / José Ruiz Mas

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821

O sentido da demanda e da viagem na Epopeia de Gilgameš Francisco Caramelo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

831

A viagem iniciática de Lúcio n’ O burro de ouro Leonor Santa Bárbara

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841

Curiositas e mirabilia n’ As Maravilhas de Além Tule de António Diógenes Vítor Ruas

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849

XI. Línguas Navegantes Introdução Ivo Castro

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861

Espacios exóticos: el Libro del Infante Don Pedro – Motivos y circulación Carmen Mejía Ruiz / María Victoria Navas Sánchez-Élez

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865

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887

Un bárbaro en Asia, el viaje a Oriente de Henri Michaux Rocío Peñalta Catalán

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CD CONTENTS / CONTEÚDOS

XII. Dialogues across borders: discovering the other, rethinking space Introduction Isabel Fernandes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 901 Four shipwrecks: travelling as an image of life in “The Wanderer”, “The Seafarer” and Hopkins’s “The Wreck of the Deutschland” and “The Loss of the Eurydice” Fernando Barragão

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903

White lies and black peril: traveling women in southern Africa Margaret Hanzimanolis

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915

Sir Walter Raleigh and Guiana: a mysterious search, a metaphorical discovery Maria de Jesus Crespo Candeias Velez Relvas

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929

A natural born drifter: Paul Bowles’s writings as diasporic spaces HERMÍNIA SOL Instituto Politécnico de Tomar

ISBN 978-972-8886-24-0 • FROM BRAZIL TO MACAO • CEAUL / ULICES 2013

P

aul Bowles’s peripatetic life-style has been significantly considered by critics and admirers alike. Though not the only artist affected by the travelling bug, he was one of the very few that, in the 20th century, broke away from the beaten paths of the European and American traditions by exploring the rhizomatic nature of cross cultural relations, which ultimately became one of the most predominant and recognisable features of his work. Being a nonconformist in puritanical United States, he succumbed to the bohemian call of 1930’s Europe and, subsequently, to the allure of North Africa. The disaffection that he felt towards his home country and his lack of hope in Western civilization in general, led him to map and explore imaginary worlds in his fictional writing. The outcome of Bowles fictional venture is a number of stories and novels that violate stylistic and thematic conventions and that, simultaneously, present civilization, culture, and security as a set of fictions supported by “the larger fiction of society” (Pinker 156). In other words, Bowles perceived society as a mere scaffold, a fictitious structure that has been built “over the millennia” with the purpose of making us feel protected but that, in reality, “can collapse at any moment” (Bowles, The Art 122). This extreme standpoint, along with a style that is in itself transgressive of genre boundaries, has relegated him to literary isolation because his writing was viewed as difficult to place and define. However, a closer look into his work may lead us to believe that, in fact, Bowles’s isolation was self imposed. All along he was aware of his marginal status; only instead of fighting it, he cherished it because the centre viewed from the margins made for an interesting exercise in perspective. Furthermore, writing allowed him to create, tour and document different geographies as well as, ultimately, find his diasporic space in his literary productions. A considerable part of Bowles’s fiction involves the act of travelling, which in itself is a common enough topos in Western tradition. However, Bowles uses the act of travelling as a way of validating the existence of rhizomatic realities and backing his effort to depict different and atypical world views. Such is the case of the three texts proposed for analysis — the short story “You Have Left Your Lotus Pods on the Bus,” the narrative piece “Things Gone and Things Still Here” and the travel essay “Madeira”. Strictly speaking they are not travel literature

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pieces, yet they function as operative and resourceful tropes that allow Bowles to explore the polyvalence of the word travel. This can be clearly perceived if we, like Joseph Voelker, consider that he posits the initial stage of the journey in the act of reading itself (30). A case in point is “You Have Left Your Lotus Pods on the Bus” [1977], which deals with common enough Bowlesian themes — cross-cultural relations, miscommunication and alienation. All the same, this story is one where the practice of cultural anthropology is most felt in Bowles fictional style, seeing that the signs of foreignness are perceived as a text available for perusal. This not only testifies to Bowles’s fondness for the scrutiny of foreign cultures, but it can also be interpreted as an indicator of the many inquiries he underwent “in order to dismantle or clarify or simplify the cultural texts inside himself” (Voelker 27). In this story, the readers are introduced to two Americans in Bangkok, a tourist (the narrator) and a Fulbright Fellow, whose acquaintance with three Thai monks, with good enough English to hold a conversation, takes them on a “Sunday outing” to Ayudhaya, a tourist destination in the outskirts of Bangkok. Given the constraints that social gatherings of this sort imply, both groups feel compelled, out of politeness and out of curiosity, to make conversation and, consequently, inquire about certain aspects of each others’ cultures. This, of course, makes for several humorous moments since a number of gaffes, mainly generated by the American party, tend to accumulate. For the sake of brevity I shall only consider two of those moments. The most prominent is, perhaps, when one of the monks, just minutes after having been acquainted with the narrator, asks him about the significance of neckties: “… I have noticed that some men wear the two ends equal, and some wear the wide end longer than the narrow, or the narrow longer than the wide. And the neckties themselves, they are not all the same length, are they? Some even with both ends equal reach below the waist. What are the different meanings?” “There is no meaning,” I said. “Absolutely none.” “… I believe you, of course,” he [the monk] said graciously. “But we all thought each way had a different significance attached.” (Bowles, You Have Left 481).

The other moment is the chronicle of their journey back from Ayudhaya, on a bus, where they are made to endure in agony the constant screaming of a Thai passenger, whom they immediately take for a drunk or madman, on a back seat. Puzzled and annoyed by the stoical attitude of the remaining passengers to all

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the noise, the narrator asks one of the monks: “What was he saying?” “Oh, he was saying: ‘Go into second gear,’ or ‘We are coming to a bridge,’ or ‘Be careful, people in the road.’ Whatever he saw. (…). All the buses must have a driver’s assistant. He watches the road and tells the driver how to drive. It is hard work because he must shout loud enough for the driver to hear him.” “But why doesn’t he sit up in front with the driver?” “No, no. There must be one in front and one in the back. That way two men are responsible for the bus” (Bowles, You Have Left 486).

Despite the humorous tone, the situations portrayed are of cultural tension since social interaction between the Eastern and Western characters is affected by cultural differences. As an effort to overcome the sense of alienation that derives from being in a new setting and/or socialising with strangers, they attempt to decipher the signs and symbols of the Other’s culture, thus typifying human obsession with symbolic systems and the search for meaning. By trying to read the alien culture, they embody Clifford Geertz analogy of “culture-as-text”. That is, the notion “that a foreign culture must be thought of as a text to be read” (Voelker 27). However, both groups fail their interpretative quest because meaning is not an empathic phenomenon (Zong 33). Instead, meaning and cultural value are “matters of psychological constitution” (ib., 34) for they encapsulate abstract and complex contents of an arbitrary nature. Therefore, any attempt to attribute meaning that might be made outside one’s culture can only be diagnostic, conjectural, and prognostic (Carmelo 95) since it will necessarily be mediated by the rules of meaning attribution and interpretation available in the interpreter’s culture. Consequently, “no culture is translatable into the terms of another” (Voelker 27). The fact that Bowles tends “to constantly re-enact this paradigm of failed decipherment” (ib., 26), due to the limits of interpretation, appears to indicate that he agrees with this thesis. For Bowles, cultural value patterns are neither linear nor universal. They are heterogeneous and rhizomatic because they are made of plateaus, in the Deleuzian sense — multiple, circular and interpenetrative realities without a central agency (Deleuze & Guattari 19-24). It is no wonder, then, that he finds the idea of mapping so appealing because “[t]he rhizome is … a map and not a tracing. (…).The map is open land connectable in all of its dimensions; it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification” (ib., 13). It possesses the kind of plasticity that Bowles was so fond of. As for “Things Gone and Things Still Here,” [1976] it exemplifies the experimental mood Bowles underwent in a later stage of his literary career.

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Probably motivated by the many translations of Moroccan storytellers he had engaged in from the late 1960s onwards (Maier 255), this piece emerges as a collage-like account of Magical Morocco (Caponi 115). Of a genre-less kind, it violates “most conceptions of civilized [Western] society” (Pinker 163). It can be defined as a semi-fictional retelling of folk stories with Proustian overtones. It relies heavily on memory and, apart from reminding readers of things past, it also dares them to “find and decode an atavistic text” (Voelker 26). This is quite challenging since the references to a modus vivendi that involves the coexistence of human and magical elements “are hard to imagine out of context” (Pinker 158). In addition, Western readers are transported to a world that “lies outside the bounds of rational explanation” (Hibbard 100) as it is populated by spirits, brotherhoods, ancient Moroccan figures, and people who underwent metamorphosis. A case in point are the Djenoun (plural of Djinn), spirits whose “habitat is only a few feet below our, and is an exact duplication of the landscape aboveground. (…) The trouble occurs when they emerge and take on human or animal form, for they are our traditional enemies, an alien tribe always on the lookout for an opportunity to infiltrate our ranks, …” (Bowles, Things Gone 416-17). In the same piece, one will also find accounts of the practice of black magic: If you go to the outskirts of any town, (…), and dig in the earth under certain trees, you will come upon a knife. (…). There are many of them, …, and each one is clasped shut on a scrap of paper. Even though you open every knife you find, each time releasing a man from the spell of some accursed woman, still you are not going to spend all your time doing good turns for a whole group of men you have never known … (416-17).

To Western and/or westernised minds, the way of thinking present in these extracts is devoided of both logic and reason. Hence, they tend to be perceived as superstition and, consequently, as evidence of backwardness and primitiveness. Texts like these led to some friction between Bowles and Moroccan Nationalists, in the post independence period, precisely because they disturbed the Nationalists’ yearning for modernity (meaning westernisation). This incident illustrates the Shakespearian metaphor of Prospero and Caliban — used by the Portuguese social scientist Boaventura de Sousa Santos when dealing with the idiosyncrasies of nationalism within post-colonial discourse (34-6) — because Moroccan nationalist elites’ determination to ascend from Caliban to Prospero involves the suppression of North African supernaturalism and the imposition of Western rationalism (ib., 34-5). Also, part of the controversy these texts generated, and still generate, comes from the impossibility of reaching a conclusion regarding Bowles’s intentions. Was he trying to preserve a set of ancient knowledges from being wiped

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out by the forces of westernisation or was he, in fact, reinforcing Morocco’s image as an underdeveloped country? Is this the voice of an anthropologist or of a colonialist? Gena D. Caponi defends that he might have been a cultural traditionalist but he showed no sympathy for colonial ideas about North Africa (108). Likewise, he has never hidden his opposition towards nationalist views and policies that were later adopted in post-independence Morocco. In fact, he seemed to be well aware that anti-colonial emancipation does not support itself solely on pre-colonial practices or on the imitation of Western liberal ideals. The desire to ascend from Caliban to Prospero has to be carefully managed so that a balance between homogeneity and fragmentation, the two forces that support the notion of national identity, may be reached (Santos 34-5). Thus, once again, Bowles acts as the anthropologist collecting the myths and rituals of what he defines as “the natural man” (Bowles, The Art 90) while, simultaneously, exposing Western readers to their atavistic origins. In fact, a bolder interpretation may suggest that Bowles takes up a Prospero-like stance by exploiting “the magical effect of the story on the reader” (Hibbard 107). As a writer, he holds the power and lures the readers into “an order of reality (…) strange to the point of being other-wordly” (Pinker 191). Finally, the inclusion of a travel essay — or travel reportage as Bowles preferred to designate them — such as “Madeira” [1960] is aimed at confirming Bowles’s use of the act of travelling to report on cultural variability from an ethnological stance. “Madeira” results from his long lasting cooperation with Holiday Magazine (an American travel magazine) and evidences Bowles literary eclecticism. He produced travel and journalistic pieces for several periodicals, which secured him “a steady income, allowing him to write about places he liked, while also affording him the opportunity to make astute, often critical observations on the customs and culture of various peoples” (Sawyer-Lauçanno 346). All the same, he never considered himself to be a travel writer neither was he particularly fond of this genre (Caponi 104; Voelker 28; Stewart 2), which he perceived as somewhat futile. This might explain his refusal to follow the genre’s conventions. Since the travel essay appeals mostly to a tourist audience, hence less demanding, he adopted a quasi Michael Palin style. He combined historical overview with empiricism by gathering information from encyclopaedias, guidebooks and brochures, and from his personal experience on the island. It is written in the first person singular, direct speech dots the narrative, and pictures illustrate it, so as to facilitate interaction with the readers. Yet, Bowles emphasizes reading rather than sightseeing by exploring, once more, “the theme of culture-as-text” (Voelker 28-9). Only, this time, the author will be commenting on a western country.

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This essay, whose original title was “The Picture on the Calendar,” was written during a visit to Madeira that Paul Bowles made in 1959. Despite the “lightness” of this type of essays, it exemplifies Bowles’s concern for accuracy (by doing a thorough research into his subject) as well as his acute observation skills (by punctuating his narrative with covert impressions on the Portuguese dictatorial regime). Bowles displays a favourable opinion on the Portuguese island and on the Madeirans, which he defines as “a strong hybrid people” of Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Moslem, Jewish and African ascendancy. Being a critical observer, he draws attention to the fact that Madeira is a cheap tourist destination for British people and criticizes their imperial attitude towards Madeirans, which, according to him, is very different from that of American tourists: Few English visiting Madeira have any interest in the place itself. The inhabitants, except for servants and vendors, might as well not be there. (…) Beyond certain material benefits their continued presence has brought the country, they have had little effect on the Madeirans. (…). How different the island would be today if all this time its tourists had been Americans! For Americans ask questions: How much? Why this? What’s that? The ideas set in motion by their constant interrogations would probably have set in motion a social revolution long ago (Bowles, “Madeira” 121).

One cannot fail to see the parallel between this statement and the attitude of the two American characters of “You Have Left Your Lotus Pods on the Bus.” Just like Bowles, they do mingle with the locals and ask several questions in an attempt to decipher the cultural text they have before them. Nevertheless, and despite Bowles’s wishful thinking, their attitude can hardly be understood as a trigger for social change. The negative impact of tourism on the island is also approached. The maintenance of certain cultural traditions for the sake of the tourists’ enjoyment is subtly condemned: As it is, the old habitués find the island as it always was. Even the various antiquated means of transport have been retained for them: decorated oxledges (…), hand-guided toboggans (…), and even hammocks … (Bowles, “Madeira”121).

However, perhaps the aspect that Bowles finds most appalling is the resignation with which most Madeirans approach the strenuous life they lead, the little pay they get and the seclusion they live in. Though not entirely unaware of the Portuguese political situation at the time, Bowles is never blatant about it. Instead he provides clues for the reader to understand the climate of passive resistance that seemed to envelop the islanders. For instance, in a conversation with a peasant, he learns that Madeirans tend to take this kind of life as a given

A natural born drifter: Paul Bowles’s writings as diasporic spaces

for only a few fortunate ones can reverse this situation by emigrating. “[A]nd this change of homeland is often referred to as ‘seeking refuge’. The refuge is purely economic, but they don’t specify that” (Bowles, “Madeira” 120). Likewise, readers are informed of “[t]he size of the police force (…); there is a whole army of them loose in the town [Funchal] at night.” He adds up to the ideas of restriction of movement and fear instigation by specifying that “[t]hey loom in recessed doorways, solemn-faced figures in black, just standing, looking at the dead street. (…). Apart from the police, there is no one at all. (…) Everyone is at home with the blinds shut” (idem). All these hints conjure up the mysterious remark made by a Madeiran during Bowles’s first visit to the island and that remained in his mind — “A bird can light in the courtyard of a prison and fly away again without ever knowing where it has been” (Bowles, “Madeira” 65). Though different in genre, these three pieces attest Bowles predilection to operate in, what Boaventura de Sousa Santos calls, a “frontier space” — that liminal space “where it is only possible to experience the proximity of difference” (33). For Bowles, this is a rather comfortable place to be because it backs his belief on the futility of all semiotic enterprises (Voelker 29), while allowing him to shift between different points of view (without ever claiming to fully know the Other) and share them with is readers. In fact, it is almost safe to say that Bowles inhabits that marginal space. It is his diasporic space, created and mapped for and by himself. He emphasises that idea by focusing on the impossibility of translation between oral and written worlds, between western and non-western, and between irrationality and logic. By positioning himself in the margins he seems to engage in the transfer of discourse to the margins by evoking non-western realities and suggesting that all cultures are rhizomatic. There is no such thing as a ‘western or eastern temperament.’ Instead, there are different people and different culture influenced behaviours. These texts do not intend to be an image of the world we think we know. On the contrary, these texts form a rhizome with the world.

Works Cited Bowles, Paul. “Interview with Paul Bowles.” Conversations with Paul Bowles. Ed. Gena Dagel Caponi. Literary Conversations Series. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1993. 86—101. ———. “Madeira.” Holiday 28, no. 3 Sept. 1960: 62-67, 118-124. ———. “The Art of Fiction LXVII: Paul Bowles.” Conversations with Paul Bowles. Ed. Gena

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