Another pale American is exposed to the hot breath of an alien
civilization in what seems to be a weary and rather distasteful
variant of The Sheltering Sky Like Tennessee Williams' ??deeadent
ladies, Mr. Bowles' protagonists are made to be smashed, or rather
dissolved, in their amoebie ambulations toward oblivion. Dyar, a
former cipher in a New York bank, in a vacant movement to relieve
the pain of a bleak, stale beer existence, ??Grifts to Tangiers,
presumably to assist a former acquaintance, Wilcox, in his "travel
agency". Dyar soon discovers, however, that in the tangled business
and social relationships in the steaming city, he is again acted
upon rather than acting. Wilcox, involved ?? illegal sterling
traffic draws Dyar into undercover messenger work; "Uncle Goode", a
??cious lesbian, keeping Hadija, a young prostitute, works to
eliminate Dyar, who is interested in Hadija, by a spy fix; and
Daisy, a middle-aged, fascinated commentator on the ??strous, the
unreal, tries to force him into being, to reality. Although warned
by ??Daisy to be careful, "that vacuums have a tendency to fill
up", Dyar, through the transporting exhilaration of hashish,
??absconds with a briefcase full of Wilcox's money, and ?? a
drugged climax murders his Moslem companion, finding at the last
the "precise relationship with the rest of men.... created by him".
There are a few scenes, brilliant in ??line, startling in movement
- for example, a bedroom tussle with Daisy, both globuled ??with
warm food and wine from an overturned tray and the maddened orgy of
the murder. Such more sensational than the rather muted Sheltering
Sky, morbidly intriguing in its ??racing of the hashish
??phantasmagoria, this- with its withered people, heavy symbolism
??and sickroom decay, makes the reader hope this is a final gilding
of the dying lily school. Not our dish. (Kirkus Reviews)
Leaving his uneventful life in America behind him, Nelson Dyer sails to Tangier to take up work in a travel agency run by an old acquaintance Jack Wilcox. From his arrival he begins to explore the dark underworld of the city; its bars and brothels, its erotic film shows and suspect financial arrangements; its aristocracy and its prostitutes. Determined to make something happen in his new life, he is drawn into a series of increasingly sinister events from which there seems little chance of escape.
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