The Spider’s House

I recently read Paul Bowles’ novel The Spider’s House, which brought me to the end of the first volume of Bowles in the Library of America. It’s Bowles’ longest novel, and describes a violent uprising against the French that took place in Fez in 1954. Remarkably, he lost no time at all in turning current events into fiction: the book itself was begun in 1954 and completed the following year.

("The first draft is the final draft,” Bowles said about his writing methods. “I can’t revise. I should qualify that by saying I first write in longhand, and then same day, or the next day, I type the longhand. There are always many changes between the longhand and the typed version, but that first typed sheet is part of the final sheet. There’s no revision.")

One doesn’t read Bowles for the laughs, but there was at least one passage in The Spider’s House that was meant to be funny (I think), and was. Stenham, the American protagonist, speaks fluent Arabic and is familiar with Moroccan culture, but the stories of his friend Si Jaffar still perplex him.

“Do you understand our nonsense?” he asked Stenham.

“I understand the words, yes. But --”

“I shall explain the story Ahmed just told. The legionnaire liked the lantern, but he imagined he could buy it for a hundred rial. You know what figs are?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the Filali had filled the lantern with figs, and his wife had hidden her bracelet at the bottom of the basket, so that the figs covered it up. That was why the Jew didn’t see it when he put his head under the bed. You see? If he had had time before the legionnaire knocked at the door he would have taken all the figs out, but of course there was no time. That’s what the Filali meant when he said: ‘A young eucalyptus tree cannot be expected to give the shade of an old fig tree.’ You follow this?”

“Yes,” Stenham said uncertainly; he was expecting some further clue which might connect all the parts.

Si Jaffar looked pleased. “And that’s the reason the Filali’s wife had to dress up as a slave of the Khalifa. If she had allowed the Jew to guess her identity, he would have told the legionnaire, of course, and made his commission, which as you remember was fifty percent. I don’t know whether you are acquainted with young eucalyptus trees? Their leaves are very narrow and small. So that what the Jew said to the Filali’s wife was a compliment of a high order. But it was really only flattery, not sincere, you understand?”

By now Stenham understood absolutely nothing of the story, but he smiled and nodded his head.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, my mother and Jenn and I visited Albany’s amazing Dove & Hudson Old Books, where I picked up a copy of Bowles’ autobiography Without Stopping. It’s said to be rather unrevealing (William S. Burroughs said it should be called Without Telling), but I look forward to it nonetheless.