"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Rejecting chronology as the chief organizing element of her biography, Dillon interweaves the "facts"--mundane and extraordinary--of Bowles's life with both of her Moroccan journeys (the Jane project of 1977; the Paul project of '91), constructing his portrait through their conversations and her subsequent reflections. Such a prismatic approach indeed celebrates Bowles's obliquity as a subject. But then, Millicent Dillon is herself "...in search of a different kind of knowing--one that is consonant with secrecy, one that ... is more akin to the knowing one has of a character in a work of fiction." That unique teasing out of the truth makes You Are Not I an exploration of the form, biography, itself.
Bowles was born on Long Island. As a child he leaned toward musical composition and short story writing. In young adulthood, he would study with Aaron Copland, and later, mingle in Paris with the likes of Gertrude Stein, who advised him to journey to Morocco with Copland to work on music. He married Jane (in 1938); she had had affairs with women only; he'd had bisexual attachments. Paul continued his involvement with avant-garde music; Jane struggled with her novel, Two Serious Ladies. As he helped her, his old love of fiction was triggered, and in 1949, he published The Sheltering Sky, which became an international bestseller. After Jane Bowles's death, Paul's work life receded. It would be Bertolucci's film of The Sheltering Sky (1987) that delivered Bowles back into the public eye.
By risking subjectivity, placing herself firmly in the "process" of biography, Dillon becomes unwilling to make absolute statements about her subject. An annoying cacophony ensues--of impressions, of contradictory and elliptical conversations, the contents of which refuse to be assigned significance. But it's not entirely annoying, for the utter foreignness of Bowles's world flashes through. Along with the accounts of the continuous smoking of cannabis and cigarettes, we're given vivid glimpses of a uniquely bohemian life, carved out of exile.You Are Not I has everything--the romance of the far away; on- the-scene reporting of a place at once sensuous and creepy. It's a guide for those intrigued both with the form of biography and with the life of the writer who would come to fear going out in public; who needed to smoke kif (cannabis) to relieve his almost continuous anxiety; who "abhorred directness." And it is nothing less than a quest to solve some fundamental mystery about the self, as if Millicent Dillon got entangled in a Paul Bowles story and is compelled by the force of the narrative events to ride them through to there exhilarating, perhaps fatal, finish.
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Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 693722-n
Book Description PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # WF-9780520224933
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Book Description Condition: New. A biography of Paul Bowles, the famously enigmatic writer-composer. It questions the biographer's role, the subject's credibility, and the very nature of 'truth' in the telling of a life. It talks of Bowles' difficult childhood and of his grief over his wife's - the author Jane Bowles, who died in 1973 - illness, of exile, dreams, and madness. Num Pages: 354 pages, 15 b/w photographs. BIC Classification: 1KBB; 2ABM; AVH; BGF; DSBH; DSK. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 226 x 140 x 25. Weight in Grams: 467. . 2000. New Ed. Paperback. . . . . Seller Inventory # V9780520224933
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Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. A biography of Paul Bowles, the famously enigmatic writer-composer. It questions the biographer's role, the subject's credibility, and the very nature of 'truth' in the telling of a life. It talks of Bowles' difficult childhood and of his grief over his wife's - the author Jane Bowles, who died in 1973 - illness, of exile, dreams, and madness. Seller Inventory # B9780520224933
Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. 1.19. Seller Inventory # 0520224930-2-1
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 693722-n
Book Description Condition: New. A biography of Paul Bowles, the famously enigmatic writer-composer. It questions the biographer's role, the subject's credibility, and the very nature of 'truth' in the telling of a life. It talks of Bowles' difficult childhood and of his grief over his wife's - the author Jane Bowles, who died in 1973 - illness, of exile, dreams, and madness. Num Pages: 354 pages, 15 b/w photographs. BIC Classification: 1KBB; 2ABM; AVH; BGF; DSBH; DSK. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 226 x 140 x 25. Weight in Grams: 467. . 2000. New Ed. Paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9780520224933