Avoid the Orient 
Colm Tóibín
Long before the sin of Orientalism was discovered, Paul Bowles had frequently been guilty of it, in word, in thought and in deed. In his first stories, for example, the natives are shining examples of naked otherness, created partly to refresh our view concerning the mixture of simplicity, guile and sexual beauty available in remote places. The white heroes, on the other hand, are neurotic and complex. Against artless allure, they have technology and a gnarled consciousness. When left to their own devices, the natives are cruel and irrational, in need of guidance and tips and the wisdom of Western laws and the bright, clear line of Western narrative. Bowles’s trick as a narrator is to make each side as unreliable as the other. While one side merely look like animals, the others, travelling with money and attitude, act like animals whenever they can, or else feel sorry for themselves when opportunities to do so do not come in sufficient quantity.
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Colm Tóibín is Stein Visiting Writer at Stanford University. His essay in this issue is based on a lecture he gave at the University of Genoa’s Ford Madox Ford conference.
Other articles by this contributor:
How to be a wife · The Discretion of Jackie Kennedy
Roaming the Greenwood · A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition by Gregory Woods
A Man with My Trouble · Henry James leaves home
Dissecting the Body · Ian McEwan
Issues of Truth and Invention · Francis Stuart’s wartime broadcasts
At St Peter’s · The Dangers of a Priestly Education
Don’t abandon me · Borges and the Maids
The Wickedest Woman in Paris · Rupert Everett
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