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Paul Bowles on Music.

Article Excerpt
Paul Bowles on Music. Edited by Timothy Mangan and Irene Herrmann. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. [xviii, 292 p. ISBN 1417508124. $34.95.] Index, bibliography.

Whether he wanted it or not, fame has found Paul Bowles (1910-1999). For some his reputation rests squarely on his provocative short stories and novels, particularly The Sheltering Sky, a best seller in 1950 that was adapted for film in 1990 by Bernardo Bertolucci. For others, Bowles is best known as the eccentric American expatriate whose flat in postwar Morocco drew such visitors as Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and Gore Vidal. Those who remember Bowles primarily for his earlier musical activities are fewer but have steadily increased in number since the mid-1980s. They will be glad to greet the appearance of Paul Bowles on Music, edited by Timothy Mangan (critic for the Orange County Register) and Irene Herrmann (lecturer in music at the University of California, Santa Cruz and executrix of the Bowles estate).

The collection reprints over 160 of the more than 400 articles Bowles wrote on musical topics between 1935-46, prefaced by Mangan's introduction sketching out the circumstances of Bowles's career. These writings appeared almost exclusively in Modern Music (edited by Minna Lederman)...

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