The Spider's House

I hadn't finished Paul Bowle's The Spider's House before my trip, so I brought it along for the plane ride; I was so wrapped up in the tale by then that I couldn't leave it home.

This book provides three views of Morocco in the 50's: the outsider view that the Moroccans are barbaric and require, like children, the guidance of their superiors; the outsider view that Moroccans have a unique, beautiful culture which should be preserved as an alternative to the west; and the insider view of a Morocco that is falling apart due to not only the influence of foreigners, but also (and largely) due to the hypocrisy and self-serving opportunism of its political and spiritual leaders.

The first view is assumed to be that of the reader, so only background characters voice it. The other two views are provided by the two protagonists; one an American writer, viewed as idealistic and naive by his English and American neighbors at the hotel, the other an Arab youth, who wants to shirk duty and lie in the sun all day, but gets drawn into the struggle against France by his birthright.

This book is a fantastic demonstration of the gap between largely alien cultures, and provides good, often insightful character studies of the kind of people who attempt to cross these gaps, themselves often strangers in their own cultures.