LOVE WITH A FEW HAIRS

by Mohammed Mrabet ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1968

A Life Full of Holes, published two years ago, was Paul Bowles' first attempt at translating and editing the work of a primitive young Arabic writer. It proved to be an interesting experiment, somewhat reminiscent of Robin Maugham's The Servant, but with a good deal of genuine squalor and documentation. Love With a Few Hairs is a much purer concoction, narrated with a deadpan simplicity terribly sophisticated people might be moved to call poetic. Mohammed Mrabet (or Bowles) has done an astonishing job of keeping an obviously autobiographical tale free of any sort of self-regarding idealization or psychological trimmings. A handsome youth, Mohammed, woos and wins a lovely girl, Mina, through witchcraft. They marry, she mysteriously fells out of love, he hardens his heart, they part. Years later, Mohammed, healthy and happy, meets a bedraggled woman at a bus stop and it is only after she identifies herself that he recognizes Mina. The plot, which could have come out of five pages of Maupassant, is clearly not meant to be the important factor here. But what is? Mohammed, incidentally, is also a kept boy, living with an unusually accommodating Englishman. Perhaps someone with an allegorical turn of mind would say that Mohammed and Mina represent innocence destroyed by superstition and libertinage. Still, not a hint of moral judgment is made; an exquisite tolerance moves like a desert wind over everything. In Tangier, life must be a natural fantasy.

Pub Date: March 1, 1968

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Braziller

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1968

Categories: FICTION