The Sheltering Sky (1000 Books to Read)

Excellent writing. Depressing story. 

From the Introduction by Tobias Wolff:

The Sheltering Sky has been called nightmarish. That description lets us off the hook too easily because it implies a fear of the unreal. The power of this novel lies precisely in the reality of what it makes us recognize: the seductive voice in each of us that promises freedom through refusing responsibility.

So true. The whole time I was thinking, "Why is he doing that? Why is she doing that?" But they were both listening to the seductive voice. Chilling and yes, nightmarish!

The title comes from this quote:

This one also mentions it:

The supreme moment, high above the desert, when the two elements blood and excrement, long kept apart, merge. A black star appears, a point of darkness in the night sky's clarity. Point of darkness and gateway to respose. Reach out, pierce the fine fabric of the sheltering sky, take repose. (p. 185)

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

James Mustich

Jul 28, 2018

The Sheltering Sky is the story of a New York married couple, Port and Kit Moresby, who bear some resemblance to Bowles and his brilliant, troubled wife, Jane, whose long physical and mental decline would occupy the author for years. Traveling in the Sahara with a friend, hoping the journey will impart some emotional momentum to their inert relationship, the Moresbys fall further and further away from each other, both losing themselves in a kind of primal surrender. The extremes of detachment and mortification Bowles’s characters pursue and endure give their story the horrific beauty and otherness that other eras might have found in the lives of the saints. His unsaintly couple, neither holy nor blessed, lead our thoughts toward first and last things with an eerie surety.