Let It Come Down

Another pale American is exposed to the hot breath of an alien civilization in what seems to be a weary and rather distasteful variant of The Sheltering Sky Like Tennessee Williams' ??deeadent ladies, Mr. Bowles' protagonists are made to be smashed, or rather dissolved, in their amoebie ambulations toward oblivion. Dyar, a former cipher in a New York bank, in a vacant movement to relieve the pain of a bleak, stale beer existence, ??Grifts to Tangiers, presumably to assist a former acquaintance, Wilcox, in his "travel agency". Dyar soon discovers, however, that in the tangled business and social relationships in the steaming city, he is again acted upon rather than acting. Wilcox, involved ?? illegal sterling traffic draws Dyar into undercover messenger work; "Uncle Goode", a ??cious lesbian, keeping Hadija, a young prostitute, works to eliminate Dyar, who is interested in Hadija, by a spy fix; and Daisy, a middle-aged, fascinated commentator on the ??strous, the unreal, tries to force him into being, to reality. Although warned by ??Daisy to be careful, "that vacuums have a tendency to fill up", Dyar, through the transporting exhilaration of hashish, ??absconds with a briefcase full of Wilcox's money, and ?? a drugged climax murders his Moslem companion, finding at the last the "precise relationship with the rest of men.... created by him". There are a few scenes, brilliant in ??line, startling in movement - for example, a bedroom tussle with Daisy, both globuled ??with warm food and wine from an overturned tray and the maddened orgy of the murder. Such more sensational than the rather muted Sheltering Sky, morbidly intriguing in its ??racing of the hashish ??phantasmagoria, this- with its withered people, heavy symbolism ??and sickroom decay, makes the reader hope this is a final gilding of the dying lily school. Not our dish. (Kirkus Reviews)