Bowles on the desert

Daniel Melvin (DHM1956@gnn.com)
Fri, 17 Nov 1995 22:51:58

Excerpt (p. 280) from The Sheltering Sky:

The desert landscape is always at its best in the half-light
of dawn or dusk. The sense of distance lacks: a ridge nearby can
be a far-off mountain range, each small detail can take on the
importance of a major variant on the countryside's repetitous
theme. The coming of day promises a change; it is only when the
day has fully arrived that the watcher suspects it is the same day
returned once again -- the same day he has been living for a long
time, over and over, still blindingly bright and untarnished by
time.