97. Sheltering Sky Chapters 23 – 24

Powerful.

One word. I am undone. I was sitting on the bus, heading to work, when I reached the part in the book that I knew was coming. But even knowing didn’t prepare me for it.

It took all my resolve to not start weeping on the bus and I am grateful for the sunglasses that hid my tears.

As I’ve been reading, I’ve had a picture in my mind of what Port and Kit look like. Port looks like  a young John Malkovich and for some reason Kit looks like Lana Turner (not Debra Winger). But as I read these two chapters the picture changed. The Kit looked like me, Port like my husband. I didn’t see Kit brushing the hair away from Port forehead in that most gentle of gestures. I saw me doing that, Port had my husband’s face and it hurt.

I felt the pain of Port and Kit as my own as if it were happening to me and my family.

I was no longer sitting on a bus in North Vancouver, I was in a stinking, sweaty room in the middle of North Africa. I felt the dust and grim on my skin, I could smell the stench of garbage and the latrine.

I winced at the unforgiving heat of the sun and the intensity of the endless desert.

I don’t think I have ever experienced being so moved by a novel before. Some books have come close, Atonement comes to mind. But it was nothing like this.

I had to take a few minutes to pull myself together before going into work. The emotions were that overwhelming.

Bowles writing in these chapters is flawless. He captures the feelings of the event perfectly.

I had a cautious opinion of this book when  I first started it, I wasn’t sure I was going to like it or that I was going to find a way to relate to it. Clearly I need to retract that statement.

I still feel a little bit lost about ‘Who Kit and Port are’, but perhaps not knowing their back stories contributed to the intensity of the transportation of myself into their shoes.

I am still disappointed that I knew this was coming, but I was genuinely shocked when it happened and how it was described.

I am now forced to wonder if I would have been able to recover had I read it completely unaware.

Possibly, I don’t know.

The Sheltering Sky is the first book – so far - that is a contender for my personal 100 list. I suspect that there will be others; I have only read four from this list so far. It is a surprise to me to say that.

Good book. Go read it.