Pages from Cold Point

Last updated

"Pages from Cold Point"
Short story by Paul Bowles
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Publication
Published inWake: The Creative Magazine
Publication dateAutumn 1949

"Pages from Cold Point" is a short story by Paul Bowles. It was first published in the Autumn 1949 issue of Wake: The Creative Magazine. It was republished in New Directions in Prose and Poetry #11 (December 1949). It later appeared in a collection of his short fiction, The Delicate Prey and Other Stories , published by Random House in 1950. [1] Bowles wrote the story in 1947 while aboard the MS Ferncape en route to Casablanca from New York. [2]

Contents

A controversial work at the time of its publication—due in part to its homosexual and incestuous subject matter—"Pages from Cold Point" was not included, nor his "The Delicate Prey", in the British collection A Little Stone published by John Lehmann in 1950. [3] [4]

"Pages from Cold Point" figures among the works of gay fiction that emerged in American literature in the post-World War II period. [5]

Plot

Norton, an American University professor, has taken an early retirement on an unidentified Caribbean island off the coast of Cuba following the death of his wife; her financial legacy allows him to do so comfortably. Despite the strenuous objections of his elder brother, Charles, Norton removes his 16-year-old son, Racky from school to serve as his companion. They share a rental property at the remote Cold Point, a tropical paradise, whose amenities include a number of native house servants, a cook and a groundskeeper, Peter. Racky begins to make mysterious visits to the nearby village of Orange Walk. Norton suppresses his own anxiousness about these excursions, even after a local woman warns him "Keep your boy at home, Mahn." Later, Norton is visited by a parish constable, who informs him that his son Racky "has no shame. He does what he pleases with all the young boys, and the men, too, and gives them a shilling so they won't tell about it." Norton is dismayed and offended by these reports, but is daunted at the prospect of confronting his son. When a physical altercation occurs between Peter and Racky, the groundskeeper is dismissed. The household staff becomes demoralized. Racky rejects the suggestion by his father that he resume his schooling. Norton takes him to Havana, finds an apartment for him and buys him an automobile. Norton returns to Cold Point to live in isolation.

Critical assessment

Literary critic Oliver Evans writes:

"The least successful [of Bowles's stories] in which the horror constitutes an end in itself, [is] 'Pages from Cold Point', a study of homosexual incest, a brilliant tour de force written in Bowles's very best manner but without any apparent root in the author's fundamental convictions: in this respect, as also in the cumulative horror of its situation and its technical perfection, it reminds us of The Turn of the Screw." [6]

Novelist Norman Mailer remarked that "Pages from Cold Point" was "one of the best short stories written by anybody..." [7]

Theme and style

Literary critic Allen Hibbard locates the theme of "Pages from Cold Point" in its opening passage. This first-person confessional, in the voice of protagonist Norton, "closely resembles" the author's own sentiments.": [8]

Our civilization is doomed to a short life; its component parts are too heterogeneous. I am personally content to see everything in a process of decay. The bigger the bombs, the quicker it will be done. Life is visually too hideous for one to make the attempt to preserve it. Let it go. Perhaps some day another form of life will come along. Either way it is of no consequence. At the same time, I am still part of life, and I am bound by this to protect myself to whatever extent I am able. [9] [10]

Hibbard adds that the passage demonstrates Bowles's "modernist brand of pessimism" typical of the post-war period. [11]

Literary critic Catherine Rainwater comments on the influence of Edgar Allan Poe on the characterization of his protagonist and narrator Norton:

Like several of Poe's stories such as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Ligeia", which involve irrational, unreliable narrators (or narrators such as those in "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado" who are so exaggeratedly rational that they appear deranged) "Pages from Cold Point" lends itself to interpretation as psychomachia." [12]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Hibbard, 1993 p. 25
  2. ↑ Vidal, 1979: "In his memoirs, Bowles refers, rather casually, to "Pages from Cold Point" as something he wrote aboard a ship from New York to Casablanca…"
  3. ↑ Hibbard, 1993 p. 12, p. 257: "So controversial was...Pages from Cold Point" it was excised from the first British collection of short stories" by Bowles in A Little Stone by John Lehmann publishers in 1950.
  4. ↑ Prose, 2002: "In a famous Bowles story…a father is blackmailed by his corrupt teenage son, an unpleasant boy named Racky, with whom he has been having an incestuous relationship."
    Hibbard, 1993 p. 225: "...a study of homosexual incest..."
  5. ↑ Tóibín, 2007: "In publishing these stories Bowles joined Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams and James Baldwin as one of the pioneers of gay fiction in America"
  6. ↑ Hibbard, 1993 p. 225
  7. ↑ Hibbard, 1993 p. 206: Norman Mailer: "...'Pages from Cold Point', the seduction of a father by a son, which is one of the best short stories written by anybody..." Mailer in Advertisements For Myself.
  8. ↑ Hibbard, 1993 p. 33: "Norton, one of Bowles's rare first-person narrators."
  9. ↑ Hibbard, 1993 p. 33
  10. ↑ Prose, 2002: Portion of same passage quoted here.
  11. ↑ Hibbard, 1993 p. 32-33: "...escapist fantasies…appealing in our time." And p. 33: See here for a sketch of post-war trauma in society.
  12. ↑ Hibbard, 1993 p. 249: Quote from Sinister Overtones: Poe's influence on the writing of Paul Bowles in Essays in Literature (1984), Western Illinois University.

Sources

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Fall of the House of Usher</span> 1839 short story by Edgar Allan Poe

"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, then included in the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. The short story, a work of Gothic fiction, includes themes of madness, family, isolation, and metaphysical identities.

<i>House of Incest</i> 1936 book by Anaïs Nin

House of Incest is a slim volume of 72 pages written by Anaïs Nin. Originally published in 1936, it is Anaïs Nin's first work of fiction. But unlike her diaries and erotica, House of Incest does not detail the author's relationships with famous lovers like Henry Miller, nor does it contain graphic depiction of sex. Rather, House of Incest is a surrealistic look within the narrator's subconscious mind as she attempts to escape from a dream in which she is trapped, or in Nin's words, as she attempts to escape from "the woman's season in hell."

"A Distant Episode" is a short story by Paul Bowles. Written in 1945, it was first published in the Partisan Review and republished in New Directions in Prose and Poetry, #10 in 1948. It is also the title piece in a 1988 collection of Bowles's short stories, A Distant Episode: Selected Stories by Ecco Press.

Allal is a short story by Paul Bowles written in Tangiers in 1976 and first published in the January 27, 1977, issue of Rolling Stone. It appeared in his short fiction collection Things Gone and Things Still Here (1977) published by Black Sparrow Press.

<i>The Delicate Prey and Other Stories</i> 1950 short story compilation by Paul Bowles

The Delicate Prey and Other Stories is a collection of 17 works of short fiction by Paul Bowles, published in 1950 by Random House.

"The Delicate Prey" is a piece of short fiction by Paul Bowles. It was written in 1949 and first published in Paris in the summer 1949 issue of the small literary journal Zero. In 1950, Random House presented the story in the collection of Bowles's short fiction, The Delicate Prey and Other Stories. This short story is considered one of Bowles' most outstanding and controversial works of fiction.

"Tapiama" is a short story by Paul Bowles. It was first published in May 1958 by John Lehmann in The London Magazine. It later appeared in the collection of his short fiction, The Hours After Noon, published by the Heinemann in 1959. The story was subsequently published in A Distant Episode: The Selected Stories by Ecco Press in 1988.

"The Echo" is a short story by Paul Bowles written in 1946 and first published in the September 1946 issue of Harper's Bazaar magazine. It was later published in a collection of his short fiction, The Delicate Prey and Other Stories, published by Random House in 1950.

"You Are Not I" is a short story by Paul Bowles written in 1948 and first published in the January 1948 issue of Mademoiselle magazine. It later appeared in the collection of his short fiction, The Delicate Prey and Other Stories (1950), published by Random House.

"At Paso Rojo" is a short story by Paul Bowles, written in 1947 and first published in the September 1948 issue of Mademoiselle magazine. It later appeared in a collection of his short fiction, The Delicate Prey and Other Stories (1950), published by Random House.

<i>The Time of Friendship</i> Short story collection by Paul Bowles

The Time of Friendship is a collection of 13 works of short fiction by Paul Bowles published in 1967 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. A number of the stories included in this volume appeared earlier "in various places during the 1950s and 1960s."

<i>A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard</i> 1962 short fiction collection by Paul Bowles

A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard is a collection of short fiction by Paul Bowles published by City Lights Books in 1962. The volume was the first collection of his works published in the United States since The Delicate Prey and Other Stories (1950).

"Tea on the Mountain" is a short story by Paul Bowles. Written in 1939, the story first appeared in the 1950 collection The Delicate Prey and Other Stories published by Random House. In the United Kingdom, it was published under the title "A Spring Day" in the collection A Little Stone.

"The Hours After Noon" is a short story by Paul Bowles. It was first published in 1956 in Zero Anthology of Literature and Art #8, ed. Themistocles Hoetis. It later appeared in his collection of short fiction, The Time of Friendship (1967), published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

The Garden is a short story by Paul Bowles written 1950. It was first published in the Autumn–Winter 1964 issue of Art & Literature (Lausanne). It later appeared in his short fiction collection The Time of Friendship (1967) published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Bowles completed the story in Asilah, Morocco. At only three pages The Garden, the briefest of Bowles's short fiction, is one of three fables that appear in the volume. The other two are “The Hyena” and “The Successor”. The story serves to challenge “the moral legitimacy of established religion, in this case Islam.”

"Doña Faustina" is a short story by Paul Bowles written in 1949 and first published in the New Directions #12 anthology in 1950. The work is included in his collections of short fiction The Hours After Noon and The Time of Friendship. Written while Bowles was living in Tangiers, "Doña Faustina" is among several works in the collection that exhibit "a maturation of style and a realization of greater complexity" in his literary talents.

"The Frozen Fields" is a short story by Paul Bowles written in 1957 and first published in the July 1957 issue of Harper's Bazaar. The work is included in his collection of short fiction The Time of Friendship (1967) published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. "The Frozen Fields", an autobiographical piece, is considered one of the 'most powerful" stories in the volume.

<i>Things Gone and Things Still Here</i>

Things Gone and Things Still Here is a collection of nine works of short fiction by Paul Bowles, published in 1977 by Black Sparrow Press. The volume is the sixth collection of Bowles’s work, much of which is re-published material.

"You Have Left Your Lotus Pods on the Bus" is a short story by Paul Bowles written in Tangiers in 1971 and first published in his short fiction collection Things Gone and Things Still Here (1977) by Black Sparrow Press.

<i>Midnight Mass</i> (short story collection) Volume of short fiction

Midnight Mass is a collection of 12 works of short fiction by Paul Bowles, published in 1981 by Black Sparrow Press. The volume is the fifth collection of Bowles’s work, much of which is re-published material.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.