Yet everything happens only one specific number of times, a very small number of times, really. How many times do you think of that particular afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that has become so deeply part of your life that you would not have been able to imagine your own life without it? Maybe four or five more times. Maybe less. How many more times will you see the full moon rise? Maybe twenty times. However, we always feel that these are infinite. “
—Paul Bowles, "The Obscured Sky"
In the documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto: Finale Ryuichi Sakamoto: CODA, Ryuichi Sakamoto expressed his love for Bowles' words, and he also contributed his own soundtrack to the film adaptation of the novel "The Hidden Sky" from which the words came. As Ryuichi Sakamoto, who has always been at the forefront of 20th-century pop culture, why would he so much admire an American novel written in 1949?
Art is the sudden presentation of everyday phenomena from the background of their existence, forcing people to think.
- Detoxification
"Sheltered Skies" tells the story of an American couple fleeing the Sahara adventures of New York, through the charming North African style, to present a post-war existential life to the world. It's a bit like a road movie that takes place in the desert, or a desert adventure dream for modern urbanites. In addition to the bizarre Sahara scene, what is more attractive about this novel is the profound touch it brings to the reader's heart.
A work of art, if it cannot arouse human resonance and reflection, is doomed to become a footnote to other classics. As one philosopher put it, "Art is about defamiliarizing life." A good novel can defamiliarize the reader's life through the transmission of an imaginary world, forcing them to re-examine their own situation in order to achieve a spiritual resonance.
Since birth, people have been indulging in a "daily world", where we know that there will be dark days after sunset, we know that flowers will meet and thank you, we know that the moon is full and the month is lost, and we have acquiesced to most of the phenomena in the daily world and become accustomed to it. There will never be the first time in life when you see the full moon, it will be reduced to a memory.
The people and things around them have also changed from strange to familiar, and then turned a blind eye, which is natural. In the process of familiarity, life becomes boring, and people no longer think, relying on instinct and various habits to cope with most of the things around them every day. At the same time, in order to satisfy curiosity, and constantly seek freshness, when freshness becomes familiar, you can only pursue more freshness.
Travel is like an artistic experience in the process of life travel, and the sudden change of time, space and cultural atmosphere will make people's curiosity quickly ignited, and the streets, markets, and crowds that they would not have paid attention to have become fresh and interesting in a different atmosphere. Travel activates the defamiliarization of life, giving people the opportunity to taste many familiar things, and the inner joy at the first sight. Just like in a foreign country, looking up and seeing the full moon will make people think about it.
"The Obscured Sky" just completes a double defamiliarization, the journey to the exotic world depicted in the novel defamiliarizes the reader's imaginary world, and as a work of art itself, it brings the reader the opportunity to re-defamiliarize and examine the real world in which he lives.
After a certain point there is no turning back, and you must reach that point.
- Kafka
In order to break the boring life, the male protagonist of the novel set off from modern New York and landed on the African continent. I hope to change the state of my life, but I also hope to change my relationship with my wife.
He loved her, and he knew it clearly in his heart. But he couldn't find the impulse to love her. Or that this love is too familiar, so familiar that people can ignore the existence of love.
A relationship may always go through a process, that is, from "love" to "knowing love". From an instinctive situation that does not require verbal descriptions and thought reminders at all, it is necessary to remind yourself that you love him, and constantly look for more reasons and evidence for this love.
When we find that what we try to grasp, what we don't want to let go, and what we cling to in our arms is nothing more than the memory of what we once loved, when this reality is inconsistent with our expectations of trying to maintain a love with our own life, what we are disappointed is not this change in feelings, but the cruel world itself. This disappointment, which will not be rekindled no matter what kind of improvement is made, may be the unrealistic obsession with nostalgia, but it is also the curse of the pursuit of perfection.
Everything will rush to a point under the wrapping of reality.
That point may be the climax of feelings, the most beautiful collection of all emotions. But we can't stay there, we're bound to get there, we're bound to rush over, and there's no turning back.
That point may be the ecstasy of life, the sum of all pride and happiness. Even if you stay nostalgic, it will eventually become the imprint of the memory after the first wild run and the first sight of the full moon.
That point may also be the awakening of all memories and wisdom before the passing, the scenes of life flowing in front of the eyes, all the truths and all the ultimate truths are logical, but we can't stay in the end.
"Farewell," said the dying men in the mirror they held up to them, "we will never see each other again." ”
- Valery
Life is about drinking a cup of tea in the Sahara Desert.
The first part of the novel is called "Drinking Tea in the Sahara", in which one of the dancers tells a small story: three girls go to a city to become dancers in search of wealth. But they always have one wish in their hearts – to drink tea in the Sahara. In the process of being a dancer, they have met ugly people and met handsome and handsome lovers. The ugliness continued, and the handsomeness did not stop. They finally set out for their goal, exhausted their possessions, and traveled with the caravan to the Sahara.
On the night of the first birth of the moon, the dancers waited until the camel caravan was asleep to find one of the best and highest sand dunes, where they could drink tea and see the Sahara. After walking for a long time, they found their favorite sand dune and took out the tea trays, teapots and teacups they had prepared for a long time. But they were a little tired and wanted to sleep for a while and then get up to make tea.
After a long time, a caravan of camels passed by and found three girls lying on the hill, as well as teacups filled with Saharan sand.
Deeply influenced by Sartre's existentialist philosophy, Paul Bowles condensed an ultimate picture of life in The Obscured Sky. The hope we once had for life, the imagination of the future, and the search for meaning are tantamount to looking forward to drinking a cup of tea in the Sahara Desert.
"Existence precedes essence", there is no predetermined meaning, essence, or purpose of life except existence. Man fills his life with life, experience, and choice, rather than pursuing and acting to achieve a grand, sacred goal.
After becoming familiar with the streets, residences, cities, mountains, rivers, people constantly pursue the novelty, the things that have never been seen, the new meanings, the lofty goals, which are no different from the streets and neighborhoods we are familiar with, and are part of the "everyday world".
Life is not nothing, but the goal and meaning are nothing, and only those who recognize this nothingness can be more eager to live truly.
Under the goals that may be obtained, unobtained, or never attained, the everyday world with which we know is the reality of life. In every full moon, every nursery rhyme sung by the mother, and every ice cream on a summer afternoon, there are the finite and infinite possibilities of everything in life.