Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue
The travel essays, where Bowles writes about Morocco as himself rather than through history.
Read our take
Points in Time
by Paul Bowles
Eleven short passages of Moroccan history, from a Carthaginian sailing past the coast around 500 BC to the day before yesterday.
- 1982
About Paul Bowles
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freePeter Owen published this in London in 1982. It is ninety-two pages and it is not a novel, whatever the American publisher's jacket said. Bowles arranged eleven sections in chronological order. One runs to about sixty words and a few are the length of short stories. They begin with Morocco's Atlantic coastline as the Carthaginian traveller Hanno would have seen it around 500 BC, and end with a translated anti-American song popular in the 1950s. Several of the episodes turn on the relations between Muslims, Jews and Christians. Bowles described the design himself: a journey across time, with stops along the way that interested him.
The story, in more detail
The form has no obvious name, which is why it gets mislabelled. Ecco promoted it in America as a novel. Reviewing it in The Bloomsbury Review, Grove Koger rejected the description outright and said the book resembles nothing so much as a suite — a form Bowles had used in his composing days.
Bowles set out his intention in a letter to Richard Peabody on 26 January 1983, after Peabody compared the book to William Carlos Williams's In the American Grain: "I meant it to be a journey across time, with stops here and there along the way; naturally I chose stops which interested me."
It appeared almost unremarked. Koger, writing five years later, said its publication "was greeted with virtual silence; perhaps critics found the book too brief or elusive to get an easy grip on".
Themes and analysis
The coast and the missing lagoon
The opening fragment makes the past difficult to locate. In Rodrigo Rey Rosa’s Spanish translation, a report of travelers reaching a lagoon gives way to a description of a coast where no such place can be found. Even seasonal flooding fails to explain the discrepancy. The movement from a journey to an unresolved geographical question interrupts our expectation that a historical narrative will clarify what happened. The shore is not simply scenery: it becomes evidence that resists the account we have just been given.
The warning at Asana
The warning at Asana works through connections the reader must make. A dreamed falcon, a blind man’s words and the travelers’ decision to pass the city lead to a bare announcement of its destruction. That ending makes the earlier signs feel ominous without explaining how the disaster happened. The contrast between the blind man’s apparent knowledge and the travelers’ need for guidance also unsettles the authority of sight. What matters is not a detailed picture of the catastrophe, but the sudden change in how we understand the encounter.
Why we recommend it
Bowles the composer wrote it
Grove Koger's reading is that this is a suite, not a novel — a musical form applied to history, by a man who had spent fifteen years writing scores before he wrote fiction.
Two and a half thousand years in ninety-two pages
It opens with the coast as Hanno the Carthaginian would have seen it around 500 BC and closes within living memory.
He explained it himself
"I meant it to be a journey across time, with stops here and there along the way; naturally I chose stops which interested me." Bowles rarely stated a design that plainly.
What this book explores
Bring it to book club
- Ecco sold this as a novel and a reviewer called it a suite. What would you call it, and does the label change how you read it?
- One section runs to about sixty words. What can a passage that short do that a chapter cannot?
- Bowles chose the stops because they interested him. What does his selection say about what he thought Morocco's history was?
- Several episodes turn on Muslims, Jews and Christians living alongside each other. How does Bowles handle that without commentary?
- The book was met with near silence in 1982. Why might it have been easier to ignore than to place?
Timeline
1981
The Missouri Review prints an excerpt as "from Points In Time" in its Winter 1981–82 issue, before book publication.
1982
Peter Owen publishes Points in Time in London: 92 pages, at £6.95.
1983
Writes to Richard Peabody on 26 January that he meant the book as "a journey across time, with stops here and there along the way".
1984
Ecco Press publishes the first American edition in New York, promoting it as a novel.
1987
Grove Koger reviews it in The Bloomsbury Review, rejects the novel label, calls it a suite, and notes that its publication "was greeted with virtual silence".
2006
Harper Perennial reissues it in America under the expanded title Points in Time: Tales from Morocco.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Peter Owen
- 1982
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- Ecco Press
- 1984
- Paperback
- Peter Owen Modern Classic
- 2002
- 9780720611373
- Paperback
- Harper Perennial
- 2006
- 9780061139635
Reader reviews
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Read our takePoints in Time: frequently asked questions
What is Points in Time?
A short book of eleven historical passages about Morocco, arranged in chronological order, published by Peter Owen in London in 1982. It runs to ninety-two pages.
Is Points in Time a novel?
No, although Ecco marketed the American edition as one. There are no continuing characters and no narrative through-line. Reviewing it in The Bloomsbury Review, Grove Koger called it a suite — a musical form, from a writer who had been a composer first. HarperCollins still credits Bowles with four novels, and this is not one of them.
What period does it cover?
It opens with the Moroccan Atlantic coastline as the Carthaginian traveller Hanno would have seen it around 500 BC, and reaches as far as an anti-American song popular in Morocco in the 1950s.
What did Bowles say about it?
In a letter of 26 January 1983 he wrote: "I meant it to be a journey across time, with stops here and there along the way; naturally I chose stops which interested me." He was replying to a reader who had compared the book to William Carlos Williams's In the American Grain.
Which is the first edition?
Peter Owen, London, 1982. The Ecco Press edition of 1984 is the first American printing and a reprint of that text, although booksellers often attach its ISBN to 1982 London copies.
Is it in the Library of America Bowles volumes?
No. Despite the title of the second volume, Collected Stories & Later Writings, Points in Time is in neither of the two Library of America books.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Points in Time, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Paul Bowles
Official recordLibrary of AmericaUsed forThe Library of America's author record, which confirms this book is in neither LOA volume.
2Paul Bowles: Lyric History
PeriodicalThe Bloomsbury Review, November/December 1987, 1987Used forGrove Koger's 1987 review, the fullest published account of the book's form and its reception.
3In Touch: The Letters of Paul Bowles
LettersFarrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994Used forThe collected letters, which print Bowles's own statement of what he meant the book to be.
4Up Above the World — edition records
Official recordOpen LibraryUsed forOpen Library edition records, used to separate the 1982 London first edition from the 1984 American reprint.
5Puntos en el tiempo — publisher sample, translated by Rodrigo Rey Rosa
WebsiteAlianza Editorial, 2010Used forPublisher’s Spanish sample in Rodrigo Rey Rosa’s translation; not a complete-book or original-English reading.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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