SOURCE: Benson, Sheila. “Bertolucci's Desert of the Soul.” Los Angeles Times (11 January 1991): F12.

In the following review, Benson offers a negative assessment of The Sheltering Sky.

The New Yorkers of The Sheltering Sky (throughout San Diego County), Port and Kit Moresby, are expatriates of the late 1940s, aware that they are living through the dying fall of their marriage as they travel the world with no urgency about their return, or about anything else for that matter. Disinterested now in America, they've sailed to Tangier, with crushing amounts of luggage and the hope of finding the enlightenment that has eluded them on their other exotic treks.

When Paul Bowles created the Moresbys in 1949 in his novel, which soon reached cult status, Port and Kit and their desultory rush toward oblivion in the North African desert hit a nerve with more than a few readers. Here was their latter-day...