Plot introduction

A dark, even bleak, novel, Let It Come Down follows American Nelson Dyar as he arrives in the International Zone of Tangier

Tangier

Tangier, also Tangiers is a city in northern Morocco with a population of about 700,000 . It lies on the North African coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel...

, Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

 to begin a new job and a new life. Dyar's exploration of the brothels, drugs and unsavoury characters of Tangier leads him gradually, logically, to a sinister conclusion.

Explanation of the novel's title

Bowles took the book's title from Macbeth

Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

III.3, just before Banquo

Banquo

Banquo is a character in William Shakespeare's 1606 play Macbeth. In the play, he is at first an ally to Macbeth and they are together when they meet the Three Witches. After prophesying that Macbeth will become king, the witches tell Banquo that he will not be king himself, but that his...

is murdered:

Banquo: It will be Rayne to Night.

1st. Murd.: Let it come downe.

(They set upon Banquo.)

The author has described the line as an ‘admirable four-word sentence, succinct and brutal’.

Major themes

Like much of Bowles's writing, Let It Come Down seems to be concerned with the danger and chaos which can result in being immersed into an unfamiliar society. By the time the book was published, Tangier had become a fully Moroccan city, but before that, and in the setting of the novel, it was an International Zone which is seen as a melting-pot for many diverse and unconventional elements. Dyar, who has little personality of his own, tries to indulge his instincts by exploring the seedier side of the city; but, because he does not fully understand the limits or standards of the society he is in, he is unable to stop himself from going too far. Thus, Dyar allows situations to, in fact, react off of himself in his attempt to live by utopian free choice. However, he must eventually start taking responsibility for his own actions when consequences are set naturally upon him. Behind the useful façade of a civilised society, Bowles's book suggests, there is only the stark futility of cause, and inescapable effect.

Selected printings

• 1952, London, John Lehmann, hardback (1st edition)
• 1952, New York, Random House, hardback (1st US)
• 1953, USA, Signet, paperback (1st US paperback)
• 1980, Santa Barbara, California, Black Sparrow Press, paperback
• 1984, UK, Peter Owen, hardback
• 2000, UK, Penguin, paperback