The Art of Travel - Alain De Botton [20]
In the more fugitive, trivial association of the word exotic, the charm of a foreign place arises from the simple idea of novelty and
Street in Amsterdam
change—from finding camels where at home there are horses, for example, or unadorned apartment buildings where at home there are pillared ones. But there may be a more profound pleasure as well: we may value foreign elements not only because they are new but because they seem to accord more faithfully with our identity and commitments than anything our homeland can provide.
And so it was with my enthusiasms in Amsterdam, which were connected to my dissatisfactions with my own country, including its lack of modernity and aesthetic simplicity, its resistance to urban life and its net-curtained mentality.
What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home.
4.
To understand why Flaubert found Egypt exotic, it may hence be useful first to examine his feelings towards France. What would strike him as exotic—that is, both new and valuable—about Egypt was in many ways the obverse of what drove him to rage at home. And that was, baldly stated, the beliefs and behaviour of the French bourgeoisie, which since the fall of Napoleon had become the dominant force in society, determining the tenor of the press, politics, manners and public life. For Flaubert, the French bourgeoisie was a repository of the most extreme prudery, snobbery, smugness, racism and pomposity. ‘It's strange how the most banal utterances [of the bourgeoisie] sometimes make me marvel,' he complained in stifled rage. ‘There are gestures, sounds of people's voices, that I cannot get over, silly remarks that almost give me vertigo. … The bourgeois … is for me something unfathomable.' He nevertheless spent thirty years trying to fathom it, most comprehensively in his Dictionary of Received Ideas, a satirical catalogue of the French bourgeoisie's more striking sheeplike prejudices.
The organisation of only a few of these dictionary entries by theme indicates the direction of his complaints against his homeland, the foundation upon which his admiration for Egypt would be built:
A SUSPICION OF ARTISTIC ENDEAVOUR
ABSINTHE—Exceptionally violent poison: one glass and you're a dead man. Journalists drink it while writing their articles. Has killed more soldiers than the Bedouins.
ARCHITECTS—All idiots; always forget to put staircases in houses.
INTOLERANCE FOR AND IGNORANCE OF OTHER COUNTRIES (AND THEIR ANIMALS):
ENGLISHWOMEN—Express surprise that they can have pretty children.
CAMEL—Has two humps, and the dromedary one; or else the camel has one and the dromedary two—nobody can ever remember which.
ELEPHANTS—Noted for their memory and worship of the sun.
FRENCH—The greatest people in the world.
HOTELS—Are first-rate only in Switzerland.
ITALIANS—All musical. All treacherous.
JOHN BULL—When you don't know an Englishman's name, call him John Bull.
KORAN—Book by Mohammed, which is all about women.
BLACKS—Express surprise that their saliva is white and that they can speak French.
BLACK WOMEN—Hotter than white women (see also BRUNETTES and BLONDES).
BLACK—Always followed by ‘as ebony'.
OASIS—An inn in the desert.
HAREM WOMEN—All Oriental women are harem women.
PALM TREE—Lends local colour.
MACHISMO/EARNESTNESS:
FIST—To govern France, an iron fist is needed.
GUN—Always keep one in the countryside.
BEARD—Sign of strength. Too much beard causes baldness. Helps to protect ties. (Flaubert to Louise Colet, August 1846: ‘What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I'm essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous—not in the sense of the small-scale ridiculousness of slapstick comedy, but rather in the sense of a ridiculousness that seems intrinsic to human life and that manifests itself in the simplest actions and