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Edward Hopper
A deeply influential 19th-century French realist novelist, best known for Madame Bovary. From a young age, Flaubert was frustrated with the social codes of the French aristocracy and dreamed about leaving his home city of Rouen for “the Orient” (which, at the time, referred to what is now called the Middle East). When his father died and left him an inheritance, Flaubert traveled with his friend Maxime Du Camp to Egypt, where he quickly immersed himself in local customs, started learning Arabic, and became completely enamored with the chaotic way of life that he saw as irreconcilable with (and much better suited to himself than) the rigidity of Europe. Although he was ultimately disappointed in some ways with his trip (he remained depressed at times and found Egypt’s temples mind-numbingly repetitive), Flaubert never forgot his trip to Egypt and began to consider himself a citizen of the world, as it were. For de Botton, Flaubert’s journey to Egypt demonstrates the often-deceptive allure of the exotic as much as its power to revolutionize travelers’ lives by revealing possibilities they could never have imagined at home.
Gustave Flaubert Quotes in The Art of Travel
The The Art of Travel quotes below are all either spoken by Gustave Flaubert or refer to Gustave Flaubert. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3 Quotes
What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home.
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In his essay about “the exotic,” de Botton suggests that travelers often seek out reflections of themselves in foreign places: they want to immerse themselves in cultures that better match their personalities or, at the least, that offer experiences and attitudes they cannot find at home. Accordingly, de Botton suggests that the feeling of the “exotic,” at its best, points not only to a pleasure in novelty but also to a promising cultural phenomenon of this sort. For instance, de Botton suggests that Flaubert finds Egypt’s chaotic noise and comfort with bodily functions exotic because each matches a dimension of Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaqu
Yet none of this meant that Flaubert’s original attraction to Egypt had been misconceived. He simply replaced an absurdly idealized image with a more realistic but nevertheless still profoundly admiring one, he exchanged a youthful crush for a knowledgeable love.
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Despite his enthusiasm for the “Orient,” Flaubert was surprised to find himself bored by the endless temples and uniform landscapes he encountered on the Nile in Egypt. De Botton concludes that, even though Flaubert was partially disappointed, in fact everything he learned about Egypt vastly overwhelmed his dashed expectations. Flaubert’s ample curiosity about the Egyptian people, religion, language, and environment led him from “a youthful crush” based on his Orientalist fantasies to “a knowledgeable love” for Egypt that he carried through the rest of his life. De Botton suggests that travelers might do the same by prioritizing their curiosity about Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accus
We are all of us, without ever having any say in the matter, scattered at birth by the wind onto various countries, but like Flaubert, we are in adulthood granted the freedom imaginatively to re-create our identity in line with our true allegiances.
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De Botton sees a profound freedom in Flaubert’s defiant and somewhat melodramatic insistence on identifying as a camel, a woman, and Chinese (among other things). Flaubert did not literally believe he had transformed to match these identities, but he meant instead to underline people’s freedom to choose their own commitments and identity. Instead of automatically cheering on France in its North African wars, Flaubert felt just as much sympathy for the Arabs as the Frenchmen; he believed that individuals should define themselves through personal choice rather than letting their preexisting membership in a familial, national, or perhaps even species community Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus cor
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Gustave Flaubert Character Timeline in The Art of Travel
The timeline below shows where the character Gustave Flaubert appears in The Art of Travel. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3: On the Exotic
As a young boy, the French novelist Gustave Flaubert was one such European captivated by the idea of the Orient. He hated his “sterile,...
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Flaubert’s father died when he was 24, leaving him a great sum of money. Flaubert quickly...
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Just as de Botton’s own attraction to Amsterdam relates to his dissatisfaction with London, Flaubert’s hatred for the French bourgeoisie was what drove him to obsess over the “Orient.” He...
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First, Flaubert loved the “chaos, both visual and auditory, of Egyptian life.” He wrote of its soundscape,...
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In one of Cairo’s cafes, Flaubert wrote about “a donkey shitting and a gentleman pissing in a corner,” which no one...
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Thirdly, Flaubert loved camels above all else, writing that “nothing has a more singular grace than this...
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...need to understand everything he can about her life. Similarly, on a boat in France, Flaubert spotted a beautiful woman and wrote of his obsessive curiosity about strangers, whose lives (and...
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...attempt to capture that culture’s values. In a town on the banks of the Nile, Flaubert visited a famous courtesan (she was not merely a prostitute, de Botton assures the reader,...
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De Botton wonders whether Flaubert’s interest in Egypt was merely an ideal fantasy he projected onto it. However, he did...
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That said, Flaubert was also ultimately disappointed by Egypt in many ways. As his traveling companion Maxime Du...
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Yet de Botton insists that Flaubert “exchanged a youthful crush” on Egypt “for a knowledgeable love” of it. Although it did...
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Leaving Egypt devastated Flaubert, who thought about his trip constantly until the end of his life, and even spoke...
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In fact, Flaubert contended that nationality should follow this attraction rather than the contingencies of one’s birth—at times,...
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Chapter 8: On Possessing Beauty
...place of beauty” by, say, carving a name into it, like the Englishman whose name Flaubert found carved into a pillar in Alexandria; a third is to buy souvenirs.
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