Alain De Botton — The Art of Travel — An Analysis
ON ANTICIPATION
Expectations and anticipation about a certain event is influenced by representations of it. Botton’s use of conversational tone created by his evocative language to describe his hometown Hammersmith “an ominous steely grey sky” is juxtaposed with the previous summer in London “bare feet slip from my shoes to caress the grass” his use of tactile imagery allows the readers to relate and engage with his current feelings of bleakness in the dreary weather and longing for escape into a better climate. His travels are catalysed by a “brightly illustrated brochure… its cover displayed a row of palm trees…on a sandy beach” it leads him to imagine and yearn for a better landscape, “I imagined there to be waterfalls… in the shade of sweet smelling fruit trees” the sibilance and olfactory imagery recreates the feelings of happiness and relaxation that this landscape inspires in individuals to travel.This imagined fantasy is contradicted with reality when Botton arrives at Barbados “the reality of travel is not what we anticipate… nothing was as I had imagined” This introduces the concept of verisimilitude; that a representation of reality does not fully encapsulate reality itself; the brochure represents an aspect of reality to provide the illusion of a certain alluring image. Botton personal perspectives and conversational tone engages the readers to consider the complex nature between expectations and reality and that representations can seem pleasing but in fact can be deceiving.
ON TRAVELLING PLACES
De Botton explores the notion that isolation in an unfamiliar landscape can cause feelings of unease but paradoxically allows the individual to undergo self reflection that strengthens their connection with their identity. The unfamiliarity of a new landscape is emphasised by De Botton’s hyperawareness to his surroundings “a woman was idly rotating a teabag in a cup… no one was talking… dancing nervously in the breeze was cardboard box” His short phrases and excessive listing of specific and random images emphasises the unfamiliarity of the isolated motor station and his personification of the cardboard box further reinforces his feelings of uneasiness and discomfort in a new landscape. This feeling of uneasiness is contradicted by Botton’s recognition of the introspective capabilities that isolation in a new landscape presents. He says “we can reflect upon our lives from a height we could not have reached in the midst of everyday business- subtly assisted by the unfamiliar world… and an unknown city stirring silently twenty five floors below us” “Height” and “twenty five floors” connotes the level of elevation and transcendental knowledge that an individual reaches about themselves through isolation in an “unfamiliar world” and foreign landscape; thus emphasising that familiar places inhibit self discovery and reinforcing the capabilities of those seemingly uneasy landscapes to unify an individual and their identity.
ON THE EXOTIC
PARA 1:
Discontent faced by individuals within their environment can result in their desire to escape into a new and exotic landscape. De Botton portrays this notion through his exploration of Gustave Flaubert’s life and discontent towards his own societal context“I am bored I am bored I am bored” repetition of the same phrase in order to elongate the sentence recreates a sense of lethargy and emphasises Flaubert’s feelings of apathy towards Rouen. This boredom combined with his repulsion towards the Bourgeois and their acts of “Snobbery, smugness and pomposity” leads him to travel to the Egypt in search of a more emotionally enriching and exotic life. He describes his experiences as,“its like being hurled while still asleep into the midst of a beethoven symphony… bases rumbling… flutes sighing… a bewildering chaos of colours so that your poor imagination is dazzled” auditory imagery and personification emulates the illogical cacophony of sound and colour that arises in Flaubert’s psyche. The confluence of objective reality “bases and flutes” with abstract and subjective images create a unified and enriching experience that emphasises Flaubert’s emotional connection to the landscape. The elongated sentence structure recreates his feeling of breathlessness and awe and further emphasises the profound impact the Oriental landscape had on Flaubert’s mind.
PARA 2:
An individual’s imagined expectations towards a landscape is influenced by representations of it. The first half of the 19th century was filled with idealistic representations of the Orient by authors such as Walter Scott’s Arabian Nights and the poem Les Orientals by Victor Hugo. They included romanticized and utopian images of “pirates” ”sultans” and “spices”. These literary representations had profound impacts on Flaubert as it resonated with his feelings of discontent and repulsion towards his current familiar social context of Rouen because it provided him with an ideal image that would console him in times of need. It leads him to have imagined expectations of the Oriental landscape. This is evident in the lines “I dreamt of far away journeys… I saw blue seas a pure sky silvery sand” the heavy use of sibilance recreates the soothing and restorative effects that thoughts of the landscape instills in Flaubert. His imagined expectations match reality of the Orient “I gulped down a bellyful of colours like a doney filling himself with hay” the use of simile emphasises Flaubert’s satisfaction at arriving in the new and unfamiliar landscape of Egypt. Although those literary representations of the Orient were accurate, their over idealized images omitted feelings of lethargy that would arise as a result of routine and familiarity, “Egyptian temples bore me profoundly” Flaubert’s use of high modality language to convey his apathy at viewing the exotic images of Egypt reinforces the concept of verisimilitude; that a representation of reality does not fully encapsulate reality itself, reinforcing that those 19th literary texts only represents an aspect of reality to provide the illusion of a certain alluring image.
ON EYE OPENING ART
An individual’s initial attitudes towards a landscape can be changed through an artist’s subjective representations of it. De Botton emphasises this notion through his own personal experiences and attitudes “I scanned the view… my motives were simple and hedonistic: I was looking for beauty… I could not… detect the charm so often ascribed to it” His use of high modality language emphasises the superficiality of his attitudes; he searches for an objective notion of aesthetic beauty and once his needs are not satisfied, refuses to make new associations towards the Province beyond the attitudes already embedded into his psyche by “sensible people” . Van Gogh’s art depicts what Botton viewed as “dull” in a new and “life enhancing” way through his subjective and unique representation of the Province, “He soaked his canvases in primary colours … red with green, yellow with purple, blue with orange” the juxtaposition of contrasting colours further delineates a vivid image of an evocative and exotic landscape. This representation allows De Botton to “see” the Province in an emotionally enriching way “everywhere I looked I could see primary colours in contrast.” , thus reinforcing the positive and profound effects that Van Gogh’s representations of the Province has on his psyche.
ON SUBLIME
An individual’s experience of a sublime landscape can be provocative and confronting, but can also paradoxically cause feelings of relief and comfort. De Botton emphasises this notion through his own personal experiences in the Sinai, “Boulders lie strewn across the sandstone floor as though the stamping of a petulant giant… the mountains spread out in seeming infinity on the horizon” The association of mountains with giants through his use of simile heightens its grandeur; furthermore, the vastness of the mountains connotes a sense of infinity and timelessness, this contradicts with De Botton’s own feelings of insignificance and further reinforces the fragility of his mortality and human psyche. These feelings can allow the individual to “accept the limitations of our will” and “ be inspired by what lies beyond us” the juxtaposition of insignificance with the consoling nature of the intimidating mountains further emphasises the uneasy yet enriching relationship between people and landscapes.
