Journey to the Orient - Nerval (week 1)

Gérard de Nerval was a major figure of French Romanticism, influential to the Symbolists and Surrealists, and considered by Marcel Proust to be one of the greatest writers of the 19th century. He embodied the image of the eccentric genius, suffering nervous breakdowns and famously walking through the streets of Paris with his pet lobster on a leash.

With Journey to the Orient (aka, The Women of Cairo, 1851), he also contributed to the Orientalist tradition. More than just an account of travels, the book is a quest for the ideal--swirling in the myths, mysteries, and exotic imagery fueled by tales of the Arabian Nights: harems, seraglios, despots, public baths, slave auctions, and more.

After arriving in Egypt and securing a small rental house, the narrator is informed that in order to avoid scandal and eviction, he must find a woman with whom to cohabitate. He sets off on a series of adventures ranging from the disturbing to the comical, as his ambitions are alternately disappointed and rapturously renewed.

Nerval navigates between elusive fantasy and sham reality, interweaving fact and fiction in a way that makes it uncertain where each begins and ends. He explores bazaars and dervishes, local customs and occult phenomena, tales of the "Mad" Caliph al-Hakim and the Queen of Sheba--until what ultimately emerges is the story of a visionary's search for identity.

Week 1:

• "The Harem" (Volume 1, part 3)
• "The Story of the Caliph Hakem" (Volume 2, part 3)

Week 2:

• "The Story-Tellers" (Volume 2, part 3 of Nights of Ramadan)

Journey to the Orient (aka, The Women of Cairo):

• Volume 1
• Volume 2

Supplemental:

• A Visual Index of Journey to the Orient

Extracts:

• "In gliding turn of dreams which mate / He saw from forth Damascus’ gate / Tall Islam in her Mahmal go— / Elected camel, king of all, / In mystic housings draped in flow, / Silk fringed, with many a silver ball, / Worked ciphers on the Koran’s car / And Sultan’s cloth. / He hears the jar / Of janizaries armed, a throng / Which drum barbaric, shout and gong / Invest. And camels—robe and shawl / Of riders which they bear along— / Each sheik a pagod on his tower" (Clarel, 1.5)
• "’Twas Hakeem’s deed, / Mad Caliph (founder still of creed / Long held by tribes not unrenowned) / Who erst the pastoral hight discrowned / Of Helena’s church." (Clarel, 1.35)
• "“Pink, pink,” cried Glaucon, “pink’s the hue:— / “Pink cap and ribbons of the pearl, / A Paradise of bodice, / The Queen of Sheba’s laundry girl—" (Clarel, 2.2)
• "More like a lion’s skin unfold: / Attest the desert opening out / Direct from Cairo by the Gate / Of Victors, whence the annual rout / To Mecca bound, precipitate / Their turbaned frenzy." (Clarel, 2.11)

This meetup is part of a series on The Crescent and the Cross.