Nerval’s unfinished para-pilgrimage deliberately avoided the closure of prior Orientalist writing

Evidence

Nerval invests himself in the Orient, producing not so much a novelistic narrative as an everlasting intention—never fully realized—to fuse mind with physical action. This antinarrative, this para-pilgrimage, is a swerving away from discursive finality of the sort envisioned by previous writers on the Orient. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 467

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the concept of the ‘para-pilgrimage’ and ‘antinarrative’ as an alternative mode of Orientalist travel writing.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 467
• XREF: connects to: Nerval’s voyage resisted the discursive finality of orthodox Orientalism.; Nerval’s Oriental tales dissolve solid narrative into fluid, unresolved dream — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 471; The pre-existing Orientalist archive blocks the traveler’s fresh experience of the Orient — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 427 (+4 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Nerval’s voyage resisted the discursive finality of orthodox Orientalism.; Nerval’s Oriental tales dissolve solid narrative into fluid, unresolved dream — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 471; The pre-existing Orientalist archive blocks the traveler’s fresh experience of the Orient — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 427 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Nerval’s voyage resisted the discursive finality of orthodox Orientalism. #expands (0.96)
• The pre-existing Orientalist archive blocks the traveler’s fresh experience of the Orient #complicates (0.75) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 427
• Orientalist writing was limited to either false generality or private fantasy #complicates (0.73) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 447
• The Orientalist’s scholarly work is essentially an act of interpretation from outside, not participation #complicates (0.71) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 558