Nerval found the real Cairo disappointing because representation preceded reality

Evidence

There were two kinds of consequence. First, as I have already suggested, since the Middle East had not yet been organised representationally, Europeans found the task of representing it almost impossible and the results disappointing. ‘Think of it no more! ‘wrote Nerval to Théophile Gautier, of the Cairo they had dreamed of describing. ‘That Cairo lies beneath the ashes and dirt, … dust-laden and dumb.’ Nothing encountered in those Oriental streets quite matched up to the reality they had seen represented in Paris. Not even the cafés looked genuine. ‘I really wanted to set the scene for you here’, Nerval explained, in an attempt to describe the typical Cairene street, ‘but … it is only in Paris that one finds cafés so Oriental.’ His disappointment resulted from the failure to construct representations of the city that were to serve, as so often, very practical purposes. As I mentioned, he was supplying Gautier with descriptions that could be reproduced as stage sets and pantomime acts for the Paris Opéra. Nerval finally despaired completely of finding ‘real Egypt’, the Cairo that could be represented. ‘I will find at the Opéra the real Cairo, … the Orient that escapes me.’ In the end only the Orient one finds in Paris, the simulation of what is itself a series of representations to begin with, can offer a satisfying spectacle. As he moved on towards the towns of Palestine, Nerval remembered Cairo as something no more solid or real than the painted scenery of a theatre set. ‘Just as well that the six months I spent there are over; it is already nothing, I have seen so many places collapse behind my steps, like stage sets; what do I have left from them? An image as confused as that of a dream: the best of what one finds there, I already knew by heart.’ — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 119

Categorization

• XREF: The tourist’s disappointment at the ‘real’ place failing to match its representation is the same phenomenon Baudrillard’s simulacra describes; also connects to Every Tourist discourse.
• SEED: Essay angle: the modern tourist industry as the world-as-exhibition in action — travelers chasing a place that only exists in other people’s photos and films.
• CANDY: Nerval wrote stage descriptions for the Paris Opéra and concluded the only real Cairo is the one at the Opéra — a delightful, tweetable irony.