If you’ve read Flaubert in Egypt or Geoffrey Wall’s magnificent biography Flaubert, you’ll remember Gustave’s travel companion, Maxime Du Camp.

Before they headed to Egypt, Du Camp studied for six months with a professional photographer. No disposable or point-and-shoot digital in those days! You practically had to be a chemist. And the amount of luggage it generated was incredible: bottles and bottles of delicate chemicals, crates of glass plates plus all the peripheral equipment and finally, the camera itself. It was a major undertaking.

And Du Camp, if memory serves, was the first to take photos in Egypt. The first to capture the pyramids, the desert, the ancient monuments. I remember reading somewhere (where?) that Flaubert was horrified — no one would ever see these things for themselves first, through their own eyes. From then on, everyone would see these wonders through layers of previously seen photographs.

Well, it’s far too late to us, drenched as we are in images. So enjoy flipping through some lovely early photos of Egypt and North Africa and here’s a complete NYPL scan of the book of photos that Du Camp published when he returned.

And just for fun, here’s an excerpt from Wall’s bio.

Flaubert made conscientious efforts to imitate the bizarre cry of the camel. “I hope to perfect it before we leave, but it is quite difficult because of the particular gurgling sound that quivers somewhere beneath the screech…” […and a little later…] Suppressing the urge to put a bullet through his friend’s head, Du camp sent Flaubert away to ride ahead at a safe distance.

Read this one back in May, but I want to shuffle it off to the second-hand bookshop, so I thought I’d do a small review just so I remember that I read it.

(Gee, I hope the author doesn’t Google himself and read that! I still feel uncomfortable writing things about living authors (the dead are fair game!), but I do try to be polite unless it’s a real stinker and they seriously have it coming.)

Anyhow, I’m sorry, Mr. Parks, but I didn’t care for it.

Sometimes, being a downer is mistaken for realism or honesty. But sometimes, a person is just standing there staring at the dog poo in the gutter. Life is too short for hanging out with people like this — in life or literature. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not espousing sacharine, feel good rubbish. All I’m saying is that if your going to drag me through bleakness, it better be worth the ride. (see Dostoevsky)

I’ll grant that he does a good job of describing the place — but what a place! Who packs up their kit and moves to a run down suburb in a dumpy town, down wind from some chemical plants? Someone who likes to be depressed, that’s who. The whole thing just reeks of bleakness. Now, I have no problem with reality — I too loathe Peter Mayle — but this is swinging a bit too wildly to the opposite end of the spectrum. And to what purpose?

The author condescends, quirk hunts, has a patronizing attitude and is not very interesting. And I’m definitely not asking him to pet sit for me. (There’s a bizarrely long, drawn-out toying with the idea of poisoning the neighbour’s dog that I could have happily lived without.)

I found this book depressing and not very interesting, there weren’t (m)any insights and the company wasn’t engaging. Won’t read another by this author. Especially when there are so many other wonderful books about Italy. (i.e. Goethe’s Travels in Italy, H.V. Morton, Axel Munthe, etc…)

Here’s another one to skip! It will put you off the man and the island.

I’d previously read a few essays by Graham Greene and found them interesting enough, but he comes off as such a monumental jerk in this book, I can’t imagine wanting to read anything by him ever again.

As for Capri, thankfully, I’ve already been there a few times myself and so have my own impressions and memories. Went for some lovely walks, had delicious lemon ices (yum) and visited Tiberius’ villa — which I heartily recommend.

The reason I picked up this book is because I love Italy. The reason I kept this book even after I read and disliked it so much, was because of the cover painting. The rocks there have a very special look to them, which is partially due to the colouring (pinkish-grey-green rock any geologists out there that can explain what this means?) and the scrubby little bushes that cling on to nothing. The cover painting does a not-too-bad job of capturing it.

I really don’t know what all the fuss is about. Everyone seems to like and recommend this book. It’s not well written: the timeline is unclear, the dialogue is idealized and stagey, and Capri, although it’s in the title, receives only a passing mention — you certainly get no feeling for it whatsoever.

Before anything else, you need to know the subtitle: “An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose”.

This should be required reading everywhere. Especially those big-name writer’s workshops that churn out so many who will clutter up the bookshop shelves for years to come…

Now, it’s irrelevant whether you agree with each and every example. The desperately important thing is that he dares to critique these modern gods of “literary” fiction. What a glorious relief! Someone thinking critically about these things! And of course I don’t just mean fault finding, I mean analyzing the work — having a poke at it with a stick and seeing what it’s made of.

Yes! Let’s use those brains!