Flights

GUIDEBOOKS

Describing something is like using it – it destroys; the colours wear off, the corners lose their definition, and in the end what’s been described begins to fade, to disappear. This applies most of all to places. Enormous damage has been done by travel literature – a veritable scourge, an epidemic. Guidebooks have conclusively ruined the greater part of the planet; published in editions numbering in the millions, in many languages, they have debilitated places, pinning them down and naming them, blurring their contours. Even I, in my youthful naiveté, once took a shot at the description of places. But when I would go back to those descriptions later, when I’d try to take a deep breath and allow their intense presence to choke me up all over again, when I’d try to listen in on their murmurings, I was always in for a shock. The truth is terrible: describing is destroying.

Which is why you have to be very careful. It’s better not to use names: avoid, conceal, take great caution in giving out addresses, so as not to encourage anyone to make their own pilgrimage. After all, what would they find there? A dead place, dust, like the dried-out core of an apple. The Clinical Syndromes (aforementioned) also includes the so-called Paris Syndrome, which largely ails Japanese tourists who visit Paris. It is characterized by shock and by a number of physical symptoms like shortness of breath, heart palpitations, sweating, and arousal. Occasionally there are hallucinations. Then sedatives are administered, and a retreat to the home is recommended. Such disturbances can be explained by the discrepancy between the pilgrims’ expectations and the reality of Paris, which bears no resemblance to the city described in guidebooks, films and television.