Summary
Un simple détail, parfois, suffit à notre honte. Il est certains malaises qui font partie du voyage. Les taire serait mensonge, les exagérer serait complaisance. Je n'ai jamais très bien su que faire de ces péripéties infimes qui, de loin en loin, viennent bousculer le train-train d'un récit et poser des questions sans réponse.
(Guillebaud, Porte, 735)(Sometimes a simple detail is enough to shame us. Certain moments of unease are part of the journey. To suppress them would be a lie, to exaggerate them would be an indulgence. I have never known very well what to do with these miniature episodes that disrupt the humdrum routine of a tale every now and then and pose questions without answers.)
The chapters above have addressed some of the most typical encounters between travellers and travellees, all defined by actions carried out by one for or to the other. This chapter focuses on encounters that are not so easy to label with a verb or classify as an action. They can be loosely described as challenging encounters: when the travellee presents the traveller with a challenging situation or decision, or challenges the traveller's expectations or beliefs. Such encounters do not always occupy a significant amount of time or textual space, but they are invested with emotional or moral significance. As Jean-Claude Guillebaud suggests in the quotation above, these encounters are often characterized by discomfort or even shame, by doubts about how to act and how to represent them in writing.
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- Interpersonal Encounters in Contemporary Travel WritingFrench and Italian Perspectives, pp. 107 - 126Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2014