"Why did the chaos, the richness [of Egypt], so touch Flaubert? Because of his belief that life is fundamentally chaotic and that, aside from art, attempts to create order imply a censorious and prudish denial of our condition...Flaubert found and welcomed in Egyptian culture a readiness to accept life's duality: shit-mind, death-life, sexuality-purity, madness-sanity."
http://alaindebotton.com/travel/
