Where to belong: world, destinations and the nature of true home

Mid-way through Gerald Murnane’s The Plains the narrator states ‘I suspect that every man may be travelling towards the heart of some remote private plain’; a statement that illustrates a central motif in that particular work: the longed-for, personalised destination that is never reached. Similarly, Hervé Guibert’s jaded traveller narrator in Paradise offers ‘I look at photographs of Africa and I can see that Africa does not exist … It is better to dream of Africa than set foot in it’. This exegesis will discuss the attributes and functions of ‘unreachable destinations’ in the aforementioned case studies, and will explore the notions of ‘true homes’ and belonging/not belonging as states of being responding to inauthentic landscapes. The reality of destinations (places) will be discussed with reference to the following: Jean Baudrillard’s theories of simulacra and simulations and the replacing of meaning with signs and symbols; and Marc Augé’s concept of ‘non-places’. It will be argued that unreachable or non-existent destinations in the case studies function to turn the narrative journeys inward. Physical discovery or exploration becomes, instead, selfreflection; an attempt at unpacking a subjective reality in the hope of uncovering an authentic place, a true home.<br>