T.E. LawrenceSeven Pillars of Wisdom
1926 (Vintage edition with introduction by Robert Fisk 2007)
The ur-text of Middle Eastern war reporting and top of the reading list for US Army officers during the last war in Iraq.
At the beginning of Lawrence of Arabia, the celebrated 1962 biopic very loosely based on Seven Pillars, a young reporter approaches Allenby [former commander in chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force and Lawrence’s paymaster] for a few words at Lawrence’s memorial service. “More words?” Allenby retorts, disdainfully.
After battling through nearly 700 pages of Lawrence’s dense and flowery recollection of his role in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks in World War I, I can quite understand the sentiment – but what words!
My 2007 Vintage edition of Seven Pillars displays a neat endorsement by Winston Churchill on the back cover, calling it one of “the greatest books ever written in the English language”. He added: “As a narrative of war and adventure it is unsurpassable.”
As a narrative of adventure, the landscapes, characters and language Lawrence brought home from the Middle East are even more fantastic and otherworldly than anything Tolkein would later dream up for Middle Earth, and as a narrative of war it is still largely unrivalled.
This edition comes complete with a brisk and rather unsatisfying introduction by Robert Fisk, and the my final few pages dovetailed nicely with the BBC’s two-part documentary The Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia, narrated by former Iraq provincial governor [and current Tory parliamentary candidate] Rory Stewart. Both draw parallels with the Arab Revolt and the insurgency in Iraq, and highlight the continuing importance of the lessons Lawrence brought home from his war in the desert almost a century ago.
My apologies for coming in so late to the party, but I just saw your blog post re: Lawrence's seminal work while doing a search for images of its front cover. I read it a long time ago but have several copies -- a battered Penguin paperback, a 1930s American edition (forget the publisher, but a New Jersey-based one, if I remember), a very recent, handsomely bound one I received from my husband for Christmas, and a nondescript paperback one from the 1970s. It is indeed a very long, very detailed and beautifully written book. The dedication alone is worth the price of admission.
ReplyDeleteAm enjoying reading your blog!
Cheers,
Marjorie