IT’S LONELY AT THE TOP

Despite the cast of seeming thousands (all named Hussein, Abdullah, or Ali), it seems the only real characters in the Seven Pillars of Wisdom are T.E. Lawrence, the landscape, and the weather. The other “people” are just background, or perhaps two dimensional archetypes. For example, Feisal is a personification of a saint—willing to bear anything for the cause, and endowed with all human graces appropriate to that cause. Farraj and Daud are like Greek symbols of innocent boy-love and perfect loyalty. Although the humans may indeed be as beautiful as artworks, they do not seem to be fully human:

He had large eloquent eyes, like black velvet in richness. His forehead was low and broad, his nose very high and sharp, powerfully hooked: his mouth rather large and mobile: his beard and moustaches had been trimmed to a point in Howeitat style, with lower jaw shaven underneath.

Chapter 38, p. 225 (describing Auda). In contrast, the landscape, sky, and weather fairly breathe and undulate, and emote almost humanly:

For years we lived anyhow with one another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven. By day the hot sun fermented us; we were dizzied by the heating wind. At night we were stained by dew, and shamed into pettiness by the innumerable silences of stars.

Chapter 1, p. 28. Another example:

The swell of every curve was a grey breast of sand set hard with mud, sometimes glistening with salt-crystals, and sometimes rough with the projecting brush of half-buried twigs which had caused it.

Chapter 74, p. 409.
It was difficult to get through the first two hundred or so pages—I could not find any rhythm or pattern to the account. The story did not read smoothly, but jerked along with new names of people and new names of places (and I was not always sure which was which), and then with a sudden lurch of a compelling vignette. I guess it was like learning to ride a camel—the ride does not really get any smoother, but you learn not to fight the movement carrying you along. By the end, I could appreciate that because this book is more a journey into the psyche of Lawrence than a recounting of war experiences. Events would be remembered in idiosyncratic ways and with importance measured by the effect on and memory of Lawrence rather than the historicity of the tale. The journey was an interesting travelogue, beginning with an “indifferent heaven” with freedom the object of his faith, and feeling himself and the Arabs to be mere “sentient puppets on God’s stage.” (Chapter 1, p.28). Before the journey was over, Lawrence had in his own mind become something greater than Jesus:

It might have been heroic to have offered up my own life for a cause in which I could not believe: but it was a theft of souls to make others die in sincerity for my graven image. Because they accepted our message as truth, they were ready to be killed for it; a condition which made their acts more proper than glorious, a logical bastard fortitude, suitable to a profit and loss balance of conduct. To invent a message, and then with open eye to perish for its self-made image—that was greater.

Chapter 100, p. 548. It could be argued that Lawrence did not perish, but if we circle back to the Introduction, Lawrence tells us quite clearly that he was destroyed by his self-sacrifice for the Arab and English irreconcilable causes:

In my case, the effort for these years to live in the dress of Arabs, and to imitate their mental foundation, quitted me of my English self, and let me look at the West and its conventions with new eyes: they destroyed it all for me. At the same time I could not sincerely take on the Arab skin: it was an affectation only. Easily was a man made an infidel, but hardly might he be converted to another faith. I had dropped one form and not taken on the other, and was become like Mohammed’s coffin in our legend…

Chapter 1, p. 31. So he also compares himself to Mohammed! Yet, ironically, all this self-exultation just leads Lawrence to feel completely alienated from other people:

They talked of food and illness, games and pleasures, with me, who felt that to recognize our possession of bodies was degradation enough, without enlarging upon their failings and attributes. I would feel shame for myself at seeing them wallow in the physical which could be only a glorification of man’s cross. Indeed, the truth was I did not like the ‘myself’ I could see and hear.

Chapter 103, p. 565. The price of divinity is self-loathing.

A riveting ride through the desert with this man and his cohorts as they battle the Turks. From a small beginning they accomplish the seemingly impossible, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. ( )

Literate, extraordinary book. ( )

A classic by one of the most interesting and remarkable men of the era. If you don't read any other book on the West's campaign in the Middle East, read this. ( )

T.E. Lawrence lead a true adventurer's life, and had an enormous impact on history, helping to destroy the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, while stirring Arab nationalism. So for an historian this first-hand account is quite important. But it's also well-written, although long-winded and full of digressions (like Moby Dick). For a shorter and more exciting account, I'd recommend The Revolt in the Desert, Lawrence's abridged version of this work.
For anyone, like myself, who has never been to Arabia, this book is a great National Geographic-like introduction to that land. Lawrence lovingly but realistically describes Arabia in such detail that the reader feels like he is there himself. Not a book for busy people, but perfect for armchair travellers. ( )