Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph by T.E. Lawrence
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Book Reviews of Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph
Book Review: The greatest book I have ever read.
Summary: 5 Stars
Reading this book will take you many places, though for the most part it all takes place in the desert. In just a few sentences Lawrence describes the migrations of tribes from the desert to the cities and back to the deserts until they are once again strong enough to conquer the cities and send their rivals back into the desert. This cycle has been going on for thousands of years. Lawrence's insights into the life and traditions of the Bedouin makes this the book to read if you want to understand the Arab. It will also teach you a lot about the mind and traditions of the West, which for the most part Lawrence found ridiculous. The immense attention to details in this book makes it easier to keep track of what's going on, but a lot is going on, almost too much. It is a detailed account of a war and a lot of it reads like an intelligence report. At one point Lawrence leads a raiding party carrying unstable plastic explosives on camels and their expert has a bad heart. They manage to blow up the train full of enemy troops, but Lawrence writes the victory as more a personal failure because he was afraid. He was probably one of the greatest heroes of our times, but he was not great in his own eyes. The height of his personal standards were unreachable by himself, and probably any other living human. That a man could dare so much, and still it was not enough is a big part of what this book was all about.Book Review: Lawrence is back!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Genral Abizaid quotes this book on a regular basis. The London Times (May 22, 2005) reports every American working as a liaison officer with the Arabs carries a copy of this book with them. This month's Army Magazine (online version, July, 2005) has an article called T.E. Lawrence and the Mind of an Insurgent. In it Genearl Giap (who whipped us in Viet Nam) is quoted as saying that Seven Pillars of Wisdom was his guerilla war bible, that he never went anywhere without it. My point is, T.E. Lawrence's well deserved reputation as a military genius has been fully restored after decades of angry revisionists taking out their frustration over the mess in the Middle East on Mr. Lawrence. This book is all things to all people. If you're looking for a vivid, intense description of war in the desert, this is where to go. If you want a damn good adventure story with well drawn characters, look no further. No better travel book has ever been written about the Middle East. Want to understand the Arab mind as well as a Westerner can? This is where to start. As a penetrating, revealing self analysis it has no equal. And, as General Giap and Abizaid have said, there is no better guide to guerilla war. This book is a masterpiece on every level and we should be so grateful we have it.Book Review: A Tale of Two Loyalties
Summary: 5 Stars
The complexity of the desert lies in not in its terrain or its people, but in its politics. The extreme economic scarcity inherent to the land has created a tangled web of inter-tribal alliances, loyalties, and rivalries that put medieval Europe to shame. In this book, T.E. Lawrence describes how he put his phenomenal understanding of this system to work, overcoming and manipulating tribal differences and clan rivalries, in driving the Ottoman Empire out of the Arabian peninsula.As his irregular army fights and raids its way to Damascus, Lawrence's misgivings about his duty as an English soldier to serve England first, even if it means misleading the men who so trustingly follow him, is a source of great anguish. He clearly does not consider himself to be a "real" soldier, though he is expected to act as one. The double life he must lead wears him down greatly; he finally tires of the desert that he once loved, and requests to be sent home.
Though the tales of minor skirmishes and major battles as well as the humorous anecdotes are quite entertaining and captivating in their own right, the great strength of this book is in its description of the complex socio-political system of the Bedouin nomads of Arabia and the even more complex mind of its author.
Book Review: Stubborn and courageous quest for significance in the desert
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the enduring themes of Lawrence's story for me is his stubborn and courageous quest for significance, which came closest to reaching the grail in the hostile world of the Arabian desert and its bedouin culture, which both attracted and repelled him. Readers for whom that theme resonates may want to compare a new account of Lawrence's bold desert predecessor, Charles Doughty, whom Lawrence acknowledged as a mentor and whose "Travels in Arabia Deserta" was a vital guide during the Arabian campaign. Lawrence's public recognition of Doughty - in "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" and elsewhere - rescued the old explorer-writer from obscurity and the two became admiring friends. They shared many of the same conflicts, deriving from partial acceptance of English traditional values and the occasional attraction of the more elemental norms of their reluctant Arab hosts. Andrew Taylor's "God's Fugitive" (available from Amazon.UK) tells the fascinating story of Doughty's lonely and dangerous travels in the 1870s, which he started by smuggling himself along with a Haj caravan to Mecca, as well as of his obdurate refusal to compromise with militant Bedouin Muslims or conventional English editors.Book Review: Second Time Around Better
Summary: 5 Stars
In reading Seven Pillars for a second time, I realized how T.E.Lawerance truly loved the desert and its people (the bedowin). I also can now appreciate the fact that Lawerance misplaced/lost/had stolen his first draft (which was near completion or completed) of this novel. I wonder if the second time around, Lawerance improved on his novel. With respect to Lawerance's sexual issues, I think he was more a-sexual (he did not liked to be touched) than heter or homo sexual. Indeed, this would be consistent with his almost fanitical love for the dessert and its solitude. The movie Lawerance of Arabia caught some of this "feeling" but his own work says its much better. This is a novel that is still worth reading, decades after his death. Truly, one of the great men of the 20th Century; an amazing man, who can not be easily "pegged" as so many have tried to do over the years. As with so many of the Greats of the 20th Century, Lawerance was a person with a personality that was complex and multi-layered (cf General Patton) and someone who felt (truly believed) that he was destined, almost "called" to do what he did-- notwithstanding, those who opposed him or who wanted him to fail