"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds
wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,
for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible."
T.E. Lawrence
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
It was his special quality: he does not age or date.
He belongs to today.
Even his theory of strategy is as current as this morning’s headlines.
He had a genius for taking the road we would want to follow.
I have been inspired by and obsessed with T.E. Lawrence for many years. I say obsessed in a healthy sense, in that he inspired me on a personal level to be better than I thought I could be. Despite all his insecurity, his common humanity and foibles, he refused to settle for anything less than the best in himself. At the same time, he inspired those around him to do the same. He wasn't your ordinary 'hero', but then, true heroes are never ordinary. Like many before him, he came upon his roles in life quite unexpectedly, and dealt with them as best he could by the seat of his pants. He left this world like an incomplete sentence; who knows how much more he could have gave us...
Iraq: "Messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife"
Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" is not a masterpiece* because of his strategy, however, but because of his writing. He is a master. His powers of description and the extended scene (the entire theory above is proposed as a fevered dream as he lies sick for a week in his tent) are almost unrivaled. He published his book as a novel, though it is, of course, a memoir -- and in tone and feel it precedes the ambiguities of truth and genre in the works of guys like Tim O'Brien and Frederick Exley.
It also preceded Hemingway's first war novel, "A Farewell to Arms," and Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front." Thus, Lawrence was a creator of both the individual soldier tormented about the aims of his war and his loyalties, but also, in his dual role of soldier and spy, the entire stock of Graham Greene and John le Carré characters. Lawrence could share with Chris Hedges a thing or two about how the corruscated beauty of war can burn out our souls, and when all the books are written on our latest Gulf War -- the one at hand and the decade-plus ellipsis that will ultimately join the adventures of 1990-91 and 2003 -- "Seven Pillars" will be remembered as the greatest Gulf War memoir. [From "Messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife",
by Joel Turnipseed]
* Not all agree...
Interesting insights into T.E. Lawrence from an outsider's perspective....
[Introductory comments by Jeremy Wilson]
Beartice Webb and her husband Sidney were pioneering British social reformers and friends of the Shaws. They were thinkers in an altogether different class to Lawrence, for whom, by his own admission, philosophy held no attraction. Also, by the time she met him, his mind had been dulled by living for several years apart from the kind of intellectual sparring that keeps minds sharp in universities and in many professions. There is, to my mind, no doubt that the quality of his thinking deteriorated during his service years. He became more inclined to talk (and include in his letters) nicely phrased nonsense (something Noel Coward remarked in his diary). Lawrence had a good brain -- but over time he lost the habit of mental self-discipline.
These comments about him strike me as extremely perceptive and interesting, on every count.
- - -
From: The Diary of Beatrice Webb Vol IV, 1924-1943 (London, Virago and the LSE, 1985)
8 November 1926. [refers to 7 November], Ayot St Lawrence
'At lunch Colonel Lawrence came in to bid the Shaws farewell before leaving for India; he was in private's uniform. He is short and stocky in build, high forehead, deep-set and close-together eyes, long powerful upper lip and chin and a magnetic glance; an attractive and arresting figure, obviously self-centred and self-conscious. He was more interesting to look at than to listen to; he had wonder-working eyes, the enquiring expression of half-child, half genius. More than a bit of a poseur, vivid but shallow in thought, with wit and sensibility but without knowledge or reasoning power - a spoilt child of fortune delighting in cheap abuse of democracy and dogmatic assertions on matters about which he knew nothing'.
20 March 1927. Ayot St Lawrence
'Read most of the Revolt in the Desert staying here this weekend . . .Lawrence appears as the perfect A. - Aristocrat, Anarchist, Artist - to which must be added, according to this account, Ascetic. His book in an epic of courage, personal charm and sympathy, achieving leadership, in a great adventure, over men of inferior mentality. Certainly he is a distinguished artist in word and act - though curiously limited in scope and variety. He is a consummate egotist; his outlook at times seems petty and peevish, he has no settled purpose or faith, and as an intellectual he is not remarkable for knowledge or for reasoning power. Unless fate follows him with another great occasion he may not achieve another epic. But having attained a dizzy position of literary fame I cannot believe that he will sink into an eccentric nonentity as a private soldier in India. Without creativeness one would think he would find such a daily life unendurable. An artist must create, an aristocrat must dominate, an ascetic must deny himself, and an anarchist must do what he d___ pleases, or die by drink, drugs or depression. A call will come and he will disappear for a while into another desert, free from the presence of the common civilized man, more especially the bourgeois democrat whom he detests. He is contemptuous of his fellow men, especially of his fellow countrymen and more particularly those of his own class. He claims a pedestal from which he can survey the world in order to lead, by personal magnetism, an alien herd of child-like dispositions. Among the complicated issues of western civilization, with its scientific tests and personal persuasion , Lawrence is a lost soul. In uniqueness, in the intensity of his personality, lies a large part of his distinction. . .'
From Carol Wilson, sister of Canadian writer Gwendolyn McEwen:
"I'm sure you know that one of Gwen's last books was the T.E.Lawrence poems
- she also had a great admiration for this man. Just prior to publication
I was visiting an aunt (my dad's sister) in British Columbia and when she
inquired what Gwen was doing, I mentioned the T.E.Lawrence book was just
being published - to which she asked 'Well, why didn't Gwen get in touch
with me?' Not being sure exactly what she meant I asked for what reason. 'Well,' Aunt Maud replied, 'Lawrence was my dear friend in
England in the early 1900s - who do you think your cousin Lawrence is
named for?' Neither Gwen nor I were aware of this connection, although
we wondered if a story overheard in childhood might have been the
beginning of Gwen's interest in his life."
From the T E Lawrence Studies List, an interesting insight:
Soon after the September 11th attacks, Bin Laden issued some diatribe and blamed the West for undermining Islam as a result of, what he termed, events or a "meeting" occurring 80 years earlier. Going back 80 years from 2001 puts the date of the alleged infamy in 1921, and the only thing I can think of that he might be referring to is the Cairo Conference. Since that Conference set the stage for the Hashemites Abdullah and Feisal to become kings of TransJordan/Jordan and Iraq, respectively, and the Hashemites (per Sherif Hussein) were in open conflict with Ibn Saud and the Wahabbis (to whom Bin Laden claims spiritual ties) in the Hejaz, perhaps Lawrence's role in the elevation of the Hashemites might be more relevant to events today than we think...
From an article that points out that, "
...sometimes popular culture both remembers, and anticipates, political events."
For the past week, a revival of "Lawrence of Arabia" has been playing to solid crowds at the Uptown Theater, the prestige big-screen movie palace in swanky Northwest Washington, D.C. In other words, on the eve of U.S. action against Iraq, some of Powertown's movers and shakers have been reminded that others before them, also great and glorious, have been down the same sandy road...The lesson of "Lawrence" is that military victory is only the beginning. Yes, the British could defeat the Turks. But, no, they could not rule the Arabs thereafter. Yet today, new Lawrences, American as well as British, are poised for action and adventure in an Arab land. They can probably win the fight easily enough, but history - real as well as reel - suggests that it's going to be tough to prevail in peace.
From an October 2002 online chat with John Mack:
A particpant asked, "When the young man from California John Walker Lindh was arrested in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban I was reminded somehow of T.E. Lawrence. How do you think Lawrence would view the current tensions between Islam and the West?"
Mack replied, "He would be appalled at the division and hostility. He tried to bring Jews and Arabs together. It goes against everything he valued. His spirit must be in great pain..."
My favorite biography of Lawrence is "A Prince of Our Disorder", by John Mack...
For more about Lawrence, visit his official biographer's site...
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