Lawrence's Gravesite Threatened

Big news from England: Lawrence's gravesite in Moreton is under threat from quarry development. Fortunately, action by local Dorset citizens and the T.E. Lawrence Society has delayed a decision until October 23rd. Unfortunately, it's still likely that development will continue.

Any interested parties can read more about the issue here and here, or sign a petition against further development.

Lawrence, The Uncrowned King of Arabia (1998, Michael Asher)

Publishing Info

Asher, Michael. Lawrence, the Uncrowned King of Arabia. New York: Overlook Press, 1998. 419 pp.

Introduction

Michael Asher is a fine author with several worthwhile books to his credit (I'm especially fond of Khartoum: The Ultimate Imperial Adventure, his account of the Mahdist Wars in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan). Sadly, T.E. Lawrence isn't so well-served by Asher's pen. Rather than the promised groundbreaking "major biography," Lawrence, The Uncrowned King of Arabia mainly rehashes other biographies with little originality or insight.

The Author

Michael Asher (b. 1953) graduated from the University of Leeds, and served in the Parachute Regiment and later the SAS. He later relocated to Africa, beginning a career as teacher, Arabist, explorer and ecologist. Asher's written both nonfiction works and novels, including the popular Death or Glory series, and produced several television documentaries. He currently lives in Nairobi with his wife, photographer and teacher Marieantoniette Peru.

The Review

Asher is a fine narrative historian: he's got a flare for battle writing and character sketches, making even topographical descriptions compelling. When Uncrowned King trades analysis for adventure, it comes to life: Asher recounts familiar battles like Aqaba and Tafileh, locations like Wadi Rumm and personages like Feisal and Auda in typically colorful fashion. One wishes Asher had done a history of the Arab Revolt a la James Barr or David Murphy rather than a biography.

For Asher breaks little new ground. His early chapters liberally mix the interpretations of Richard Aldington (focus on Lawrence's dishonesty) and John E. Mack (probing for psychological explanations of Lawrence's behavior). Hence the fixation on Sarah Lawrence, again depicted as a whip-happy sadist, whose floggings molded Lawrence's attitude towards sex. Hence also the emphasis on Lawrence as a "sensitive" young child (26), as if this were a prerequisite for homosexuality.

Asher revisits Lawrence's old haunts, interviews Bedouin (who largely dismiss Lawrence) and tries to recreate his feats. He devotes one chapter to an attempt by himself, his wife and two Arab guides to replicate Lawrence's 48 hour crossing of the Sinai Peninsula. These segments are entertaining and persuasive. Cynics might conclude that Asher's failure doesn't automatically discount Lawrence's ability to do so. But Asher's expert enough that his conclusions at least provide food for thought - subjective, but more convincing than other logical leaps.

Asher fixates on minor stories to paint Lawrence as a habitual liar. Two prewar letters, where Lawrence relates an anecdote involving bells on a caravan (changing from camels to mules) draw significant analysis: "it's hardly likely that Lawrence could have in the space of a month forgotten what kind of animals they were" (34). Even if we accept Asher's insinuation, so what? We're reminded of Aldington smugly debunking Lawrence's self-consciously absurd claim of reading 50,000 books at Oxford.

Using such trivia, and more substantive incidents like Deraa, Asher argues that Lawrence expressed "reverse exhibitionism" (20). His famous self-denial and "horror of being known to like being known" mask a crippling martyr complex. Thus he takes on responsibility for events and failures not his own, like the Tafas Massacre, and the Arab Revolt's ultimate collapse. Asher uses Mack and other psychologists like Lyn Cowan to bolster his analysis, yet often leans on speculation.

Similarly, Asher reads Lawrence's employing literary allusions as proof of unreliability. When Lawrence unfavorably compares Farraj's demise to Daniel Corkery's Hounds of Banba (310), he's not claiming dissatisfaction with his writing. For Asher, this means it never happened. Deraa becomes a coded admission of sexuality: "It was, perhaps, his final declaration to the world of his conviction... that he was untouchable and unclean" (295). Like Desmond Stewart, he doubts Farraj and Daud even existed, or that Lawrence executed Hamed the Moor.

Asher stands on firmer ground analyzing Bedouin culture. Asher draws heavily on personal experience, so these passages ring with authenticity that much of the book lacks. From his personal experiences, interviews and analysis, Asher's portrait effectively casts doubt on Seven Pillars' account of tribal lifestyles. He questions Lawrence's assertion that homosexuality is commonplace among the Bedouin, writing that "the merest suggestion of it would be like to bring out daggers" (233).

Asher critiques Lawrence and other biographers for Orientalism, but he's not above aureate prose when it suits him. Describing the Bedouin lifestyle, he becomes positively picturesque: (p.155)

They lived not by material wealth... but by the cult of reputation. A man gained honor by displaying courage, endurance, hospitality, generosity and loyalty, and while no strange caravan, nor traveler, nor rival tent was free from his depredations, there was no more honorable traveling companion nor host once he had shared bread and salt. Raiding for camels was the spice of his life, and a means of acquiring reputation, and his hand was turned against every man, unless it suited him. His services could be bought with gold, but his soul could not.

Not since Flora Armitage's The Desert and the Stars has a biographer employed such florid verbiage.

More egregiously, Asher peppers his text with dialogue from Lawrence of Arabia. Hence Dahoum finds England "a fat country, full of fat people" (110), while Alec Kirkbride thinks Lawrence has "a horror of bloodshed" (334). Hence Lawrence initiates Tafas by shrieking "No prisoners!" (331) instead of Seven Pillars' "The best of you brings me the most Turkish dead!" No biographer can entirely avoid David Lean's shadow, but directly quoting him is a temptation best avoided.

Asher's text contains other oddities. There are niggling errors, like his claim that Feisal's nemesis Abd el-Kadr died in November 1917 (286) (off by a year) or that Aldington published his biographical enquiry in "the '60s" (353) (off by a decade). There are odd misjudgments, like reducing General Allenby and Lawrence's French allies to bit players. There are also unaccountable elisions: Asher compresses Lawrence's entire postwar life into two terse chapters. So much for a "major biography."

Most often Lawrence, the Uncrowned King of Arabia is unremarkable when not inadequate. Just sixteen years on, Asher's work has already been eclipsed by Michael Korda and Scott Anderson's far more comprehensive (and persuasive) tomes. In contrast, King is a pedestrian work that contributes little to a crowded field.

Lawrence discoveries and publishings

It's been almost seven months since our last post. Time to check in.

Three recent items might interest Lawrence enthusiasts:.

We'll start with a noteworthy archaeological find: the discovery of a wartime camp, used by Lawrence and his allies, at Tooth Hill in Jordan by the Great Arab Revolt Project, in conjunction with Bristol University. The Daily Mail has a detailed article along with photographs.

Secondly, Dr. Ali A. Allawi's (former Defense Minister of Iraq) biography of Emir Faisal has recently been published in America. So far as I'm aware, this marks the first English-language biography of Lawrence's friend and ally, and is worth seeking out for that reason alone. The Wall Street Journal has a detailed review here.

Finally, there's fiction news from this blog's friend, novelist/historian Benedicta Froelich. She recently published her novel Nella Sua Quiete (In His Quiet), detailing Lawrence's final days at Clouds Hill. Currently, it's only in Italian, but she promises an English-language edition in the future.

As for us? Expect a special article by week's end, and at least one book review in the foreseeable future. Happy reading!

Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East (2013, Scott Anderson)

Publishing Info:
Anderson, Scott. Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East. New York: Doubleday, 2013. 577 pp.

Introduction:
Just three years after the last major Lawrence biography (Michael Korda's Hero) comes this volume. Veteran journalist Scott Anderson further probes the Lawrence enigma, fitting him into the broader wartime canvas. In his view, "Lawrence was able to become Lawrence of Arabia because no one was paying much attention" to this marginal theater of war (3). Anderson's critical view of Lawrence nearly provides a throwback to Aldington-era skepticism.

The Author:

Scott Anderson is a New York-based journalist and author. As a war correspondent, Anderson covered conflicts ranging from Northern Ireland and Checnya to the Sudan. He's published several nonfiction books, along with novels including Triage and Moonlight Hotel. Anderson discusses his book with NPR here.

The Review:
As the subtitle suggests, Anderson attempts a broader view of World War's Middle Eastern Theater, focusing mainly on the Arab Revolt (though bringing Allenby's Palestinian campaign and the muddled Mesopotamian adventure in where appropriate). For that matter, he's more concerned with the war's diplomatic and political finagling than its military dimensions. In this regard it's more akin to David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace, or James Barr's Setting the Desert on Fire, than a straight biography.

To flesh out his narrative, Anderson compares Lawrence with several contemporaries. These are Aaron Aaronsohn, the agricultural expert-turned-Zionist agent who became an intelligence asset to the British (see also Ronald Florence's Lawrence and Aaronsohn); Curt Prufer, Germany's chief intelligence operative in Turkey; and William Yale, a Standard Oil official who became General Allenby's American military attache. Anderson argues that in this military backwater, "these men drew upon a very particular set of personality traits... to both forge their own destiny and alter the course of history" (4).

These individuals are interesting in their own right, and occasionally clarify Lawrence's story. For instance, Anderson uses Prufer's correspondence to demonstrate that Lawrence's nemesis Abd el-Kadr was indeed on Djemal Pasha's payroll (385). Aaronsohn provides a window not only into nascent Zionism, but his contacts with Djemal allow readers to appreciate the actions of Turkey's government. But Anderson treats them superficially; they appear irregularly through the narrative, without making strong impressions. By default, Lawrence becomes the central figure.

Anderson's is primarily a disillusioned imperialist. He starts the book with Lawrence refusing the VC from King George V and follows this strand throughout. Lawrence's prewar intelligence work and early years at the Arab Bureau give way to bitter disillusionment. Anderson makes Lawrence's involvement in the Siege of Kut, trying to negotiate the ransom of General Townshend's besieged garrison, a turning point in Lawrence's worldview. Along with his Cairo experiences, Kut taught Lawrence to distrust the "toxic fusion of racism and British notions of military superiority" (170) that shaped British attitudes towards Arab and Turk alike.

Anderson views Lawrence as not only cynical towards his government, but actively siding with the Arabs. Lawrence not only opposes landing troops in Alexandretta and informs Feisal of Sykes-Picot but, in Anderson's view, encourages his March 1918 negotiations with Mehmet Djemal. Apparently Lawrence saw the negotiations "as a powerful potential weapon to use against his government" (447). Anderson views this as a reaction to Mark Sykes' devious diplomacy ("[he] had a very hard time keeping his facts, even his own beliefs, straight" (155)) and French Colonel Bremond's brusque arrogance. This tallies also with Lawrence's habit of cavalierly disregarding orders.

Post-Aqaba, Lawrence relished throwing his weight around, spiting not only officers like Cyril Wilson he disliked but "pushing aside" his friend Stewart Newcombe (352). Anderson thoroughly plumbs Lawrence's relationship with Emir Faisal: he respects the chieftain's "unshaken ambition" (246) but grows wary at his "propensity for vacillation" (289). Where Korda recounts Lawrence's postwar meetings with Feisal as happy occasions, Anderson shows them as "awkward gatherings" (504). Not an overt "debunking" work, it's surely the most cynical treatment of Lawrence since Michael Asher. 

Anderson isn't entirely convincing. Lawrence's disgust at Allied perfidy is evident throughout his writings; it's hard to credit authors like Suleiman Mousa and Phillip Knightley who strenuously argue him a heartless imperialist. But extreme suppositions that Lawrence engendered Feisal's negotiations with the Turks build on decidedly slender foundations. Anderson isn't wrong to that Lawrence's efforts during the Arab Revolt, and later at Versailles, left him drained and ashamed. Yet later, Lawrence felt his efforts at 1922's Cairo Conference squared his loyalty to Britain and the Arabs adequately.

Nor does Anderson particularly shine elsewhere. His accounts of Lawrence's military actions read fairly, but without particular insight or originality. He's less interested in Lawrence's tactics than his growing "hatred for the enemy" which culminates in Tafas (416). He dismisses Seven Pillars of Wisdom as a "fabulously uneven book" (504). Lawrence's later life, in Anderson's view, is "decidedly prosaic" (504) and hence largely ignored. The Lawrence lauded for his "genius for friendship," able to charm both aristocrats and army privates, appears nowhere in these pages. Any hints of insouciant humor drown beneath waves of bitterness.

Anderson sniffs at "arcane squabbles between those seeking to tarnish his reputation and those seeking to defend it" (3), yet can't help examining a few himself. He confirms Barr's assertion that the northern ride during the Aqaba expedition is beyond dispute (322). He reasonably questions Lawrence's account of Deraa but concludes that "something happened in Deraa" (401). His "something" is a recapitulation of Richard Aldington's theory that Lawrence willingly submitted to the Bey's advances (402).


One shouldn't begrudge Scott Anderson for a well-written book. History buffs can learn a good deal, and even jaded Lawrence snobs may find it an engaging read. It's just a shame that Anderson offers little substantive insight into his central figure.

Checking in

It's been over four months since my last post. Groggy's recently moved and started a new job, so not a lot of time for Lawrence research.

One obvious point of interest: the recent release of Scott Anderson's Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East. The reviews are positively hyperbolic, yet little I've culled from more detailed pieces (cf. here) suggests there's anything not covered by myriad other Lawrence books, or broader studies like David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace. The only new wrinkle seems to be profiling Lawrence alongside contemporaries like Aaronsohn (already juxtaposed with TEL by Ronald Florence), Curt Prufer and William Yale.


Does this mean I won't read Anderson's book? Of course not. I'm always excited to read a new Lawrence tome, and will jump on this as soon as time and money allow. I'm just amused that the same old claims get trotted out by every biography coming down the pike.

Upcoming Lawrence Biography

May sees the release of a new volume on TEL: Lawrence: Warrior and Scholar by Bruce Leigh.

This book is a slim (120 pp.) volume published by Tattered Flag, an independent publisher of military history. Its Amazon blurb makes some rather bold claims, to wit:

"Nobody has gone in search of the mind of the man himself - of his formation and his deep beliefs. Nobody has asked the question, What, really, is the source of the extraordinary power of this little man?"

I leave it to my readers to judge the truthfulness of this comment. Suffice it to say this sensationalist, preening ad copy gets more tiresome with each new book. Still, let's wish Mr. Leigh the best of luck - and hope his book is a worthy addition to the Lawrence canon.

Hannen Swaffer Vs. TEL

Maarten Schild points me towards an article published in the April 22, 1933 Literary Digest. Entitled "Debunking Lawrence of Arabia," it's a sarcastic open letter questioning Lawrence's modesty and achievements, penned by famed British journalist Hannen Swaffer.

The letter itself offers no substantive criticism, merely a rant against Lawrence's inflated (in Swaffer's view) reputation. "This sort of hero worship is a public menace," Swaffer writes, condemning Lawrence's self-contradiction and ceaseless press coverage. Yet it's an interesting piece, if only as an example of early Lawrence criticism, long before Richard Aldington's Biographical Enquiry.

Skepticism towards Lawrence did not originate with Aldington. Indian officers serving in Mesopotamia, including Arnold Wilson and Charles Vickery resented the attention drawn to Lawrence's theater of operations. Major N.N. Bray published Shifting Sands in 1928, criticizing Lawrence and the Arab Bureau for supporting the Hashemites over Ibn Saud. Lawrence's French counterpart Edmond Bremond was unflattering in his Le Hedjaz dans la guerre mondiale (1931). Charles Wilson, wartime British resident in Jeddah, excoriated Lawrence in a review of Lowell Thomas's With Lawrence in Arabia (1924). Schild notes also that these critics helped originate claims of Lawrence's homosexuality. Many had personal reasons to attack Lawrence, yet their positions gave them perceived credibility. 

Intellectuals and writers shared their reservations. Explorer Rosita Forbes attacked Lawrence as "a figment of [Lowell Thomas's] imagination." Poet Herbert Read, incidentally a friend of Aldington, called Seven Pillars of Wisdom an "expensive parade of eccentricity and bad taste" and the author a near-psychopath in a 1928 article for The Bibliophiles' Almanack. Historian George Antonius accused Lawrence of self-promotion in The Arab Awakening (1938). Even D.H. Lawrence took a few shots in Lady Chatterley's Lover, ridiculing Colonel "C.E. Florence" for his "unsatisfactory mysticism... [Sir Malcolm] saw too much advertisement behind all the humility."

Swaffer's critique illustrates that Aldington did not exist in a vacuum. Many publicly and privately found Lawrence failed to measure up to the Lowell Thomas media circus. Some outright loathed him. Yet until 1955, they were a footnote compared to the popular biographies of Thomas, Robert Graves, Liddell Hart, the praise of well-connected friends Winston Churchill and Bernard Shaw, and Lawrence's own remarkable writings.

T.E. Lawrence in Arabia and After (1934, B.H. Liddell Hart)

 

Publishing Info:

Liddell Hart, Basil H. Lawrence of Arabia. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1989. 406 pp.

Originally published as T.E. Lawrence in Arabia and After. London: Jonathan Cape, 1934. US publication: Colonel Lawrence: The Man Behind the Legend. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1934.

Introduction:

Many consider T.E. Lawrence in Arabia and After the first "serious" Lawrence biography after the sensationalism of Lowell Thomas and Robert Graves. Written by England's foremost military theorist, it provides valuable insight into Lawrence's achievements as a strategist "who had the vision to anticipate the guerrilla trend of civilized warfare" (382). Despite his sober bearings, Liddell Hart proves no less susceptible to hero worship than his predecessors.

The Author:

Captain Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart (1895-1970) was an influential writer of military history and tactics. Among his many works are The Strategy of Indirect Approach (1929); biographies of Scipio Africanus, Napoleon, William T. Sherman and Ferdinand Foch; edited The Rommel Papers; and one-volume histories of the First and Second World Wars. His writings on the "indirect approach" to warfare, emphasizing maneuver, concentrated firepower and tanks, provided an intellectual model for Germany's blitzkrieg tactics during the Second World War.

The Review:

The balance of Liddell Hart's book analyzes Lawrence's military campaigns. Liddell Hart views Lawrence as a brilliant leader, worthy of comparison to "great captains" like Clausewitz, Napoleon and Marlborough. Using minimal resources against a numerically and technologically superior foe, Lawrence "turn(ed) the weakness of the Arabs into an asset, and the strength of the Turks into a debit" (383).

Liddell Hart draws uncritically on Lawrence's writings, often to the point of paraphrase. But his strategic and tactical analysis frequently proves unassailable. Consider his analysis of Lawrence's most famous military achievement: (pp. 166-167)

Tactically, the Aqaba operation had inflicted a permanent loss of some 1,200 men... on the Turks - at a cost of two men killed in the conquering force... By the strictest canons of orthodox strategy... it was an unrivaled achievement. The British forces in trying unsuccessfully to capture Gaza [under Murray]... had only succeeded in killing or capturing 1,700 Turks at a permanent cost to themselves of 3,000 men... They had sacrificed roughly two men to kill one Turk, the same number that the Arabs sacrificed to kill 1,200 Turks!

Liddell Hart broods on Lawrence's interlude at Wadi Ais, one of Seven Pillars' more dubious (though beautifully written) passages. Liddell Hart takes it at face value, marveling at Lawrence formulating "a new theory of irregular warfare" (138) while racked with fever. He emphasizes Lawrence's campaign against the Hejaz Railway, but downplays the Royal Navy's decisive role in capturing Wejh. He views Lawrence's ephemeral victory at Tafileh as a "gem" (215), while skimming over his failed 1918 Dead Sea Campaign. The Arabs become a feverish mass, indecisive until Lawrence prods them into action.

Liddell Hart's analysis deserves qualification. In 1929 he wrote The Strategy of Indirect Approach, thanking "T.E.S." in the foreword and dissecting the Arab Revolt. In another book (Great Captains Unveiled, 1927) he highlights Lord Allenby as a great modern general. Later in life Liddell Hart headed the so-called "Lawrence Bureau," ferociously defending Lawrence's reputation against Richard Aldington, David Lean and others. (He did collaborate with Terence Rattigan on his play Ross: A Dramatic Portrait (1960).) Along with his disparagement of Great War leadership, Liddell Hart clearly views Lawrence as exemplifying his pet theories.  

For all that, Liddell Hart's overall assessment is shrewd. It's possible to overstate Lawrence's tactical achievements, but he undeniably influenced military theory: guerrilla leaders from Orde Wingate to Vo Nguyen Giap drew inspiration from Seven Pillars, while American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq study Lawrence's 27 Articles. Those scoffing at the small number of Arabs joining King Hussein's revolt miss the point of asymmetrical warfare, so beautifully elucidated by Liddell Hart. For minimal casualties and lucre, the Arab Revolt provided the British an extremely useful sideshow.

Liddell Hart (right) with TEL at Hythe, ca. 1934.

Liddell Hart proves less shrewd otherwise analyzing his subject. He seems just as credulous to Lawrence's tall tales and evasions as Thomas or Graves. He sketches Lawrence's early years thinly, omitting Lawrence's illegitimacy or tense relationship with his mother. Even this early in Lawrence literature, inconsistencies emerge. For one, Lawrence's pre-war ambush by a Syrian bandit (9) differs significantly from Graves: in this telling, Lawrence thwarts the bandit by dissembling his pistol. More notably, Liddell Hart downplays Lawrence's complicity in the Tafas Massacre (287-288), when Lawrence himself is shockingly forthright.

Liddell Hart notes Lawrence's artistic interests, highlighting his "process of swift mental appreciation" (12), "extraordinary charm" (13) and "ha[ving] an instinctive shyness born of a sense of difference" (258). He relates amusing anecdotes like Lawrence's confronting an imposter: "Had he stuck to his statement I should have begun to question myself," says his subject (369). There's also his passage on Lawrence's postwar military service, finding "a sense of fulfillment, reinforced by a sense of futility" in being a gentleman ranker (330), and proving rare in 'adjusting his opinions to his knowledge" (375). These passages provide valuable insight into Lawrence's personality.

But Liddell Hart's views of Lawrence often prove simplistic or worse. The author's "reasoned belief in the benefits of British administration" (309) distorts Lawrence's efforts at Paris and Cairo to reconcile British, French and Arab war aims. Nor can we credit his view of Lawrence as a "Crusader" (374), a melodramatic flash out of Lowell Thomas. When all else fails, Liddell Hart falls back on starry-eyed hagiography. He melodramatically ends by announcing that "in [Lawrence] the Spirit of Freedom came incarnate to a world in fetters" (390), a messiah cut down in his prime.

It's perhaps unfair to conclude, like Stephen Tabachnick, that Liddell Hart views "Lawrence as a potential dictator" (Images of Lawrence, 40). Liddell Hart discussed the idea with Lawrence but both seem to view it as a lark. It was proposed seriously by novelist Henry Williamson, who imagined Lawrence leading "a whirlwind campaign which would end the fearful thought of old Europe" (Genius of Friendship, 75). Lawrence also complained of being approached by Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts, repeatedly rebuffing them. "I don't want to be considered... as a philosophic system, or a paragon... of conduct," he told Graves.

Rather, Liddell Hart seems profoundly awed by Lawrence, a common reaction among friends. Winston Churchill proclaimed Lawrence "one of the greatest beings alive in our time." Vyvyan Richards compared him to Alexander the Great and St. Francis of Assisi; Williamson to Jesus Christ. All of them, not unreasonably, thought Lawrence an extraordinary man with a calling greater than RAF anonymity. Perhaps there lies the true measure of Lawrence's greatness: not his military genius or literary skill, but his ability to befriend and bewitch such a diverse lot of people. 

Even this benign reading points up T.E. Lawrence in Arabia and After's primary shortcoming. Liddell Hart the historian can scrutinize Lawrence's campaigns with clarity and insight. But Liddell Hart the man can't see Lawrence as anything but a friend, seemingly lacking guile or fault. The resulting tome merely cocoons the Lawrence myth in a scholarly patina, begging for skeptics to bust it open.

Richard Aldington Rides Again: Nick Pope on Lawrence, Aldington and "Legends"

This piece by Nick Pope appeared in Monday's edition of The Majalla, a magazine focusing on the Arab World. Given the magazine's focus it's not surprising Lawrence comes under fire: Arab writers like Edward Said and Suleiman Mousa have long criticized Lawrence, alongside more liberal-minded Westerners. What is strange is that it posits Richard Aldington's 1955 Biographical Enquiry as "unravel[ing] the hype and fabrication behind the Lawrence story."

Mr. Pope admits he's "no scholar" in Lawrence studies, yet evinces familiarity with Seven Pillars and other biographies. That said, his read on both Lawrence and Aldington proves annoyingly superficial. This piece reads like the breathless reviews that invariably accompany new Lawrence biographies, boldly intoning again how this book "cuts the Lawrence legend down to size" or "reduces its subject to human scale." 

First, it's wrong to characterize Aldington as "a mere footnote... in the Lawrence legend industry." Anyone vaguely familiar with Lawrence studies knows Aldington's profound impact on public and scholarly discourse. His revelations of Lawrence's illegitimacy and connivance with early biographers, alongside critical analyses of Lawrence's writings and more spurious accusations of homosexuality, pathological lying and egomania, forced future biographers to reassess Lawrence. Certainly they remain prevalent in public consciousness; the film Lawrence of Arabia notably incorporates much of Aldington's characterization. For better or worse, Aldington continues to color the Lawrence debate. 

Pope's criticisms of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, drawing on Aldington's book, aren't very convincing either. Note his disparagement of Lawrence claiming Aqaba's capture as "another Gallipoli" (not a direct quote) when "it had been done [by the British] twice before." Yes, by small Royal Navy hit-and-run raids too small to actually hold the town. Anyway, Lawrence's comment occurs when his superiors Murray and Wingate proposed an Anglo-French landing at Aqaba. Having visited the region, Lawrence feared that a massed landing of troops would be

as unfavorably placed as on a Gallipoli beach, would be under observation and gun-fire from the coastal hills: and these granite hills, thousands of feet high, were impracticable for heavy troops: the passes through them being formidable defiles, very costly to assault or to cover. (p. 173, 2001 Penguin Classics edition of SP)

True, the Turks maintained only a small regional garrison at Aqaba, small enough for Royal Marines to periodically come ashore and capture them. But then the Turks had few troops guarding the Dardanelles in early 1915, either. The landing of an entire army would produce a major reaction, with terrain giving the Turks a decided advantage. Hardly a baseless boast by Lawrence but a shrewd tactical assessment.

It's true that Allenby's British regulars did the lion's share of the fighting in Palestine, with the Arab Revolt a "sideshow." Does Lawrence claim otherwise? He consciously admitted to writing a subjective account of his personal experiences serving with the Arabs. Nor was Lawrence's oft-stated distrust of French imperial designs - harped on incessantly by Aldington - remotely unique among British policymakers of that era, as David Fromkin and James Barr have shown.

But then Aldington's whole book harps on minor points. When Lawrence dismissively refers to Bulgaria's surrender as "insignificant to us" (SP 649) during a raid, Aldington thinks it "a degree of more than usual egotism" (240) to downplay such a momentous event. To Lawrence's Bedouin campaigning in the desert though, the news probably didn't matter. Deflating the claim that Lawrence read 50,000 books at Oxford (31-32) is amusing but pointless: surely this was playful exaggeration rather than a psychotic lie. If Robert Graves reported it uncritically the fault doesn't lie with Lawrence.

This sarcastic pedantry characterizes Aldington's entire work, finding fault with Lawrence even where there's none to be had. Aldington may have started with "no particular feelings towards Lawrence" but his writings drip with contempt towards the British establishment that lionized T.E. Certainly he loathes that Lawrence won fame instead of "the real heroes of 1914-1918" (381) - Western Front veterans like himself. Not for nothing did Robert Irwin compare Aldington's book to "a waterfall of venom." 

My main complaint though comes in positioning Aldington as the Rosetta Stone to Lawrence. Pope mentions John Mack and Michael Korda's books but dismisses them as hero worship, marking the authors as dupes or worse. All the revelations of the post-Aldington era - the release of War Office documents in 1969, witnesses like John Bruce and Janet Laurie, Jeremy Wilson's authorized biography and publishing of Lawrence's private papers - go unmentioned. By ignoring this, Pope strangely undercuts Aldington's importance.

Finally, there's the implied dichotomy between Lawrence worship and Lawrence hatred. Granted, Aldington was savaged in his time by the "Lawrence Bureau," with A.W. Lawrence and Basil Liddell Hart (whose book I'll soon review) trying to suppress and smear his work. And authorized biographer Jeremy Wilson can be viciously defensive towards Lawrence. That doesn't mean a nuanced view of Lawrence isn't possible. Some people can square Lawrence's disreputable side with his achievements and still find him admirable. Lawrence wasn't a mythic construct, but a human being - more interesting than either Aldington or Liddell Hart would have us believe.

Lawrence of Arabia: Seven Scenes From Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Originally posted here.

As preparation for seeing David Lean's film Lawrence of Arabia in theaters last week, I re-read T.E. Lawrence's memoir Seven Pillars of Wisdom (London: Penguin Classics edition, 2000). Whatever its strict accuracy (and one must allow for embellishment and subjectivity in memoirs), it's an engrossing read on several levels: as literature, a military chronicle, an exotic travelogue, a political analysis, a psychological self-portrait. It's easy to understand how David Lean saw potential for an exciting film. But how does the movie compare to its source material?

Rather than an excruciating line-by-line analysis (see Jeremy Wilson), this article examines seven key scenes from Lawrence of Arabia based on their relationship to Seven Pillars. We'll view the filmmakers' choices through three general criteria: 1. How does the scene draw from Lawrence's writings? 2. Is it accurate or at least within the bounds of reasonable dramatic license? 3. What dramatic purposes do any changes serve?

1. Ali at the Well 

Perhaps Lawrence's most memorable scene is Sherif Ali's introduction at Matsurah Well: a black blob appearing on the horizon and slowly approaching, Lawrence and his guide Tafas watching in trepidation. He shoots Tafas, member of the rival Beni Salem tribe; Ali is a Harith, their blood enemy. Ali takes Lawrence's service pistol, previously gifted to Tafas. Lawrence then denounces Ali as a murderer and continues his journey to Feisal alone.

This scene draws on an incident in Seven Pillars, but the two depictions couldn't be more different. The real Sherif Ali traveled with a slave, and the two switched identities to fool Tafas. Lawrence treats the incident comically, far from the movie's deadly encounter. Lawrence also shows that Bedouin allowed common use of desert wells, even among unfriendly tribes. Here, Lean readily jettisons reality for artistic effect.

Lean introduces several thematic strands. It establishes Ali and his bipolar relationship with Lawrence. Lawrence starts as civilized man disgusted by the "savage" Ali; the two develop inversely throughout the film, reversing roles in the final act. The idea of Arabs torn "tribe against tribe," and Lawrence's efforts to unite them for a common cause, is dramatically established. Regardless of realism, the scene is both artistically impressive and dramatically important.

2. Feisal's Tent 

From his first meeting with Prince Feisal, Lawrence felt him "the leader who would bring the Arab Revolt to full glory" (92). As portrayed by Alec Guinness, Feisal embodies Arabia's glorious past and dreams of independence, with a shade of worldly cynicism. He has no illusions about British war aims and ultimately accepts an unfavorable compromise.

Lean and writer Robert Bolt draw loosely on Seven Pillars but use this encounter as a dramatic springboard. Obviously it's an important scene for Lawrence and the other characters. It's also crucial in delineating themes and plot devices that will recur throughout the film.

Lean introduces Colonel Brighton, a composite character representing military convention. Brighton emphasizes the importance of discipline, disputed by Ali (who wants modern weapons) and Feisal (who doubts its value). Lawrence immediately (and inaccurately) disagrees with Brighton and advocate a third way: guerrilla warfare. This piques Feisal's interest, allowing him to confide his fears to Lawrence that the English "hunger for Arabia."

In the subsequent "miracle" scene (drawing loosely on Lawrence's interlude at Wadi Ais), Lawrence realizes the Arabs must move north and seize Aqaba to regain the initiative. This is misleading. Contrary to Brighton's claim that the Royal Navy has "better things to do," they worked closely with the Arabs in seizing the port of Wejh (January 1917). After this, Lawrence says in Seven Pillars, "the Arab movement... had passed beyond danger of collapse" (169). Aqaba was not then a desperate gambit but a logical next step.

Dramatically, this scene places Arab and British war aims in opposition. The Arabs want complete independence; the British want to limit the uprising, in furtherance of imperial goals. Lawrence must choose one side or the other, or else be hopelessly conflicted. There's much truth to this characterization, though oddly Lean makes Lawrence ignorant of the Sykes-Picot Agreement until much later! This scene is dubious historically but provides a solid basis for further drama.

3. Gassim: Nothing is Written 

One of Lawrence's best scenes is the rescue of Gassim, an Arab tribesman lost on the road to Aqaba. This sequence, strikingly shot by Lean, closely follows Seven Pillars' description (260-264). Shortly afterwards Lawrence eschews his uniform for white robes, the Arabs accepting him as "El Aurens" - the cornerstone of his legend. Here Lean deviates from Seven Pillars: Auda abu Tayi (who in reality joined the Aqaba expedition at its onset) wonders why Lawrence risked his life for a man "not worth a camel's price" (263), while Lawrence had been wearing Arab robes long before.

Dramatically this scene serves two major purposes. First, as mentioned, it marks Lawrence's acceptance by the Arabs, especially Ali, who soon becomes an inseparable friend. Second, it highlights Lawrence's first triumph over Fate. Ignoring Arab fatalism, Lawrence proves he can overcome long odds through determination: "Nothing is written!" This minor triumph sets the stage for greater victories at Aqaba and Damascus.

Lean later provides an ironic coda when Lawrence executes Gassim for murdering a Howeitat (tellingly, with Tafas's revolver). "It was written then," intones Auda, reasserting Fate's power over Choice. It also introduces a new theme - Lawrence's enjoyment of killing. The real Lawrence executed another Arab, Hamed, for a similar crime earlier in Seven Pillars. Conflating the two events is acceptable dramatic license.

4. Meeting Allenby 

Lawrence spends a single page detailing his first encounter with General Edmund Allenby. He enthuses about his new commander, "physically large and confident" (330) and more willing to help the Revolt than his predecessor General Murray. Lawrence's admiration for Allenby, both man and military commander, is clear throughout Seven Pillars, even describing him as a father figure.

Lean transforms this "comic interview" into one of the film's pivotal sequences. Lasting nearly 15 minutes, it serves a myriad of functions. Bolt elucidates Aqaba's strategic importance, quoting Lawrence's arguments in Seven Pillars (cf. 281). The British officers who, just a scene before, inundated Lawrence with racial slurs now cheer him as a hero. Besides introducing Allenby and developing Brighton (who gains genuine admiration for Lawrence), it probes Lawrence's psyche at a key moment in the narrative.

Lawrence comes across as a broken, neurotic wreck. His pride in capturing Aqaba has dissipated, after losing his servant Daud to quicksand and his encounter with racist officers. Worse, Lawrence realizes his own blood lust, "enjoying" his execution of Gassim and fearing its future implications. Exhausted and afraid he desperately begs for reassignment. He has the bad luck of meeting Allenby, here not a supportive superior with "confidence... like a wall" (553) but a deceitful villain.

Where Murray dismissed Lawrence as "the kind of creature I can't stand," Allenby immediately recognizes Lawrence's military value. A guerrilla army harassing Turkish supply lines is a boon for future offensives. He also pegs Lawrence's Achilles heel: vanity. Dismissing Lawrence's concerns, he elicits complements from Brighton (officer), Dryden (civilian) and a Mr. Perkins (enlisted man), covering all bases of flattery. Then he holds a public military conference, expounding Lawrence's genius to his entire staff. Thus Allenby's defining traits: military skill and psychological perfidy.

Lean and Bolt re-introduce earlier anti-war/imperialist themes. Lawrence suspects Britain won't honor their promises, an inquiry Allenby and Dryden both dodge. The scene ends with Allenby, Brighton and Dryden deciding not to give the Arabs artillery. For now, Lawrence is satiated by vague promises of post-war freedom, and concrete promises of arms and money. His ego flushed by adulation, he returns to the desert.

5. Deraa Is The Key

Surely the most traumatic incident in Seven Pillars involves Lawrence's capture, torture and gang rape by Turkish soldiers in Deraa in November of 1917. Of course, many historians doubt this incident actually happened, but that debates fall outside this post's scope. Lean and Bolt make it a central scene in Lawrence, but distort both the background and its effects significantly.

Lawrence's reasons for entering Deraa were banal. Deraa (in present-day Syria) was an important railroad junction which Lawrence hoped to raid. While scouting in town he was arrested by the Turks and taken to a Turkish officer - supposedly Hajim Bey, the garrison commander. The officer "began to fawn on me... (offering to) make me his orderly... if I would love him" (452). Lawrence refused his advances, then was beaten and sexually assaulted by the Bey's soldiers. Lawrence escapes, and later learns that he was betrayed by Syrian nationalist Abd el-Kadr.

This incident obviously traumatized Lawrence, leaving deep physical and psychological scars. His post-war masochism likely originated with Deraa, and he remained incapable of sexual feelings afterwards. It's easy to overstate its effects, however. In Seven Pillars, Lawrence scarcely refers to the incident again. He's more distraught by a military failure, his continuing guilt over his liaison role and treachery by an Arab colleague. This is what convinced him to "beg Allenby to find me some smaller part elsewhere" (514), not trauma over Deraa.

Lean's restrained depiction of Lawrence's mistreatment is understandable. But Bolt's portrayal of Lawrence borders on ridiculous. Here, Lawrence and Ali stride into Deraa alone, Lawrence apparently thinking his mere presence will inspire a rising. Aqaba convinced him he can work "miracles," further inflamed by Allenby's flattery and subsequent successes. "Do you think I'm just anybody?" he asks Ali before embarking on his mission. This is utterly ridiculous hubris, and one of the film's weaker moments.

Bolt thought "Deraa is the key" to all of Lawrence's subsequent actions: his attempted resignation, the massacre at Tafas, his psychological collapse. In this he followed many biographers, who placed undue emphasis on Lawrence's psychosexual side. It seems altogether too convenient an explanation, if dramatically handy for a screenwriter.

6. Tafas Massacre 

Seven Pillars graphically describes the Tafas Massacre, a horrific incident during Allenby's Megiddo offensive. The Arabs brutally slaughter 2,000 Turkish soldiers, many after surrendering, in retaliation for sacking a local village. Some biographers shield Lawrence from responsibility, but Lawrence makes his own culpability explicit: "By my orders we took no prisoners" (653). Lean provides a reasonable dramatization of the event, but delivers a suspect characterization of Lawrence.

This scene brings Lawrence's neuroses to a head. Bolt offers a Freudian explanation for Tafas, Lawrence avenging his degradation at Deraa through massacre, now killing gleefully, surrounded by a bodyguard of hired killers. His descent into animal barbarism is contrasted with Ali's increasingly "civilized" behavior; the latter even echoes Lawrence's taunt from their first meeting: "Surely you know the Arabs are a barbarous people!" Lawrence ends the scene blood-soaked and mentally broken, having reached the apotheosis he'd tried to avoid.

As mentioned previously, Lean and Bolt largely draw on Anthony Nutting's biography of Lawrence. In Seven Pillars, Lawrence largely accepts the carnage as a fact of tribal warfare. The Turks after all precipitated it by murdering Arab civilians, initiating collective anger and brutal vengeance. Soon after the Bedouin captured Deraa and continued towards Damascus. The movie however treats Tafas as a hollow triumph, needless bloodshed born of one man's psychosis.

7. Damascus and the Arab Council

The worst scenes, historically-speaking, come at film's end. Lean and Bolt's version of post-war Damascus is recognizable only through a few colorful anecdotes gleaned from Seven Pillars. History is far more complex and interesting than what Lean and Bolt offer.

Lawrence describes raucous scenes in Seven Pillars, the town hall "packed with a swaying mob" (666) and arguing over Damascus's governance. The real threat, however, was neither Sherifian incompetence nor British indifference, but Abd el-Kadr: the same man who'd betrayed Lawrence at Deraa. Kadr and his brothers launched several attempted coups to undermine Feisal's authority, resulting in several skirmishes with Feisal's men. Kadr was eventually killed in November 1918 while imprisoned. The issue, therefore, was not (in Lawrence's account) tribalism but an ambitious man and his followers.

Far worse is the depiction of the Arabs as utterly incompetent. They appear as rubes baffled by machinery, allowing Damascus to catch fire (really set by Turkish troops) and Turkish wounded to die in hospital. In reality, the Arabs "quickly collected the nucleus of a staff and plunged ahead as a team" (671), creating a police force, fire brigades, mechanics and sanitation committees. The movie recounts Lawrence's encounter with an enraged British medical officer ("This is outrageous!"), focusing on its irony: after a movie of searching for his identity, Lawrence is mistaken for an Arab. What a time to highlight this!

Lawrence's narrative ends with him exiting Damascus, as does the movie. The situation left behind however is quite different. Feisal's government remained in power until 1921, when France ousted them at bayonet point. No conniver in Allied perfidy, Feisal fought the French tooth-and-nail before being placed as a contentious client on Iraq's throne. Allenby seemed genuinely to regret his role, doing his best to balance British, French and Arab interests as ordered. Neither man is fairly characterized here.

This anti-climax logically concludes the movie's anti-war themes and recurring hubris. Again, a major victory can't come without an offsetting failure, and bloodshed must amount to nothing. Perhaps we're to draw inferences about modern pan-Arabism; Nasser's United Arab Republic collapsed while the film was in production. Regardless, this scene is not only inaccurate but insulting, as this ostensibly anti-imperial film falls back on "White Man's burden" stereotypes. Here's one instance where the dramatic license proves genuinely regrettable.

Conclusion

Like all historical and literary adaptations, Lawrence of Arabia often sacrifices accuracy for artistic effect. In many cases it's justifiable or transcends the source. In several instances, however, it's highly questionable or even deleterious. Still, even the highly questionable scenes listed have some basis in Seven Pillars of Wisdom. As an adaptation, Lawrence is probably no better or worse than Hollywood's usual efforts.

New Maarten Schild post

Maarten Schild has a fascinating new article on the debate over Lawrence's sexuality at his blog here. Very much worth a read.

Stewart F. Newcome Blog

Source

During my web travels I encountered Kerry Webber's blog In the Shadow of the Crescent, a tribute page to Lawrence's friend and colleague Colonel Stewart F. Newcombe. It's an interesting site, with lots of pictures and detailed info about Newcombe and the Arab Revolt. It also appears that Mr. Webber is soon publishing his research in book form. Highly recommended.

For those who aren't aware, the film Lawrence of Arabia is receiving a 50th anniversary re-release in October. I will definitely be posting about it on my film blog. If any such pieces prove historically-minded (as opposed to film analysis etc.) I'll cross-post them here.

I'm feeling a bit burned out on Lawrence right now and I will probably go on hiatus from this blog soon. I hope to knock off Victoria Ocampo's 338171 T.E. beforehand, but Clare Sydney Smith may have to wait. Priorities.

16 Questions With Professor Stephen E. Tabachnick

Stephen E. Tabachnick is one of the world's foremost T.E. Lawrence experts. A Professor of English literature at the University of Memphis, he's written, co-written or edited several books on Lawrence: The T.E. Lawrence Puzzle (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1984), T.E. Lawrence (New York: Twayne, 1997) and Lawrence of Arabia: An Encyclopedia (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004). Most importantly for us, he co-authored (with Christopher Matheson) Images of Lawrence (London: Jonathan Cape, 1988), whose overview of Lawrence biographies largely inspired this blog.

Professor Tabachnick graciously agreed to an email Q&A for this blog. I asked him about his books Images of Lawrence and Lawrence of Arabia: An Encyclopedia, along with his thoughts on Lawrence's reputation and the current state of scholarship. Enjoy!

1. What attracts you to Lawrence as a subject? 

He was a brilliant polymath who did more things well than almost anyone else of his period, and his Middle Eastern experience remains relevant to our own. Most of all, I think that he was a great writer whose Seven Pillars of Wisdom will live forever.

2. Your book Images of Lawrence largely dissects biographies and media portrayals of Lawrence. What do you consider the most common failing of Lawrence biographers? 

The most common failing of Lawrence biographers is to push a single thesis at the expense of the complexity of the subject. Anyone working on Lawrence has got to be open to his many contradictions and to the idea that as complex a person as he was cannot be easily made to fit a mold.

3. Why is Lawrence such a polarizing figure? 

Because Seven Pillars of Wisdom is full of ambiguities, including the Deraa incident, his own assessment of himself in the famous chapter 103, “Myself,” which contains many contradictions, and his divided loyalty between the British and Arab sides in the conflict. Some people (Aldington) take this as the equivalent of lying or disloyalty, while others (Mack and Wilson) are more accepting.

4. What are the most prevalent myths about Lawrence, either among the public or biographers? Why do you think they've taken hold?

Perhaps the most prevalent myth is that he was some kind of liar, and that myth gives biographers something to write about, so they perpetuate it. Another myth is that he was an active homosexual, although there is no evidence for that. He undoubtedly had homosexual tendencies but there is little evidence that he ever acted on them. The public is always fascinated by sexuality of any kind, as we see in the attention given to the affairs of celebrities. And finally there is the myth that he was a straightforward hero, when he was a very divided person and was very critical of the hero designation for himself.

 5. How truthful should we consider Seven Pillars of Wisdom, The Mint and Lawrence's other writings? 

Seven Pillars of Wisdom and The Mint reflect the truth of who Lawrence was and what he thought. They are subjective autobiographies rather than objective histories of the events in which he was involved. I believe that he did his best to be truthful but sometimes—as in the case of the Deraa incident—he simply could not bring himself to fully describe and comment about embarrassing episodes. Rather, he chose to be ambiguous, leaving a fertile ground for subsequent critics and biographers to impose their own interpretations. Also, he chose not say much about important British intelligence assets that still might be operative in the Middle East after his departure. But this is not the equivalent of lying, and to characterize it as such is very misleading and sensationalist.

6. What value do the early Lawrence biographies, such as those by Lowell Thomas and Robert Graves, still hold? 

They will always remain valuable because they contain eyewitness testimony concerning Lawrence’s personality, and eyewitness testimony is irreplaceable. Moreover, both Thomas and Graves were very intelligent people and often provide insights into his personality.

7. In Images you gloss over the books written by Lawrence's friends (eg. T.E. Lawrence by His Friends, Clare Sydney Smith, Vyvyan Richards). Do you feel these personal portraits hold any value? 

Yes, these portraits are certainly valuable, especially the essays in T.E. Lawrence by his Friends, which gives a variety of points of view. Any eyewitness testimony is valuable since no more eyewitness testimony will be forthcoming, because just about everyone who knew Lawrence personally has died.

8. Richard Aldington's Biographical Enquiry (1955) is undoubtedly among the most important Lawrence books, since it's the first critical account. But it's also vicious and ultimately as problematic as earlier works. Do you think such an extreme reaction was necessary to balance the debate? 

I think that this kind of extreme reaction is never necessary in the case of any biographical subject, except perhaps the most loathsome, such as a Hitler or Stalin. Biographies should strive for balance in my view. But there’s no doubt that Aldington, by presenting such an extreme picture of Lawrence, helped move the debate forward since many people have responded to him to balance the picture. So, perhaps without meaning to be helpful, Aldington is responsible for a lot of excellent scholarship on and discussion of Lawrence.

9. There's still a lack of Arab sources on Lawrence available in English. Even Suleiman Mousa's T.E. Lawrence: An Arab View is hard to find. What effect do you think this has on Lawrence scholarship? 

It would be nice to have more Arab scholarship about Lawrence because some new evidence or information about him might be unearthed. But it is worth noticing that Mack, for instance, traveled to the Middle East to interview individuals about Lawrence and to see the sites where the events transpired, and that other Western writers have made that pilgrimage for the same reasons. So even without Arab scholarship per se outside of Mousa, it has been possible to bring Arabs and Arab culture into the picture of Lawrence’s career.

10. Do you feel that certain biographers (John Mack, Desmond Stewart, Michael Asher) focus excessively on Lawrence's psychology/personality/sexuality? 

Lawrence’s sexuality seems always to have interested the general reading public. Writing for a popular audience, Stewart and Asher focused on this subject in order to gain readership and sales, and I do believe that they focus excessively on Lawrence’s sexuality. However, John Mack, as a psychiatrist, naturally was interested in this aspect of Lawrence’s life, and I believe that he remains the best source on this subject as on Lawrence’s personality in general.

11. How does a writer decide which sources are valid? Many Lawrence biographers still quote Richard Meinertzhagen and John Bruce, for instance, despite their questionable veracity.

Even when Meinertzhagen or Bruce might not be accurate concerning some things that they say about Lawrence, their testimony is still useful because they knew him. A scrupulous biographer must decide, on the basis of other, external evidence and cross-checking, which parts of their testimony might be useful and which not. Sometimes as in the case of Aldington, even the inaccurate things that someone says can be valuable in producing a counter-reaction that is more accurate.

12. What are your thoughts on Lawrence books published since Images' publication? Eg. Jeremy Wilson, Lawrence James, Michael Korda, any others? 

Jeremy Wilson’s biography remains one of the best because it is solidly based on archival evidence. His series of volumes of Lawrence’s writing—which like his biography I have reviewed in the journal English Literature in Transition: 1880-1920 and in the Shaw Annual--is also an enormous gift to present and future scholarship on Lawrence. Philip O’Brien’s bibliography and its supplement are also extremely valuable. James and Korda in my view are popular writers whose research is not particularly outstanding, and who in my opinion do not contribute much that is truly new to the discussion.

13. What is the current state of Lawrence scholarship and debate? 

There have been some good books connecting Lawrence’s experience to ours in Iraq and elsewhere, such as John Hulsman’s To Begin the World Over Again: Lawrence of Arabia from Damascus to Baghdad (2009). And detailed academic studies of Lawrence, including doctoral dissertations, continue to be produced (most recently, in 2007, one by Vinothini Charles from the University of Madras, India, “The Search for Identity in the Writings of T.E. Lawrence and Sayyid Qutb,” which shows Lawrence’s worldwide fame, and Andrew Williams’ Canadian dissertation on The Mint, which is now a book, The Toxic Morsel). And there have been excellent exhibitions on Lawrence, especially “Lawrence von Arabien: Genese eines Mythos” at the Landesmuseum in Oldenburg, Germany during 2010-11, and the resulting superb catalog.

But on the whole the most recent biographies, which are aimed at a popular audience, have not contributed much. I am always waiting for someone to find some genuinely new manuscript or archival material that will answer some of the questions we still have about Lawrence’s life and career. But like all discoveries, there is no knowing when such a thing might take place.

14. Do you find it more valuable to approach Lawrence's writings from a literary rather than historical perspective? 

As an English professor, I am naturally interested primarily in Lawrence as a writer. I believe that he was a great writer, and that he will increasingly come to be recognized as such. The Longman Anthology of English Literature, a textbook used in the classroom, now includes a passage from Seven Pillars of Wisdom along with selections from other important writers’ works.

But it is impossible to write about him as a writer without considering the historical perspective; and that perspective will continue to be very important in helping us understand the Middle East now and in the future.

15. How did you get the idea to compile your Lawrence encyclopedia? What sort of effort goes into a project like that? 

Biographies and critical books on Lawrence usually push the author’s thesis to the detriment of other viewpoints. I wrote the Lawrence encyclopedia because I felt that there was a gap in the scholarship on Lawrence, in that no one source brought together all of the disparate views about him as well as all aspects of his career, and that an encyclopedia would fill that gap, both for general readers and for scholars.

I have written on article about the problems involved in writing the encyclopedia—“An Attempt to Map the Lawrence Territory: Writing Lawrence of Arabia: An Encyclopedia” which appeared in the Journal of the T.E. Lawrence Society, 16.1 (Autumn/Winter 2006-7): 17-27. This article was based on a paper I gave at the excellent international Lawrence conference at Lee University, near Chattanooga, Tennessee in April 2006.

Essentially, writing the encyclopedia was a labor of love and I enjoyed working steadily on it for about five years. To write an encyclopedia like this, you first have to compile a list of important topics and then work through each one until you finally complete the work. I am pleased that many people, including academic researchers, seem to find the encyclopedia helpful, or at least they have told me so.

16. Do you have any current projects, Lawrence-related or otherwise, in the works? 

In the past few years, I have published an essay on Lawrence in the Oldenburg exhibition catalog, and have written several reviews of works about Lawrence. The reviews are to be found in the journal English Literature in Transition: 1880-1920 (which, much to its credit, has always been interested in studies of Lawrence), and in the forthcoming Shaw Annual.

Over the past twenty years, I’ve become interested in the graphic novel, and I gave a paper on Lawrence and the comics at the Huntington Library symposium in 2007. I’d like to turn that into an article one day. Also, I am interested in possibly doing a second edition of the encyclopedia, which would contain revisions of any factual or other errors based on the latest information.

* * *

Many thanks to Professor Tabachnick for his time. Hopefully this can become a regular feature as I come into contact with other Lawrence experts. I will have several new reviews coming up soon, so stay tuned.

Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia (2010, Michael Korda)

Publishing Info:

Korda, Michael. Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. 762 pp.

Introduction:

The most comprehensive Lawrence bio in 20 years, Hero attempts to repair Lawrence's reputation. Michael Korda might go a step too far in proclaiming Lawrence as a genius in everything he touched. Still, it's a judicious treatment of a man oft criticized but never fully understood.

The Author:

Michael Korda (born 1933) is the son of Zoltan Korda of the legendary British film family. Moving to New York, Korda spent decades as editor at Simon & Schuster, gaining notoriety for publishing racy novelists Jacqueline Susan and Harold Robbins. He's written numerous books, including biographies of Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Queenie (1985), a novel about his aunt Merle Oberon, and With Wings Like Eagles (2009), an account of the Battle of Britain. 

The Review:

Hero is a popular history with all the attendant virtues and foibles. It's extremely readable, Korda handling a dense, detailed narrative with delicacy. On the other hand, Korda's analysis of specialist areas (Middle Eastern politics, psychology) are shaky, with an unhappy reliance on secondary sources. He lards the text with awkward cultural allusions, such as quoting Casablanca when discussing Lawrence's pre-war encounter with an Arab bandit or comparing his subject to Princess Diana (!).

Korda begins in media res with Lawrence's most famous exploit: the 1917 capture of Aqaba. This awkward opening lasts for 100 pages before backtracking to Lawrence's childhood. Lay readers may prove overwhelmed by the barrage of dates, names and places, and Lawrence experts will note Korda's heavy reliance on Seven Pillars and Basil Liddell Hart. Fortunately, Hero recovers from this shaky start.

Unlike most biographers, Korda focuses on Lawrence's relationship with father Thomas Chapman. Noting Chapman's love of technology and intellectual pursuits, Korda also feels he shielded Lawrence from  his mother's more extreme impulses. "Ned not only learned from his father but worked hard to please him" (144), ultimately besting Chapman at his own hobbies. Korda's Sarah Lawrence mixes guilt, piety and protectiveness, but scarcely resembles the monster of Richard Aldington and Michael Asher's accounts.


Hero rejects common portrayals of Lawrence as neurotic. Korda depicts him as exceedingly erudite and likeable, with a "particular genius for friendship" (508) and craving for recognition. Korda views Lawrence as asexual but capable of strong attachments to men (Vyvyan Richards, Dahoum) and women (Janet Laurie, Charlotte Shaw, Clare Sydney Smith). Lawrence's ambivalence towards fame is a quirk rather than psychosis. In this account, Lawrence remains essentially the same man lifelong, despite his war-time trauma and guilt.

By Korda's reckoning, "there was always a germ of truth" to Lawrence's recollection of events (442). Korda discusses Deraa at length, accepting its validity because of the account's vividness, Lawrence's injuries and private correspondence afterwards. He accepts Knightley and Simpson's suggestion that Lawrence confused Hajim Bey with another Turkish officer. More minor anecdotes (Lawrence making Lord Curzon cry at a war cabinet meeting, forcing an obnoxious officer to salute him) are found equally plausible. His collaboration with Lowell Thomas amounts to idle ribbing that spectacularly backfired. Far from a braggart or liar, Lawrence at worst misremembered or playfully embellished events.

Korda grows rhapsodic discussing the Arab Revolt. He consistently plays up Lawrence's role, even his marginal involvement in Russia's capture of Erzurum and the diplomatic mission to Kut. Lawrence's colleagues receive due attention, though Korda uncritically accepts Seven Pillars' account of Feisal and his brothers. He echoes Liddell Hart in claiming Lawrence a self-taught military genius comparable to Napoleon and a pioneer in guerrilla warfare. Korda is extremely adept at battle writing, providing riveting descriptions of Arab victories at Abu el-Lissal and Tafileh. Lawrence's personal bravery is justly never in doubt.

Korda claims "no man ever tried harder to serve two masters than Lawrence" (400), desperately trying to square Arab sympathies with English allegiance. He depicts Lawrence's defense of Feisal at Versailles, criticism of imperial policy and involvement in the Cairo Conference. Korda's grasp of Sykes-Picot and the Balfour Declaration are fuzzy, undeniably inflating Lawrence's importance. One is amused by the assertion that the Hashemites brought stability to the Middle East: arguably true of Jordan, not so much with Iraq or the Hejaz. But Korda's account of Lawrence's rapturous reception in post-war Jordan demolishes the revisionist view that he was just another military adviser.

Sections on Lawrence's post-war career dabble heavily in speculation. Not unreasonably, Korda views Lawrence's descent into the Tank Corps and RAF more as an attempt to escape his wartime responsibility than a retreat from fame. He's undeniably right in rejecting Desmond Stewart's claim of Fascist sympathies. But Korda depicts Lawrence as a lifelong masochist, even while casting doubt on John Bruce's stories of flogging. Lawrence's youthful obsession with fitness becomes a prelude to self-torture in this dubious reading.

Balancing the conjecture are astute observations. We see a Lawrence whose work with boats and seaplanes was extremely productive. He also used his connections to affect RAF reform, and Lawrence's sympathy for rankers comes off strongly. Korda amusingly etches Lawrence's equivocation towards the limelight: he attends Bernard Shaw's Too True to Be Good incognito, only to sign autographs after the show! He shows Clare Sydney Smith as "the only woman who actually flirted with Lawrence, an experience... he seems to have enjoyed" (607). Far from a miserable hermit, Lawrence experiences "the best and most productive years of his life" (509).

Korda finds Seven Pillars overwritten but concedes it features "great pieces of modern writing about war" (310). He does defend its essential truthfulness, despite Lawrence's personalized view and downplaying the roles of men he disliked (Colonel Bremond, Hubert Young). On the other hand, he finds The Mint an implausible depiction of the RAF. Korda saves his greatest praise for Lawrence's translation of The Odyssey, feeling "nobody... understood better than Lawrence the difficulties facing a warrior... returning home, or could write more feelingly about it" (661).

Hero is a very good, old-fashioned biography. Perhaps Korda's idolatry is a bit much, but proves a welcome corrective to lingering skepticism. T.E. Lawrence is finally restored to his place as a genuine hero, warts and all.

PS: Readers stay tuned! I have a very special treat coming soon.

The Desert and the Stars (1955, Flora Armitage)

Publishing Info:

Armitage, Flora. The Desert and the Stars: A Biography of Lawrence of Arabia. New York: Henry Holt, 1955. 318 pp.

Introduction:

Written simultaneous to Richard Aldington's Biographical Inquiry (and tweaked before publication), The Desert and the Stars reads like an extreme reaction to that skeptical tome. An admirable attempt at probing Lawrence's psyche, Armitage falls short of an effective portrait.

The Author:

Flora Armitage (1911-1995) was an English-born writer who spent most of her life in the United States. At the time she wrote The Desert and the Stars, she worked for the British Information Services in New York City. She published three novels and several collections of short stories, as well as essays published in the UK and US. Dartmouth College has a collection of her papers here.

The Review:

The biggest hurdle with The Desert and the Stars is its unfortunate style. Armitage's novelist instincts overwhelm her sober subject matter, and we're treated to laughably overripe palaver on the most banal subjects. For instance, Armitage writes of Lawrence's birthplace (p. 16):

"The house at Tremadoc... stood in the midst of a garden where the August flowers bowed their heads to the wind, and over which islands of Atlantic cumulus moved in shadowing phalanxes. To the south of Tremadoc the waters of a bay shimmered; and to the north the green foothills rose slowly up to the craggy peak of Snowdon."

Later, describing the fort at Azrak (p. 115):

"In winter a desolation more acute overtook it, for it was swept then by northeast winds and buffeted with driving rains. A pestilent dampness inflicted it, and a long and lingering melancholy which hovered like a hidden enemy in the gloomy passageways, waited upon the unwary, to swoop, to seize, to destory. Like a banshee the wind blew notes of doom through the volcanic rock towers which echoed into the shivering quiet below, trembled there, and then departed until the next gust."

This reader finds a little purple prose goes a long way. 300-plus pages of it are insufferable.

Other style points niggle, too. Throughout, Armitage insists on calling her subject "Edward Lawrence." Perhaps this is to distinguish him from his father, except she continues this affectation after the senior Lawrence departs. Awkward literary and Biblical allusions riddle the text to no effect. Ms. Armitage should have spent less time displaying her erudition than exploring her subject.

Armitage addresses many of Aldington's critiques. She concedes several points on Lawrence's honesty, but takes a more benign view. Recounting his claim of having read every book in the Oxford Union (tediously debunked by Aldington), she sniffs that "it is surely pedantic to take [it] seriously" (26). I'm inclined to agree; Lawrence's dishonesty was certainly more playful than pathological. She similarly addresses his claims about Lawrence's childhood; his alleged hatred of women; his heroism, politics and sexuality. It's a convincing rebuttal to Lawrence debunkers, though obviously not conclusive.

In this telling, Lawrence has a happy childhood. Armitage tiptoes over Lawrence's illegitimacy and describes him as a precocious child, mixing his mother's strength of character and morality with his father's love of history and machines. His time at Oxford and Carchemish receives almost idyllic treatment, his relationships with Dahoum and D.G. Hogarth lacking the sexual/political implications of later biographers. It seems fairly bowdlerized, even if one rejects Aldington's portrait of subtle repression. Armitage's repeating of apocryphal canards - for instance, that Lawrence's youthful leg fracture retarded his growth - somewhat weakens her credibility.

Armitage skims over Lawrence's war years, stopping for introspection only at Deraa and Damascus. Aqaba gets a few paragraphs, while the Tafas massacre receives a single sentence. She makes little effort to address the Revolt's effectiveness, though her assessment of Hussein as "a crotchety, devious-minded but sincere Arab patriot" (102) rings true. Less so does her implication that Lawrence was the Revolt's only worthwhile personage. Either Armitage had little interest in the subject or felt it would be familiar from past books.

Armitage excels, however, with Lawrence's post-war career. Aside from "personal portraits" like Claire Sydney Smith's The Golden Reign, most biographers up to 1955 elided his later activities, and Armitage's detailed description deserves commendation. She depicts Lawrence's unhappy stint in the Tank Corps, service in India and famous friends with skill. We encounters a Lawrence struggling with his fame, detesting life in the ranks and finding solace in technical achievements and unorthodox companions. It's only missing the testimony of witnesses like John Bruce, unavoidable in its era.

Armitage echoes Robert Graves in calling Lawrence "an iceberg... display(ing) a myriad of dazzling shapes and contours, though the inner matrix is forever hidden" (307). She views Lawrence's aversion to feminine company as product of his college and war experience rather than misogyny. "His hatred for sex should not be misconstrued... as a hatred of women," she chides (254). Similarly, she rebukes claims of Lawrence as budding Fascist, claiming that he "never had any message for mankind" (266). She ultimately views him as "a spirit so modern in vision and temper that his century has not caught up with him" (307) - a man who mixed the virtues of the scholar and soldier with nagging self-doubt and interior demons.

Despite its merits, The Desert and the Stars proves underwhelming. If one overlooks the acres of aureate verbiage it's readable, but offers few original insights or penetrating analyses.