Let me begin by saying, it took me almost two years to
finish this book.
Seven Pillars of
Wisdom is the autobiographical account of T.E. Lawrence as he served in the
British Armed Forces during the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918. Lawrence makes it
clear that this book “…is not the history of the Arab movement, but just of
what happened to me in it. It is the narrative of what I tried to do in Arabia,
and of some of what I saw there.”
I find his use of the word “some” to be one of the greatest
understatements I have ever come across. Lawrence described nearly all of what he saw there. This was not a
high level overview of major events. This was a day-by-day and sometimes even
hour-by-hour account of everything he did, heard, and saw. This is why it took
me nearly two years to finish. (Reading a day-by-day account of a two year
conflict should take two years, right?)
With that out of the way, I’ll admit that this was an epic
that was worth the time it took to read. Is it a page turner? No. Is Lawrence
the romantic hero so many make him out to be? I don’t think so. But he did some
amazing things. He thrived in a world completely foreign to most of us.
In his early explorations, he was constantly in awe of the life
and spirit of the Arabs he journeyed with and of the kinship they felt for
their desert. In one passage he described exploring a ruined palace with
several of his companions:
”…which the Arabs
believed was made by a prince of the border as a desert palace for his queen.
The clay of its building was said to have been kneaded not with water but, for
greater richness, with the precious essential oils of flowers. My guides,
sniffing the air like dogs, led me from one crumbling room to another, saying,
‘This is Jessamine, this ambergris, this rose.’ But at last Dahoum drew me:
‘Come and smell the very sweetest scent of all’: and we went into the main
lodging, to the gaping window sockets of its eastern face, and there drank with
open mouths of the effortless, empty, endless wind of the desert, throbbing past.”
Lawrence’s main role during the Arab revolt was to be the
link between the British forces and the Arab forces, and to convince the Arab
leaders to coordinate their efforts with the British. To gain the trust of his
companions, he abandoned the comforts of Western living and tried to emulate
the lifestyle and dress of the desert. He even carried this to the extreme.
When Arabs journey through the desert and come across a well, they will drink
their full, almost to bursting, and then they will continue their journey
without carrying any water with them. They will do this even if the next well
is hundreds of miles away. It is a sign of weakness to carry water into the
desert. In this custom, and in all others, Lawrence proved himself a true and
faithful companion to the Arabs, and as a result they followed him into battle
with unquestioning faith.
Much of the work that occupied Lawrence and his companions
was undermining the efficiency of the Turkish armed forces. In a nutshell, this
involved numerous demolition raids on the Hejaz railway. They would sneak up at
night on their camels, plant explosives under the tracks, and then wait until
dawn for a passing supply train. In time, Lawrence led his men up the Arabian Peninsula
all the way to Damascus, and with the support of the British troops overthrew
the Ottoman government and gained Arab independence. The day after their
liberation, Lawrence rode into Damascus with the Arab leaders:
“When we came in,
there had been some miles of people greeting us: now there were thousands for
every hundred then. Every man, woman, and child in this city of a
quarter-million souls was out on the streets: and as the miracle of victory was
at last confirmed, they waited only the spark of our appearance to unchain their
spirits. Damascus went mad with joy. The men tossed up their tarbushes to
cheer, the women tore off their veils. Householders threw their flowers, their
hangings, their carpets into the road before us. Their wives leaned through the
lattices and splashed cups and vases, even bath-dippers of scent at us… We
English had been too long free to keep even a memory of its first delirious
taste: so that this named gratitude and thanks from a hundred thousand voices
broke us with the humiliation of over-great honor.”
The most difficult part of this book for me was Lawrence
himself. As I stated before, I do not doubt the greatness of what he
accomplished, but I do not think he was a very likeable person. He even said
that much of what he did wasn’t out of any great ambition of his own, but
merely out of curiosity, to see if he could. To this end, he would often play
with the emotions of others. It gave him great satisfaction to treat someone
roughly, and then in the next breath treat them with great kindness. Then he
would run away and leave them wondering what sort of strange creature he was.
Lawrence recognizes the perverseness of this, and on his 30th
birthday goes into a state of deep reflection about his true nature. He emerges
from this personal inventory with the conclusion that he does not like himself.
I recognize that to achieve great things, a man doesn’t have
to be perfect. All men are flawed, and those (like Lawrence) who admit their
flaws and move forward anyway, may deserve even greater respect. What Lawrence
did was great. There is no denying that. He set out to accomplish the
impossible, and whatever his reasons were, he stuck with it and in the end came
off conqueror.
“This therefore is a
faded dream of time when I went down into the dust and noise of the Eastern market-places,
and with my brain and muscles, with sweat and constant thinking, made others
see my visions coming true. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of
their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity: but the dreamers of
the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and
make it possible. This I did.”
