Way back after this little project, I felt inspired to begin mentioning in this here blog when I had finished a book. I appreciate knowing what others have read, so this seemed a good opportunity to practice the Golden Rule.
The trouble is that at that moment I was overcome with the desire to read a rather long (correction: very long) biography of T.E. Lawrence, a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia. I just finished it. It's embarrassing how long it took me to complete (do the math), but, in my defense, it wasn't exactly a page turner. So I didn't have the opportunity to put into effect my good intentions of writing about a recently read book. Until now.
Finally!
I read Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia, a new biography by Michael Korda.
It wasn't long after I began that I had a sneaking suspicion that I wasn't exactly the intended audience. I had this English professor once who was a fervent believer in the interconnected intertextuality of post-modernism. To put it simply, he believed that every time you read a text, you were connected in a way to everyone else who had ever read that text. If that is true, then I just spent the last two months hanging out with a bunch of crusty old retired white men (whose house slippers cost more than my car) in their vast yet cozy private libraries as we all smoked pipes and laughed about the good old days at All Soul's and/or in the Royal Air Force. It was an odd club for me to be in, and I was clearly an outsider.
For instance, read this name: Field Marshall the Earl Kitchener, KG, KP, OM, GSCI, GCMG, GCIE. Do you know what all those letters at the end mean? Me either. This happened on page 2. I should have taken that as a sign to retreat while I still had the chance.
The little insides jokes in Latin and French were another clue that perhaps this book wasn't written just for me because, you know, my parents decided to send me to Coconino High School rather than a Swiss boarding school. (Darn it, Mom and Dad.)
When Korda makes an oh-so-helpful comment to the effect of "the geography and strategy of this battle were exactly like Gettysburg only on a smaller scale," instead of thinking, "Ah, ha! Now I can picture it," I am thinking, "What the heck? I've done my American duty and visited Gettyburg, and I've even read that Michael Shaara book, but I don't have Gettysburg memorized! Am I supposed to??" Is this some major character flaw that I don't walk around being able to visualize the battle of Gettysburg at the drop of a hat? Geez, I had no idea it would seriously impact my ability to understand the Battle of Aqaba. (Darn it, Coconino High School.)
I also don't smoke pipes.
The book doesn't start at the beginning of Lawrence's life. Chapter 1 leads up to the climax (said battle of Aqaba), Chapter 2 is the climax, and then in Chapter 3 we finally go back to his birth and move forward in chronological order. This is fine, not starting with "Our subject was born on such and such day," but it assumes that the reader already has a basic grasp of the subject's life.
Before I read this book, all I knew about Lawrence of Arabia was that my little brother Andy, as a youngster of eight or so, spent several days watching the movie Lawrence of Arabia on a nonstop loop until the VHS tape finally had to be returned to Blockbuster. I couldn't even place Lawrence in history: 19th century? World War II? 1950s? My best guess was that he was a contemporary of Indiana Jones. (I was wrong. Lawrence began tromping around the desert at the same time as Henry Jones SENIOR, before the outbreak of World War I.)
It would have served me well to spend a few minutes on Wikipedia before I tackled this book. As it was, I struggled through the first couple of chapters--that were sprinkled with unhelpful comments to the effect of "you know, because of his MOM" and "you know, because of that whole Sykes-Picot thing." No, Mr. Korda you haven't introduced his mom yet, so I don't know. And Sykes-Picot what??
However, onward I trudged, though sometimes I felt like I was lost in the desert myself. And why did I trudge onward? Because it was dang interesting!
A book about T.E. Lawrence is inevitably a book about the Middle East just before, during, and after World War I. The history itself is fascinating. Shocking even (at least to the ignorant like myself).
When World War I started (in the summer of 1914), much of what we now know as the Middle East (Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq) minus Saudi Arabia (no body wanted that--oil hadn't been discovered yet) was part of the Ottoman Empire (the Turks). As the war was raging in Europe, the Turks dilly-dallied about whose side they would support in the war. This left the British in the position of simultaneously begging the Turks to join the Allies and preparing for the Turks to join Germany (which they eventually did).
With the Turks on the side of the Germans, the stakes were raised in the Middle East. Obviously, the Allies wanted to beat back "the bad guys" wherever they could. The Brits were especially nervous about the important Suez Canal, which was precariously close to the area controlled by the Turks, and the Allies wanted to regain control of Jerusalem (sound like the Crusades to anyone?). The fact is that the Ottoman Empire was falling apart from the inside out (and had been for some time), and everyone knew it was on the verge of crumbling. The British were obviously keen on anything that might bring it down soon rather than later.
So. The British pursued a policy of supporting an Arab Revolt within the Ottoman Empire. With money, weapons, and training, they encouraged diverse Arab tribes in the region to rise up against their Turkish occupiers. This was extremely dangerous, as the Turks routinely tortured and killed those who opposed Ottoman rule. But, like I said, the British provided money, weapons, and training. And Lawrence. And THE PROMISE OF AN INDEPENDENT UNITED ARAB NATION after the war.
Yes, that needed all caps. And I will need them again.
That whole Sykes-Picot thing the author kept bringing up? Turns out it was a "secret" agreement the British worked out with the French on how the two countries would split up the Middle East between themselves after the war. Yes, Britain was planning the colonization of the very region it was promising to the Arabs. The very regions they had promised to the Arabs, they were REALLY PROMISING TO THE FRENCH. They were asking the Arabs to DIE FOR NOTHING. (See, that definitely warranted caps.)
I'm sure this is all common knowledge, and I have been living under a rock. But now that I am no longer sheltered by a big rock over my head, I look at the unrest, instability, and conflict in the Middle East and say, "No duh!"
Now that we're all horrified by the British (and the French! I'm blaming the whiny French who seriously thought Damascus belonged to them since they once built a castle there...during the freaking Crusades), let's move on to the man himself, Thomas Edward Lawrence. He's a pretty fascinating guy, that one. And that's what really kept me reading.
Unfortunately for me (but probably fortunately for you), I have that pile of laundry to attend to, as well as a parent-teacher conference in twenty minutes. We'll have to come back to the subject of Mr. Lawrence another day.
I'm sorry I can't read normal books that other people--like those who don't have looks and names like Alistair Cooke--might actually want to read. And I'm sorry to realize I can't be like a normal person and write about a book in one post. I promise to do better. (But my promise is probably no better than Britain's.)
