Sunday, March 12, 2006
Seven Plovdivs of Wisdom
I finished my fun book a while ago. It was a rollicking read and barely lasted me a week; my friend to whom I lent it had a similar experience, devouring it in a few sittings. And come on, for a book without any naughty bits or exploding vehicles, it was a serious hoot. Vampires in the Radcliffe Camera? Bring it on!
The only real problem about reading this book was that its action was primarily focused in the Balkans, and consequently the characters occasionally mentioned the town of Plovdiv. It took me a damn long time to quit saying that placename to myself as a sort of mantra. “Plovdiv, Plovdiv, gimme that good Plovdiv” I would murmur while on line at the grocery, and the incantation was effective, at least in getting people to move the hell out of my way. “Plovdiv dude’s freaking out there, just get into another line before he goes off completely.” Yeah, Plovdiv. It was like the chewy factual center of a literary tootsie pop – in the midst of a toothsome, if somewhat brittle, treat, it was a rich irresistible geographical nugget I just couldn’t get off my molars.
Because, in fact, great literature, this book was not. I’d say it was more skillfully written than The Da Vinci Code, but that’s like saying that some new television comedy is better than Mama’s Family was. In The Historian I still bumped up against clumsy, iconic characters, untroubled by development, driven by the author’s wiles and not their own, through a plot that made up in inventiveness what it lacked in depth. But I am not complaining; no not at all. I mean - Plovdiv, baby. You gotta love it.
However, all good Plovdivs come to an end, and when I killed off Vlad (or did I?) at last, I was ready for a new book. Wicked is sitting on my dresser and I’m eager to start it, but some pushy limey got in the way: when I was visiting the folks in L.A. my dad lent me his frazzled old copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom (the original 1935 public printing with the scimitars on the front, no less!) that I’d read 20 years ago. I remembered it as having been a tough read, but exhilarating and profoundly informative, as to events both ancient and current. I couldn’t help but pick it right up again, and though it’s a slow slog, I’m loving it every bit as much now as I did then.
The particular aspect that I’m enjoying the most, of course, is unrelated to the historical background or the stirring battles or the drama of human will set against the sere desert and fathomless seas. In keeping with my former Plovdivism, I have found a special delight in Lawrence’s regular reference to travels through and across Wadi Yembo. Wadi Yembo! Wadi Yembo! Starting at Point Guard! Add two tablespoons! Powered by Intel! I can’t even find a Google reference to this apparently critical aspect of the Arabian peninsula’s geography, but damned if I can stop saying it to myself. I’m Wadi Yemboing myself into a proper fit.
Having said that, in all honesty, this book is a very worthwhile read. It’s full of information about Mosul and Medina, Damascus and Yemen and Palestine, that really puts the modern conflicts into a much richer perspective. It’s not easy reading but it’s not an easy region. If you can read this blog, I recommend it. I’ve dumped a few paragraphs of Chapter 2 into the extended entry, if you’d like a taste of Tom’s prose. I am by turns awed and disgusted by his magisterial superiority, an empire Briton at the height of his self-importance, making offensive pronouncements about whole peoples and then undertaking such nuanced analysis as to render his egotism almost justified. I think I’d rather not have enjoyed meeting Thomas E. Lawrence, but I sure am enjoying his book. And eventually, when I’m ready for it, Wicked awaits. I wonder what clever placename they’ll have me repeating to myself? “Oz” is so done.
From Chapter 2 of Seven Pillars of Wisdom:
A first difficulty of the Arab movement was to say who the Arabs were. Being a manufactured people, their name had been changing in sense slowly year by year. Once it meant an Arabian. There was a country called Arabia; but this was nothing to the point. There was a language call Arabic; and in it lay the test. It was the current tongue of Syria and Palestine, of Mesopotamia, and of the great peninsula called Arabia on the map. Before the Moslem conquest, these areas were inhabited by diverse peoples, speaking languages of the Arabic family. We called them Semitic, but (as with most scientific terms) incorrectly. However, Arabic, Assyrian, Babylonian, Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac were related tongues; and indications of common influences in the past, or even of a common origin, were strengthened by our knowledge that the appearances and customs of the present Arabic-speaking peoples of Asia, while as varied as a field-full of poppies, had an equal and essential likeness. We might with perfect propriety call them cousins – and cousins certainly, if sadly, aware of their own relationship.
The Arabic-speaking areas of Asia in this sense were a rough parallelogram. The northern side ran from Alexandretta, on the Mediterranean, across Mesopotamia eastward to the Tigris. The south side was the edge of the Indian Ocean, from Aden to Muscat. On the west it was bounded by the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, and the Red Sea to Aden; on the east by the Tigris, and the Persian Gulf to Muscat. This square of land, as large as India, formed the homeland of our Semites, in which no foreign race had kept a permanent footing, though Egyptians, Hittites, Philistines, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Turks and Franks had variously tried. All had in the end been broken, and their scattered elements drowned in the strong characteristics of the Semitic race. Semites had sometimes pushed outside this area, and themselves been drowned in the outer world. Egypt, Algiers, Morocco, Malta, Sicily, Spain, Cicilia and France absorbed and obliterated Semitic colonies. Only in Tripoli of Africa, and in the everlasting miracle of Jewry, had distant Semites kept some of their identity and force.
Turns out, after I typed all that in, that this book can be found on line in its entirety. Enjoy:
seven pillars of wisdom
seven pillars of wisdom
