george
Contains spoilers
Humorous, although generally I found it to be not laugh-out-lout funny. The writing and wrap-up in the last four or five pages are what bring up my rating, though I won't spoil anything. The two authors did a good job keeping a consistent narrative voice throughout, such that I can't guess who wrote what except for a few changes in tone near the beginning. Overall would recommend to fans of Neil Gaiman.
Actually, here's a spoiler:
I went into this with pretty much no idea of what happens in the book, and really enjoyed that much of the beginning is a farcical take on "The Omen". For some reason that was a much-worn VHS tape in our house growing up, so the constant callbacks to the plot of that movie were unexpectedly fun for me.
An interesting early biography of T.E. Lawrence and his part in the Arab Revolt during WWI, written with the permission of Lawrence himself. Author Robert Graves takes a mostly defensive tone throughout the book; contemporary criticisms of Lawrence are often dissolved against contradictory criticisms by others or the author's own accounts of events from first-hand sources. We're also led to believe that Lawrence was ultimately humble and wanted little to do with his own myth, which seems questionable given the his involvement in the making of the book.
Graves spends most of the book detailing where Lawrence was at a particular time and the details of which tribes were involved in which raids as you might expect from a much drier history. Luckily, it's saved by often-humorous anecdotes of Lawrence's interactions with members of the different tribes (almost any incident involving Auda Aby Tayi is a personal favorite.) However, there's much less emphasis on Lawrence's psychology than you might expect from a more modern biography by somebody like Ron Chernow. To it's credit, this still does make the book interesting for anybody who wants to learn about the history of modern Arab states, irregular warfare on the Arabian peninsula, or managing a team of enemies.
Some major portions of Lawrence's personal experience are conspicuously missing, such his long solo journey undercover to Damascus to plan with secret members of the Arab independence movement. Also missing are details of his repeated capture and torture by Turkish troops. Maybe it's for the best that we don't know the gruesome details of his torture, but its absence makes it difficult to piece together an understanding of what made him tick, what made him abandon his principles, what made him ambivalent to his own death and willing or unwilling to inflict it on others.
Notably included in the book are his early explorations in Arabia as a student, the stunning surprise capture of Akaba, the capture of Damascus, dozens of instances of him shaming his followers by ostentatious feats of self-deprivation, and his post-war careers as an assistant to Churchill and later as a member of the R.A.F.. The pre- and post-war periods do well in adding more to the story than you would learn just by watching Peter O'Toole in "Lawrence of Arabia." Interestingly, though the film is supposedly based on Lawrence's own "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," there were moments that I though ere surely taken directly from this book. Maybe that's always the case with a well-written history. I also feel that Frank Herbert - author of the Dune series - must have read this book, for all its references to desert prophets (prince Feisal), tribal names (Bani Sakhr), empire politics, and central narrative of an outsider being half-adopted into the desert lifestyle. There's even a bit of Howard's Conan the Barbarian (I don't think one influenced the other but instead share their root in a medieval romanticism) in the way that Lawrence rejects the "civilized warfare" that churns mechanistically through millions of bodies on the Western Front.
As for addressing fundamental questions about Lawrence, the book seems to sidestep taking a stance. For the main question of Lawrence's complicity in pumping up Arab hopes for a post-war independent state while knowing that the Brits and French won't have it, Graves seems to want to explain it away by telling us that Lawrence felt bad (but did it anyway). When Lawrence ordered take-no-prisoners war crimes, Graves is again defensive by setting up that the Turks were worse in their slaughter of civilians. I get the sense that some of this failure of imagination comes from widely-held racial and political prejudices of the book's intended audience who by default viewed the Arabs as barbarians and Turks as pure evil.
Ultimately, the book is an interesting play-by-play of the Arab revolt and serves as well-disguised propaganda for Lawrence as the "officers never duck" hero who made it all happen.
Like other books by Vonnegut focusing on the war, the humor in this book hits a little differently. As opposed to some of his other books which read to me like humor with bits of serious deep-cutting insight, this doesn't have the same baseline levity. It feels more like a long tragedy with bits of gallows humor paced throughout. Even the more fantastical parts of the story feel more eerie, perhaps because we know we're going to come back to the real world some day to finish living out the rest of the tragedy.
Some of this perspective no doubt comes because this is something like the fifth Vonnegut book I've read (after Galápagos, Breakfast of Champions, Player Piano, Mother Night, The Sirens of Titan) so I have certain expectations that you may not have if you're new to the author. It gave me a similar feeling to reading Mother Night (probably because they both deal with real-life tragedy of WWII), but for some reason I wasn't prepared for that.
Based on what little I had heard about the book (perhaps everybody supposing that it was required reading and I must already have read it), I was expecting something like a gritty memoire. Instead, I got a combination of post-modern framing, fantastical interludes, and humor about tragedy that feels unique to Vonnegut.
This review is for the translation by Teresa Lavender Fagan, published 2001.
Lacking much prior knowledge in Mesopotamian religion, I felt that this book is a bit of a dive into the deep end of the subject. There's little to grab onto in terms of a cast list of the major dieties and what they "govern", nor a glossary for the various Sumerian and Akkadian terms that pop up throughout. Also, the author is fond of long sentances with multiple asides that often turn into paragraphs.
That said, I stuck with it and was rewarded. About half way through the book I did find I was able to adjust to the writing style and lift more meaning from the words on the page.
The chapter on the Mesopotamian views of the origin of the universe and humanity and the chapter on divination and exorcism were especially interesting. Overall a pretty "weighty" read but potentially useful as a referencee.
Some quotes:
Thus, since the inhabitants of Earth were becoming increasingly numerous, boisterous, and noisy, ... Enlil, who still could not sleeep and who was impatient... eventually made the harsh - and it must be said, stupid - decision to destroy them by resorting to the incomparable and absolute weapon of the Flood...
"O splendid lioness of the Igigi-gods, who renders furious gods submissive, Most capablee of all sovereigns, who grasps the leadrope of kings, ... Look upon me, mistress, accept my entreaty! Look steadfastly upon me, hear my prayer!"
They were in the service of the king, who distributed them throughout the land as observers and above all as gatherers of information, to keep the king up to date about anything they noted of political importance: epidemics, bad harvests to anticipate; danger of revots; threat from enemies on the borders, all deduced from the reciprocal positions and movements of the stars.