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Review commentary by Jeremy Wilson on Lawrence,
the Uncrowned King of Arabia by Michael Asher (London, Viking, 1998)
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Chapter 2: Dominus Illuminatio Mea
Schooldays, 1896-1905 (10 pages)
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| 28/1/4 |
"a
fine collection of brass rubbings . . . which decorated the brothers'
shared bedroom at 2 Polstead Road." A minor point, but this appears
to be a careless misreading of the sources. Bob Lawrence (Friends
p. 31) says "When we were small and shared a large bedroom...".
Elsewhere, and apparently referring to a later period, Lawrence's mother (ibid.
page 27) says (of TEL's brass-rubbings) "he covered the walls of
his bedroom with them." There is nothing to suggest that Lawrence
was sharing the room in which he hung the brass-rubbings. |
| 28/1/11. |
I
have never before seen "heelball" - which according to my
dictionary is a substance rather than an object - used as here in the
plural. |
| 28/1/14 |
"He
became obsessed with the devices of heraldry" - Why
"obsessed"? I know of no evidence to warrant such a strong
word. This was youthful enthusiasm, with arguably more intellectual
merit than train-spotting. |
| 28/1/24 |
Asher's
object in this over-the-top description of Lawrence's interest in the
medieval world (a description which, in tone, goes far beyond the
account by Beeson in Friends p. 53, on which it is mainly based) at last
becomes clear: "His search for brasses and relics assumed almost
the proportions of a sacred quest itself, and while other youths were
out watching girls at St Giles's Fair or at the festivities of Eights
Week, Lawrence could be found scouring local crypts and churches."
This last sentence is based on an intervierw quote with Beeson by John
E. Mack (A Prince of Our Disorder, Boston, Little, Brown, 1976,
p. 25). However, there could be many reasons why Lawrence shunned these
conventional "Oxford" occasions. |
| 28/1/28 |
Another
example of distorted paraphrase from an un-named source. Beeson wrote (Friends
page 53): "The artistry of his tact . . . extricated us from such
compromising positions as . . . the crypt of St. Cross in possession of
human bones." Asher's paraphrase reads: "He . . . honed his
powers of persuasion in dealing with caretakers - once, memorably, when
he and Beeson were caught emerging from the crypt of St Cross church
with armfuls of human bones." |
| 28/last
para: |
"Lawrence's
interest in the medieval was essentially an attempt to escape from the
circumstances of his life, and to cock a snook at the conventions of the
bourgeois social landscape, behind which lay his uncertain relationship
with Sarah." There is doubtless some truth in the beginning of this
statement, but in this Lawrence was by no means alone. Is Asher unaware
of the intellectual movement that sought inspiration in earlier periods
to escape from the obvious evils brought upon English society by the
Industrial Revolution?
The word "bourgeois" appears to have been picked
up from A. W. Lawrence in Friends page 586: "His medieval
researches were, I think, a dream way of escape from bourgeois England
as well as a detached study of another civilisation". I myself
would not nowadays use the word "bourgeois", which has
acquired too much of a political ring. What Lawrence objected to was the
complacent well-being of a society that was enjoying the fruits of the
industrial revolution, and had sacrificed the values of craftsmanship
for often-shoddy mass-production. However, this was romantic and moral
emotion, not a political rationale. He accepted the ideals of
craftsmanship preached by Morris, but not his politics. A little after
the period discussed in this chapter he admired Algernon Blackwood's The
Centaur. If you are interested in Lawrence's developing outlook,
read it. Next page |
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