![]() He describes men as he does his own moods: ‘Feisal was a fine hot workman, whole-heartedly doing a thing when he had agreed to it’ and at the same time he manages to give you insight into the strange mixed meaning of the whole campaign: ’During two years Feisal so labored daily, putting together and arranging in their mutual order the innumerable tiny pieces which made up Arabian society, and combining them into his one design of war against the Turks. In fact the whole book is lighted by such flashes. They were lying about, spent after victory, and wondering if it was worth while to cook dinner, ‘for we were subject at the moment to the physical shame of success, a reaction of victory, when it became clear that nothing was worth doing and that nothing worthy had been done.’ ‘The physical shame of success’ is, of course, masterly. I think no one has ever attempted it in English before. And yet how little Lawrence is the typical soldier is shown by one extraordinary paragraph which comes near to describing the indescribable. ![]() ![]() ![]() To be a Cook’s tourist in the valley before Akaba would be bliss, but to have taken part in the fight there must have made a day that no soldier could forget. The very names of the places are soulsatisfying mouthfuls. ![]() But what his book does tell us, better perhaps than any other book that ever was written, is about intrigue and hand-to-hand fighting under conditions as romantic as any that are left on the globe. ![]()
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