Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Seven Pillars of Wisdom is the autobiographical account of the experiences of British Army Colonel T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") while serving as a military advisor to Bedouin forces during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire of 1916 to 1918. It was completed in February 1922, but first published in December 1926, originally published for the US market in 1927 as Revolt in the Desert and is the only version that was commercially released while he was alive. Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1935) is a longer form of the book at almost double the page count and released to the international market.
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7recommend
24mentions
23people
2011–2026years
29% recommend67% neutral4% critical
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What Hacker News says
- I've read thousands of books. There are good novels everywhere, and no country has the exclusivity of any theme.
> One is the depiction of desolation and human loneliness before the American continent was developed into a prosperous land.
Of course, classical European literature didn't focus on the American wilderness. Though the most famous book on this theme is probably Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. And I enjoyed T.E. Lawrence' Seven Pillars of Wisdom which most people know through the film; the Arabian desert was a good place for loneliness in the wilderness.
> Another is the pursuit of the American Dream, where people achieve success through relentless struggle.
Like wise, the American Dream is an American myth, which is rarely the focus outside of the USA. But searching success through relentless struggle is a frequent theme. For instance, Stendhal's Le rouge et le noir or Maupassant's Bel-ami. These are from two of the most famous classical French authors, but there are many novels about hard-working people that reach success.
> The third is what this novel expresses: what happens after success? Money and career cannot solve all problems; people need more to fill an entire life.
As you like Russian literature, I suppose you've read Goncharov's Oblomov and Chekov's theater, especially Uncle Vania. That theme is central in one of the most famous French novel, Flaubert's Madame Bovary. The excellent Italian writer Alberto Moravia also has many novels about this, the most famous being Il disprezzo and my favourite being Gli indifferenti. I also like D'Annunzio's Il piacere much more than The Great Gatsby. I would argue that variations of this theme are universal, with old writings like the Bibles's Qohelet and even more Sumer's Gilgamesh.
- Seven Pillars of Wisdom, by T. E. Lawrence.
During WWI he was sent from the UK to the Arabs to find a leader who could unite them and lead a rebellion against the Turks, who were allied with Germany.
He succeeded.
- I recommend the book T E Lawrence wrote on which the movie was based upon: "Seven Pillars of Wisdom".
- this resonates so much for me as i also grow and distill lavender essential oil at my farm. then i started growing other perfumery herbs and plants. creating scents is not a job for me, but it's almost like a meditation. each 'fragrance' has a profile but to me, they also have a 'time and place' sense.
the project mentioned is euro centric and i think its different in other parts of the world. for me..growing up in india, there are a lot of fragrances that bring back memories. sandalwood reminds me of my grandfather...orange blossoms takes me back to what can only be another lifetime in some exotic middle eastern walled garden...the fragrance of earth after the first summer showers, petrichor. i can go on but it will be boring. i used to wonder why i am awash with so many 'visuals' mentally when i recognise a fragrance even though i havent even been to some of the places in those mind movies. then it hit me. books! i read a lot and i think when i read..because english isnt my first language..i bolster and decorate words with other 'senses' by imagining that i am 'there' inside the pages with those words.
this is one of my favourite sensory readings...from the seven pillars of wisdom, t.e.lawrence.. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100111h.html ...
[...]The common base of all the Semitic creeds, winners or losers, was the ever present idea of world-worthlessness. Their profound reaction from matter led them to preach bareness, renunciation, poverty; and the atmosphere of this invention stifled the minds of the desert pitilessly. A first knowledge of their sense of the purity of rarefaction was given me in early years, when we had ridden far out over the rolling plains of North Syria to a ruin of the Roman period which the Arabs believed was made by a prince of the border as a desert-palace for his queen. The clay of its building was said to have been kneaded for greater richness, not with water, but with the precious essential oils of flowers. My guides, sniffing the air like dogs, led me from crumbling room to room, saying, 'This is jessamine, this violet, this rose'.
But at last Dahoum drew me: 'Come and smell the very sweetest scent of all', and we went into the main lodging, to the gaping window sockets of its eastern face, and there drank with open mouths of the effortless, empty, eddyless wind of the desert, throbbing past. That slow breath had been born somewhere beyond the distant Euphrates and had dragged its way across many days and nights of dead grass, to its first obstacle, the man-made walls of our broken palace. About them it seemed to fret and linger, murmuring in baby-speech. 'This,' they told me, 'is the best: it has no taste.' My Arabs were turning their backs on perfumes and luxuries to choose the things in which mankind had had no share or part.[...]
and when i read that, i knew..i just knew that was the 'smell of the desert'. just as tangible as the rose or jasmine or lavender. for one brief moment, i was the Bedouin myself.
on a slightly different(related?) note, today Gingko Bioworks based in Boston can create any fragrance you want(or can dream up) with their fermentation tanks. so there's that.
- >The cult of the amateur first of all built Britain’s empire, and then managed, by its casualness and determination to avoid confrontation and unpleasantness, to lose it.
Well, that would be one way of putting it. If one is a fan of utter bullshit.
For a less varnished take than this article on the attitudes and motivations of Britain's supposed gentlemen of that era, it is a very good idea to read Lawrence's 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom'. It pulls very few punches.
- Go read Lawrence's book, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom!
If it were only a travelogue, it would be worth reading. But it's also the personal story of a low ranking man saw the solution to the impossible, and got nations and cultures working together to bring down an empire. The book has more derring-do and adventure than could fit into a summer blockbuster. And everything seen through with, Lawrence's quiet, reflective, selfless, "strange" personality.
I'm going to go read a chapter now...
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