Lawrence did indeed have a talent for self-invention, Wilson admits, but calls the book 'true in essence, perhaps wrong on a few details.' Wilson says Lawrence wanted to write a book worthy of Melville's Moby Dick or Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. 'What it isn't, is complete,' Wilson says. Lawrence Society, calls the book 'extremely accurate, historically, and anybody who says it's a novel needs to do their homework.' Lawrence: The Authorized Biography and a past president of the T.E. It also means you never know what the plot is, because there are three or four, and they're quite different,' Fromkin says.īut Jeremy Wilson, author of T.E.

'On the minus side, he never could make up his mind what story he wanted to tell - and that means that he contradicted himself several ways.

'It's the story of another world, and besides, I find Lawrence a curiously attractive character. ' Seven Pillars has exquisite Victorian phrasing, derring-do, raids and counter raids and men astride horseback and camel - everything, says noted historian David Fromkin, except facts.įromkin is the author of A Peace to End all Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, a definitive account of how the victors of World War I divided the Middle East among themselves, putting in power governments that would do their bidding - and in many ways, setting the region up for the current state of instability.įromkin says he likes to read Seven Pillars as a novel, with some historical facts: 'It has an air of romance and strangeness,' he tells Lyden. Turkey had allied itself with Germany, and Britain need a proxy force to defend its flank - a precursor to the 'Coalition of the Willing.'' This is Lawrence's recounting of his 1916-1918 Arab campaign. Lawrence hunches over a lantern in an Ottoman-style house, penning his historic re-creation, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph. 'Let us visit the man who created his own myth,' Lyden says.

For Weekend Edition Saturday, NPR's Jacki Lyden reports on the man and the myth. But his true story and legacy is still a subject of debate among historians - everything from his sexuality, to his Arab style of dress, to whether he ever really reached the Syrian capital of Damascus at all. Thomas Edward Lawrence was the dashing, romanticized British officer credited with leading the Arab revolt against the Turks during World War I - a feat depicted in the epic film Lawrence of Arabia. Bush was recently depicted on one magazine cover wearing Lawrence's Arab headdress. There have been many references to the fabled Lawrence of Arabia in the press lately - 'Wolfowitz of Arabia' was a recent New York Times headline, in reference to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz' role in determining the future of Iraq and nation-building in the Middle East. Hide caption Enlarge image toggle caption

From 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom, The Complete 1922 Text,' Castle Hill Press, 1997

Seven pillars of wisdom a triumph