Friday, August 29, 2003

 
Thesiger Thanotopsis
Or: "Hungry? Like the wolf?" 1.
Or: "Wilfred and Zeyd are dead, baby."
Or: Daffodils & Pansies, Clouds & Clods

-Heard about the croakage of some guy named Wilfred Thesiger on NPR recently. This was followed by a Corner reference by John Derbyshire and lastly, by an obiturary in the RedStar&Tribune. Sadly, although
the Derb inbox was surely filled, probably in part by stuff from those who actually knew the erstwhile
Tuareg fellow traveler, there has been(I think)no follow-up. Perhaps it was kilt' by KLo, or maybe JD
reigned in his own impulses, in the manner of "The desert Arab finds no joy like the joy of voluntarily holding back.He finds luxury in abnegation, renunciation, self-restraint."[T.E. Lawrence] (Perhaps even Saddam's sons facing their final conflict with coalition forces, forsook some of their pharmaceuticals, albeit saying something like, ala "Airplane II," "Looks like we picked the wrong day to give up amphetamines.")
A Google search confirms what I guess I knew already: lotsa' englishmen criss-crossed scary places
like the "Empty Quarter" before doing so was cool.
Googe turned up "Just Desserts" by Robin Hanbury-Tenison. He writes, "Wilfred Thesiger says in Arabian
Sands [sic] that 'only in a desert (can) a man find freedom' and he should know. It is the vast bowl of sky
overhead, burnished by day, stippled[like Hopkins' "dappled" and "in stipple" things?]by night; it is the
space, emphasised by the wind, punctuated by the silence; it is the solidarity and companionship that
come from being utterly dependent on each other in a climate where all is parched and desiccation
rules...."
A Booble search of my meager "library" turned up three books, all given to me by my parents on my
birthday in 1981: T.E. Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," "With Lawrence In Arabia" by Lowell
Thomas and "Travels in Arabia Deserta" by Charles M. Doughty. I had already read or skimmed Seven Pillars in
Junior High School and only recall thinking on the basis of the author's rapture with the beauty of
looted, naked, dead bodies of soldiers bathed in moonlight, that he might be a little light in the
sandals.(NTTIAWWT! -notthatthereisanythingwrongwiththat)I have yet to read Doughty's book,
but Edward Garnett's "Editor's Preface" is intriguing: "...its strange style, which, 'says Doughty's biographer Hogwarth,' maintained throughout a work of over 600,000 words, discouraged even the
very elect.'" MAJOR DIGRESSION ALERT!
The abridgment sold well and perhaps the "strange style" is like asserted by JD for Hopkins, worth
getting to know and like. Tho- speaking of odes to village smithies(Felix Randal), the only poem that
I remembered that could be remotely linked to them is the ye olde parody that goes:

"Under the spreading chestnut tree
The village idiot stands
Amusing himself by abusing himself
And catching it in his hands."

And wots wit making fun of the er, developmentaly delayed these days? Last nights' MTV VMA
featured Eminem punching out "Crank Yankers'" "Special Ed" and some lyric that everyone here heard
as "retarded." Admittedly this cruel wit goes back at least as far as an old National Lampoon Radio
Hour "Public Disservice Message":[something like-] "Just remember folks, there's no fool like a
mentally retarded person." Or was that Charles De Gaulle speaking of the United States? Or was
that Bismark speaking of fools,children, drunkards and us?
Ahem- JD also recc. comit to mem. Wordsworth's much less strange "Daffodils," but I could only recall
one line of Mad Magazine's "I wandered lonely as a clod..." Thanx to "Jason" posting on "Bundy
Ballade":

"I wandered lonely as a clod,
Picking up old rags and bottles,
When suddenly I saw upon the sod
A host of loathsome axolotis,[sic]2
Upon the ground and in the trees,
A sight to make a man's blood freeze."

The abridged edition of Doughty's work also includes an "Introduction" by none other than T.E.
Lawrence. He writes, "I have studied it for ten years, and have grown to consider it a book not
like other books, but something particular, a bible of its kind......Doughty's completeness is devas
tating..." He goes on to assert that, "We export two chief kinds of Englishmen, who in foreign
parts divide themselves into two opposed classes. Some feel deeply the influence of the native
people, and try to adjust themselves to its atmosphere and spirit. To fit themselves modestly
into the picture they suppress all in them that would be discordant with local habits and colours...
...However, they cannot avoid the consequences of imitation, a hollow, worthless thing....The
other class of Englishmen is the larger class...In reaction against their foreign surroundings they
take refuge in the England that was theirs....They impress the peoples among whom they live
by reaction, by giving them an ensample[sic]of the complete Englishman, the foreigner intact...
Doughty is a great member of the second, the cleaner class." T.E.L. also says of the Arabs with
respect to CMD, "They say that he seemed proud only of being Christian, and yet never crossed
their faith." Recalling virtually nothing of "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," I haven't the foggiest into
which class of Englishmen TEL put himself or for that matter, Sir Richard Burton into. Uh, discuss
amongst yourselves, class.
Flipping through the pages of "Travels in Arabia Deserta" one learns that, "Rarely do any nomad
gunners kill the wolf, but if any fall to their shot he is eaten by the Beduins, (the wolf was eaten
in mediaeval Europe). The Aarab[sic]think the flesh medicinal. 'very good they say for aches in
the shins,'...."
Even the chapter headings are intriguing: "9: Peace in the Desert---The Nomads' dogs. Circum-
cision festival. Our camels stolen. The pursuit. Zeyd would not have son learn letters of a
stranger......" The "Circumcision Festival" is held for those who have the "strength of three full
years." Ouch. "Daddy, I've got a tummy-ache; do I hafta go today?" -it's gotta make Dresden's
"Shrove Tuesday" look like a booger -or at least when there isn't a bomber-induced firestorm.
And "Zeyd"-now that's a strange name and it was a disappointing Google search that suggested
that "Zed" is apparently the spelling of the homosexual rapist in "Pulp Fiction" whose motorcycle
was taken by Bruce Willis' character. Sigh, my wife won't let *me* get a motorcycle. However,
TEL didn't have a wife and did have a motorcycle, an' lookee wot it got him. And that reminds me
of a post read before my vacation, by a, I think, Steve Hayward -something about the spot where
James Dean was turned into Jimmy Dean Saussage. Hardee Har Har Har. In a post inflicted on an
englishman within the past year or so(sad to admit but the class of englishmen that finds my stuff
clever seems to be the null set), I recalled that the old National Lampoon magazine had something
about "James Dean Saussage," and followed it up with my own zinger of "Dhimi Dean Pure Pork
Saussage" franchises in an occupied Saudi Arabia. O.K., I wasn't really "reminded"; that was a
calculated trek through my dessicated detritus.
Back to Thesiger: From the Guardian "Meeting Thesiger in Piccadilly and the Hindu Kush" by Eric
Newby: "He didn't like women terribly.....The party[Thesiger's]consisted of two villainous-looking
tribesmen.....a shivering Tajik cook, a gloomy-looking middle-class Afghan.....and Thesiger himself,
a great, long-striding crag of a man, with an outcrop for a nose and bushy eyebrows, 45 years old
and as hard as nails, in an old tweed jacket, a pair of thin grey trousers, rope-soled Persian
slippers and a woollen cap comforter.[no mention of "spats," whatever the hell they are].........
The ground was like iron with sharp rocks sticking up out of it. We started to blow up our air
beds. 'God, you must be a couple of pansies,' said Thesiger."
Thesiger, of course, spent a long time with the "Marsh Arabs" of Iraq. Their habitat, as is now widely
known, was for the most part, drained by SH. It's too bad that we haven't told present day Iraqis that absent
their formation of a government non-threatening to us, we'll drain their whole damn country of
Muslim Arabs.
Back to Robin Hanbury-Tenison: "When asked what is the most important thing to take on an
expedition, I always reply: 'a local.'" Time now to close out this wandering in the wilderness with
speculation as to whether Wilfred Thesiger would have concurred with:

A KURD IN THE SAND IS WORTH TWO IN THE KUSH.



1. Apologies to "Duran Duran"(who were dredged up last night on MTV VMA)
2. I assume that this was a "typo," given that the plural seems to be "axolotls."