I wonder if Lawrence had more love for geology and geography (the places where people lived) rather than the people who lived in those places? Such an astute eye, someone so careful seems to me to be someone who makes few friends. Fiasal must have appreciated this cool regard.
And the landscape lulls you – page after page of blue, cream, pink rock and sand and sun. No wonder this is a land of God’s prophets.
Mainly it’s the narrator’s observations that keep me going, otherwise the book is mostly pretty obvious whose insights are not nearly as profound (or even insightful) as they could be.
Yet there is a strangeness too, and it’s enticing. These lost steps (musical term) slowly become audible, the score is filled in, a melody is apparent. There magic in the music, even in the sound of a fruit falling in the night.
What makes this book so terribly difficult is keeping track of who is who and how their relationships and history effect some other person or tribe’s relationship.
So I’ve given that up. The only people that really matter here are Lawrence, and Fiasal.
Where the story shines is when Lawrence is telling us what he did, describing the landscape, the custom, his own inadequacies – that’s where we know the man.