Sea and Sardinia (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) [Paperback]

Following the First World War, D.H. Lawrence spent much of his life on the road and visited places as far apart as New Mexico, Sri Lanka and Australia, making him one of the most travelled of literary greats. Much of the reasoning behind Lawrence's peripatetic nature was his health: a tuberculosis sufferer, Lawrence was constantly alert to potential threats in the atmosphere and would move locations at the drop off a hat.

'Sea and Sardinia' narrates a short visit to the island in 1921. At the time, Lawrence was living in Sicily and agitated by its crowded atmosphere and commercialisation, its dilettantes and arrogant commercial travellers. Sardinia was therefore sought as a potential antitdote to modernity, and this preoccupation chimes throughout the book with various references to returning to the good old days.

As a travel narrative told in the first person, Lawrence's forceful personality and attitudes naturally command centre stage. Although much of the book is devoted to detailed descriptions of markets, festivals and landscapes, there's a strand of polemic against modern society that some readers may find tedious and brow-beating. However, there is also plenty of humour (unusually so for Lawrence) and self-parody that gives his first person narrative an air of self-reflection and depth.

The key thing for me is that this book contains some of Lawrence's best writing. It's beautiful and intoxicating stuff. There are passages of sustained, descriptive prose that rank with the best of Lawrence's writing and place this book high in the list of early-twentieth century travel writing. There are turns of phrase, witty characterisations and a luscious musicality to the prose. This gives a freshness to the scenes of island life; and although readers more concerned with objective facts of Sardinian life may be disappointed, the text does reveal more insight to customs than first apparent.

It's unsurprising that Philip Larkin regarded this text as one of his favourites. Like Larkin's verse, Lawrence's 'Sea and Sardinia' is funny, true to life and gilded with an edge of mystery. Readers will be able to get lost in Lawrence Freudian landscapes and then be able to chuckle at a local scene. In terms of what it covers, the book is limited to a small portion of Sardinia's overall landscape, but I've read accounts of scholars who've enjoyed retracing Larkin's own journey, so maybe this book is worth buying in addition to a conventional travel guide.

I would therefore recommend this book as the best of Lawrence's travel writing and an underrated gem in his ouevre. It is a sustained study of island life through the lens of a romanticist and should be enjoyable to anyone who appreciates good writing.

These few innocuous opening words are Lawrence's rationale for taking a short break which, in turn, became the genesis for an extraordinary travelogue.

Unlike others who read `Sea and Sardinia' as part of their academic studies, I did so voluntarily. I came across a reference to it in another book on Sardinia, tracked it down and then became intrigued by what one Lawrence biographer described as one of his two most `accessible' books. (I went on to become a little more than intrigued - others might say `obsessed' - and eventually retraced Lawrence's journey and wrote my own book.)

`Sea and Sardinia' is the story of a nine-day trip that Lawrence and his German wife Frieda made from their home in Taormina on the north-east coast of Sicily, to and through Sardinia and back to Sicily via mainland Italy. The historical setting is post-Great War Europe, a time of economic, political and cultural upheaval that every day was sowing the seeds of the Second World War.

The story, written throughout in the present tense, is no more than a traveller's remembered diary (apparently Lawrence took no notes) of his journey ... but then this particular traveller was an accomplished writer of fiction, an acute socio-political observer and an amateur psychoanalyst.

Generally it is a breathtaking read though, for some, his occasional lapses into tales of classical deities and their place as part of the story of ancient Sicily (once Greek), might be a bit tedious but it must be remembered that, like many independent travellers of the time, Lawrence was well-grounded in Classical themes and he would have expected his audience to share his knowledge, if not his interest.

He was an irascible traveller; I sometimes wondered why he travelled so much for, if `Sea and Sardinia' is anything to go by, he never seemed to enjoy himself and found fault at almost every turn. Of course he and Frieda did encounter some foul hostelry, particularly in Sardinia where, except for Cagliari, the accommodation was generally basic and the food, when available, barely adequate and rarely appetising.

He clearly didn't have a lot of fun but, nevertheless, he manages to leave the reader with many humourous memories: like his pseudo-psychoanalysis of the convicts at Messina station; the woman at sea who insisted on speaking French; the man who lost his wife on the train between Cagliari and Mandas; the open-air public toilet at Sòrgono; and, most of all, his perceptive descriptions of his fellow travellers.

His occasional companions on his nine-day ordeal were given nicknames which were often funny (the sludge queen), generally abusive (the mosquitoes) and only occasionally benevolent (Hamlet); Frieda was not immune, she was the q-b, the queen bee, and from time to time Lawrence uses her thoughts as a vehicle to express his gentler side, on the rare occasions when he deigned to be what Italians would call `simpatico'.

Anyone who reads `Sea and Sardinia' expecting to be shown round well-known landmarks and edifices will be disappointed; it is not a guide book. Indeed Lawrence explicitly makes the point that he is not interested in such things when, describing Nuoro, he comments, "Sights are an irritating bore ... Happy is the town that has nothing to show. What a lot of stunts and affectations it saves!" That said, he and Frieda do happen upon local festivals and customs which he describes in rich and colourful detail but he does so as an honest witness rather than an impressionable tourist.

As an insight into what make Lawrence tick, `Sea and Sardinia' is, I believe, incomparable; as a gateway into an extraordinary time in European social and political history, albeit through the eyes of one cantankerous and often jingoistic Englishman, it is unique.

As a travel book this is not especially informative, primarily because Lawrence seemed to want to get the journey over with as quickly as he could; he did not seem to be enjoying himself. The best parts for me are where he describes the slightly squalid conditions in cheap hotels and on the buses, though I would have preferred had he made more of that and taken it all with a bit more grace.
The sort of book I don't think I'll be reading again - not informative enough. Well written though, of course.