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.
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