The Life of My Choice

Wilfred Thesiger was the scion of a very influential English family; his uncle was the Viceroy of India, that is the highest British official governing what it is now India, Pakistan, Burma and Bangladesh. Thesiger was born in Addis Abeba where his father was with the British legation; some of his earliest memories were of the German-inspired revolt during the first world war being put down. After boarding school and Oxford, he decided to spend his life exploring the most remote parts of the world, rather than a comparatively mundane career in the army or foreign service bureaucracy. He traveled through remote parts of Sudan (the Danakil territories), Iraq (among the Marsh Arabs), Afghanistan, and Arabia (Liwa, Yemen and elsewhere), where white men had never been before. He also fought with the SAS in Northern Africa - where Rommel probably came within 30 feet of him while he was hiding in the sand after being surprised on a commando mission - and then retired to Kenya. To get a sense of what Thesiger was like - and of how our world has changed since his time - allow me to mention the deep disappointment with which he relates that at the outset of an expedition of his he knew that he would not be the first European to go to a particular corner of Ethiopia, because Portuguese Jesuits were known to have preached there in the 1600s, in a time when the Catholic church was trying to convert Coptic Ethiopia to Catholicism. In short, an extremely interesting life. This is an incredible book and a most worthwhile antidote to our MTV - MacDonald's - couch potato society. I most heartily recommend this book.

Wilfred Thesiger, I'm ashamed to admit, is a new discovery to me. After reading "Arabian Sands" a few days ago, I felt I had to learn more of his life. "The Life of My Choice" has many parallels to "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" and was so captivating that I had to read it in one sitting. T.E. Lawrence noted that "self-knowledge unfitted me for leadership." Thesiger puts that same sharp sword of introspection to his life. His observations on Lieutenant Colonel Orde Wingate and his thoughts on T.E. Lawrence are among the highlights of this book, as are his thoughts on Islam and Christianity. A son of privilege, son of the Minister of the British Legation in Addis Ababa, the author fell in love with the people of the wilderness, and always found his heroes and soul mates among the harshest tribes in the most forbidding territories. He acknowledges that some of his big game hunting exploits don't go over well 50 years afterwards, but takes care to explain the realities of the situation. He obviously has a strong feeling for the underdog in any fight, not something to be taken for granted in a highly decorated battlefield veteran. Thesiger's detailed account of the League of Nations standing by and watching the Italians brazenly use mustard gas on tens of thousands of Ethiopian soldiers and civilians reminds us of our own cowardice during more recent crimes against humanity. In this age when we are in such great need of heroic figures, I have no knowledge of a single leader of Wilfred Thesiger's caliber alive among us. Then again, Thesiger insisted on not living inside his own society, not seeking to be known by anyone other than himself. No doubt he must serve as the model for more than a few yet to be discovered British and American heroes now posted in remote and dangerous places. Surely one lesson to be taken from Mr. Thesiger's life is that we should live the lives our souls demand of us, consequences be damned. Mr. Thesiger realized as a young man that his path was a lonely one. I highly recommend "Fire and the Sword in the Sudan" by Colonels Rudolph Slatin and F.R. Wingate to any reader of Wilfred Thesiger. Slatin was held prisoner for 12 years in the Sudan during the 1880s and early 1890s.

It was his choice. No marriage. Just adventure. It couldn't be mine. Yet one can be envious. Grant him his choice, and it's a great story. Grant him also that he's added something valuable to our better understanding of some important parts of the world that aren't so often understood. This is not the first book he wrote. He's a unique and remarkable man and author, a writer who grabs your interest and whisks you through several hundred pages. Books don't get much better than this.

This describes briefly his early years in Abyssinia (today Ethiopia and Eritria), followed even more briefly by his schooling in England, before it gets to the juicy stuff, in the form of his friendship with Haile Selassi, his explorations of the least well known corners of North Africa and Arabia, his service in the Sudan and in WW2 in the SAS. I think he's still alive, as I read an account of an interview of his a couple of years ago (1997 or so) and he was still going strong then. Until a few years ago was still living in Africa, where he had been living in a native village in Kenya for about 20 years. I would especially recommend this if you have read his 'Arabian Sands' or the 'Marsh Arabs', as it would give you a much more complete idea of who he actually was.

It has been a few years since I read this book, so much of what I write has been pulled from my memory.I heard an NPR review of "The Life of my Choice" and was moved to purchase the book. I was not disappointed. Thesiger takes you by the hand as he explores "The Dark Continent", from his childhood introduction to Halle Selassie to his life living among the nomadic people in the deserts of Northern Africa.Adventures abound in this book. Written from the point of view of an old (and probably now dead!) British colonialist, it is a bit jaded at times. However, Thesiger truly appreciated the land and the people of Africa and found himself to prefer them to his refined contemporaries in England.