New year adventures by sea

THE stunning travel books of DH Lawrence may be overshadowed by his famous works of fiction, but are widely admired, especially by travellers and travel writers. They endorse his greatness, many claiming they contain his finest prose – perhaps the finest prose yet written.

One such work, Sea And Sardinia, arose from an exploratory trip Lawrence and his wife Frieda made to that remarkable island a century ago. They set off on January 4, 1921, returning on January 13. From such a short visit emerged immaculate, expansive recollections, brilliantly observed.

The opening is classic – “Comes over one an absolute necessity to move”. This vibrant study of people and places, past and present, is rife with restless impulses. As the Lawrences sail from Palermo, their steamer starts to “swoon upwards” and “slither forwards”. The “q-b” –

Queen Bee, Frieda – “turns pale”. For Lawrence the “long, slow, waveringly rhythmic rise and fall of the ship” is a joy to “the wild innermost soul”. He wishes the “surging pulsation” of this liberating voyage “might last forever”.

There arrives the “lovely, celandine-yellow morning of the open sea”, the sun “like the great burning stigma of the sacred flower of day”. It is “a golden hour for the heart of man”. He longs to sail “from isle to isle... through the spaces of this lovely world”.

On arrival at Caglieri it is the colourful Festival of Epiphany. Lawrence sees his first peasants in costume. Their expression of “beautiful maleness” is a revelation, while peasant girls and women are “so brisk and defiant”.

There is “the fine old martial split between the sexes”, each with their “native pride and courage”, unlike the “macaroni slithery-slobbery mess of modern adorations”.

Epic bus and train journeys to Mandas, Sorgono, Nuoro and Terranova are described with immediacy. Striking characters come to life, as does the spirit of place. No wonder the Sardinians still remember Lawrence, with a literature festival held in his honour each year.

■ ■ 100 years ago, on January 14, 1921, Lawrence’s letter tells sister Ada that they returned from Sardinia to Sicily “last night”. They “love” Sardinia, but have decided “to keep Fontana Vecchia another year”. The blazer Ada sent “fits beautifully and looks so chic”.there is “brilliant sun, almond trees all coming into full blossom – oranges and lemons all ripe”. He’s “got a funny little thing” for her son Jack, which he’ll send tomorrow. He tells Martin Secker he’s thinking of “writing a sketch book of Sardinia in the early summer”.