Lawrence of Arabia, Thesiger of Abyssinia : THE LIFE OF MY CHOICE <i> by Wilfred Thesiger (W.W. Norton: $25; 459 pp.) </i>

Wilfred Thesiger’s “Arabian Sands,” an account of his travels in the Empty Quarter of Arabia just after World War II, published in 1959, is now considered to be a modern classic of adventure writing. The book established its author as a quixotic English explorer in the tradition of Sir Richard F. Burton, T. E. Lawrence and H. W. Tilman. “Arabian Sands” continues to have a loyal following among would-be adventurers and devotees of English travel writing. It only recently appeared in a new edition in the Penguin travel series along with Thesiger’s “The Marsh Arabs” (1964), the chronicle of his seven years among the peoples of southern Iraq in the 1950s.

Since the publication of his two books, Thesiger has been a shadowy figure turning up out of the blue in Eric Newby’s “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush” (Penguin) and scoffing at Geoffrey Moorhouse’s projected hike across the Sahara in “The Fearful Void” (Penguin). In 1979, he brought out “Desert, Marsh and Mountain,” but most of the text was from his earlier books, although some curious, new biographical data was included, stimulating interest in his life. Few of his readers probably ever expected to see another book by him. Yet here it is, and what a surprise: a huge autobiography, detailing his early life in Abyssinia, his school days in England, his explorations in Africa and his very recent travels and friendships.

Readers of “Arabian Sands” will not be disappointed by Thesiger’s description in “The Life” of his perilous journey into the Danakil country of Abyssinia in 1933 when he was 23 years old. This is classic Thesiger: the love of danger and hardship, the desire for companionship among remote tribal peoples and the confrontation with volatile warlords: “As I looked around the clearing at the ranks of squatting warriors and the small isolated group of my own men, I knew that this moonlight meeting in unknown Africa with a savage potentate who hated Europeans was the realization of my boyhood dreams. I had come here in search of adventure: The mapping, the collecting of animals and birds were all incidental. The knowledge that somewhere in this neighborhood three previous expeditions had been exterminated, that we were far beyond any hope of assistance, that even our whereabouts were unknown, I found wholly satisfying.”

Thesiger was born in 1910 in Abyssinia, the son of the British minister in charge of the legation at Addis Ababa. The violent civil strife in Abyssinia in 1916-1917, the triumphant return from battle of the Shoan army of the future Emperor Haile Selassie, arrayed in full tribal dress, made an indelible impression on the 6-year-old Thesiger. The return of his family to England in 1919 was felt as a form of exile by the young Wilfred whose sense of being the outsider in school manifested itself as “a lifelong craving for barbaric splendor” left behind in Abyssinia.

Our age is very rough on mythic heroes, and one may ask how a seeming anachronism like Thesiger could be so popular in the post-colonial, not to mention, feminist era. One of Thesiger’s own heroes, T. E. Lawrence, has not fared all that well. One obvious reason is that Thesiger, unlike Lawrence, has not been the subject of a critical biography. Personal traits, which achieved mythic proportions in “Arabian Sands,” are far less appealing in other circumstances. His penchant for “barbaric splendour” and “savagery” take on a different hue in the context of World War II or his big-game hunting exploits. The complex question of Thesiger’s sexuality certainly has also occurred to most of his readers, including Jonathan Raban in “Arabia: A Journey Through the Labyrinth” (Simon & Schuster). Thesiger’s avowal of celibacy in the conditions of desert life, and a declared lack of interest in sex, should be accepted from a man of integrity, but the fact that his closest companions have frequently been young tribal men or boys may well appeal to the prurient interest of future biographers.

The myth of the absence of women in Thesiger’s life is certainly refuted by the close relationship with his mother described in “The Life.” In fact, Thesiger traveled often with his mother, and when she was 88 years old, she motored to the edge of the Sahara, which reminds us that many of the great English adventurers, like Freya Stark and Gertrude Bell, have been women. Thesiger also describes his tutor, the late Mary Buckle, as his cherished friend and confidante for more than 70 years.

“The Life” is dedicated to the memory of His Late Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie. Thesiger’s royalist politics, his total disdain for all manifestations of “progress,” his particular hatred of the grim uniformity that technology has brought to the once remote places in the world, may well explain his current popularity. Somehow this old savage has acquired a following among a new breed of ecology/adventurers who are struggling to protect the integrity of tribal peoples and wildlife. Thesiger, who once hunted lions as vermin, is now a conservationist and has even served as a game warden in Kenya. And in this era of post-colonial disillusionment, even his ardent defense of Haile Selasse seems less objectionable in light of the murderous policies of the Mengistu regime.

Thesiger’s politics, however, are a reminder that he has always been something more than an explorer. He has loyally served the Empire, so to speak, even if we count him, like Lawrence, among the eccentric group of British Arabists. During World War II, he served with the Special Operations Executive until “someone” suggested he join the newly formed Strategic Air Service (SAS). In 1966-68, he was invited by the Royalist Government of Yemen to visit the country, then in the midst of a civil war. The republicans were supported by Nasser’s Egypt. Thesiger was accompanied in Yemen by his friend Col. Neil McLean, an MP who was a champion of the Royalist cause in British political circles. Eventually, Thesiger even became a minor casualty of the war when he was hit by shrapnel from a Soviet MIG. Is it ridiculous to ask what part, if any, Thesiger has played in the Great Game of British Intelligence?

The Thesiger myth will endure because he is, after all, a great writer. It should not be forgotten that among his most cherished possessions in his remote outpost during his days in the Sudan Political Service were his complete sets of Conrad and Kipling.

Perhaps “The Life” tells more than we would really care to know about Thesiger. Even the old explorer may have had second thoughts. He has just published a new volume in England, “Visions of a Nomad” (Collins), a selection of his extraordinary photographs of a now-vanished world, taken with a Leica camera that he carried around in a goat-skin bag. The commentary is distilled Thesiger, some of his very best writing. The small inside jacket photograph obscures his face; you can barely see what he looks like. Perhaps that is for the best.