Οι ζωγραφιστοί τάφοι της Ταρκουίνια

by D.H. Lawrence, Γιάννης Λειβαδάς (Translator)

«Η απεικόνιση διαθέτει ζωντάνια και φυσικότητα, εντούτοις εκπέμπει την ολκή της πληρότητας ενός αρχαϊκού νοήματος. Το δείπνο είναι νεκρικό και την ίδια στιγμή ο νεκρός δειπνεί στον κάτω κόσμο, γιατί ο κάτω κόσμος ήταν για τους Ετρούσκους ένας τόπος χαρωπός. Ενώ οι ζωντανοί γλεντούσαν εν ζωή, ο νεκρός γλεντούσε παρομοίως, με μια γυναίκα να του προσφέρει γιρλάντες και σκλάβους να του σερβίρουν κρασί, βαθιά μέσα στον κάτω κόσμο. Επειδή η ζωή πάνω στη γη ήταν τόσο όμορφη, η ζωή στον κόσμο των νεκρών δεν μπορούσε παρά να ήταν μια συνέχειά της».

Ο Ντ. Χ. Λόρενς περιηγείται έκθαμβος την αρχαία ιταλική πόλη της Ταρκυνίας (τη σημερινή Ταρκουίνια) και τα περίφημα ταφικά μνημεία με τις έγχρωμες τοιχογραφίες τους, ανασυστήνοντας σαγηνευτικά με την πένα του έναν πολιτισμό που άκμασε πριν από 2500 χρόνια.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, History, Italy, Classical Studies, Classics, Essays

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1932

About the author

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English writer of the 20th century, whose prolific and diverse output included novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism, and personal letters. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, human sexuality and instinct.

Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage." At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English novel. He is now generally valued as a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.H._Law...

Reviews

[C. B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is beautifully written and totally delightful. I think anyone looking for an academically erudite history is seriously going to miss out here! This is history as a shamelessly sensitive, personal, and impressionistic enterprise, for which I greatly admire it. There's something infectious about Lawrence's almost naïve enthusiasm, and the power of his experiences in these tombs is palpable.

[Rosa Cleiren · Rating 5 out of 5]

volledige boeken lezen voor mijn thesis research, wie ben ik geworden 😩

Now we see again, under the blue heavens where the larks are singing in the hot April sky, why the Romans called the Etruscans vicious. Even in their palmy days the Romans were not exactly saints. But they thought they ought to be. They hated the phallus and the ark, because they wanted empire and dominion and, above all, riches: social gain. You cannot dance gaily to the double flute and at the same time conquer nations or rake in large sums of money. Delenda est Cartago. To the greedy man, everybody that is in the way of his greed is vice incarnate. (31)

[Pete Missingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was issued posthumously in 1932 during Mussolini's early years and after Lawrence had moved to Florence. It is written almost like a diary as Lawrence visits various Etruscan places. A chapter on Cerveteri, three on Tarquinia and one each on Vulci and Volterra. The fascists make appearances twice but Lawrence is more repulsed by the Romans who he sees as crushing the authentic life of the Etruscans. It's clear he views the fascists as Romans, and the Italian people as Etruscans, so everything is done by allusion. But that is not the main point of this book. Lawrence provides fantastic descriptions of the landscape and the wildflowers of each place, the book being set in spring. There are small character studies of the guides, hoteliers, cyclists and others he meets along the way. It's the novelist in him. In his later years in Florence Lawrence began painting, and it is his aesthetic appreciation of the various Etruscan art he sees that really make this book still relevant (I was surprised to see Wikipedia still citing a 90 year old book!). There are of course faults with such an old book, there is perhaps too much musing on the Etruscan origins, most of which is a little embarrassing to read now. However when he is describing the tombs at Tarquinia, for instance, he points out features otherwise easily overlooked. Perhaps the strongest point he makes is how different each city-state is from its neighbour and any attempt to produce an Etruscan portrait would necessarily produce a lifeless omelette. Lifeless in the sense of not true to life. Cerveteri is all carefully ordered tombs, Tarquinia highly decorated ones, Vulci destroyed except for one enormous cavern (mass grave?), and Volterra a collection of carved alabaster "urns" - which owe nothing to the art styles of Tarquinia. The book ends back in Florence describing a transplanted tomb from Volterra moved to the museum garden, the museum being near the prison which coincidence provides the last two vignettes.

[Źdźbło Trześczyżybitowskie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pierwsza rzecz Lawrence'a, którą przeczytałom, to była "Apokalisa", zresztą, też wydana w Polsce przez Kronosa. Dzisiaj wiem, że trzeba by było czytać w odwrotnej kolejności, najpierw "Miejsca Etrusków", a dopiero później "Apokalipsę". To się razem świetnie uzupełnia, wzajemnie się oświetla.
To wiem. Natomiast nie wiem, czy to dobrze rozumiem, ale Lawrence to czystej wody animista. Patrzy na świat naiwnie, co niekoniecznie jest wadą. Skoro mu służyło... Manifest animisty modernisty. Tak to widzę.
Czyta sie to bardzo dobrze, płynnie. Wciąga. Niby bedeker po części Włoch, w której są pamiątki po Etruskach, ale miejscami też dziennik podróży, momentami traktat filozoficzny. Fajne momenty, gdy z narratora wychodzi prozaik wysokiej klasy. Szczególnie w opisach napotkanych ludzi.
Natomiast raziła mnie trochę Lawrence'owska mizantropia. No nie da się szukać formuły ekstatycznego bycia w świecie, a jednocześnie patrzeć na ludzi jak na szczury. Da się?

[kubabuks · Rating 5 out of 5]

najlepsze, co udało mi się przeczytać do tej pory w 2025 roku; bardzo romantyczne; fantastyczny przekład

tagi: książka na lato, co przenosi w inne miejsce

[Al Maki · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a very readable and enjoyable book about a week spent visiting Etruscan relics in the mid-20s. I hadn't read any Lawrence since the Beatles were performing and so I didn't realize what a fine writer he was. His descriptions of the landscapes and the tombs are so very clear and accurate. The narrative of the trip flows along naturally, one event leading easily to the next. I also owe him for a couple of specifics. He coined the phrase "temporarily important persons" to describe politicians. He also cleared up a question I had about classical imagery. In Fiesole, in the ruins of the old Roman amphitheatre, you see images of what are clearly angels - humans with wings on their backs. I wondered about the origin of these creatures that I had always thought of as Christian. According to Lawrence, they go back to the Etruscans. Since Fiesole was originally an Etruscan city, it makes sense to me now.
At the same time, his judgments are questionable. "To put it roughly in a sentence, Lawrence believed that the Etruscans of about 700-300 B.C. had lived largely in the way he wished to live and thought that we should all live." - Richard Aldington

[Joseph Falloon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pleasent enough to read as Lawrence describes the people and places as he finds them, but it is quickly spoilt by his strongly-held opinions which he ties intrinsically, though dubiousily,
with the subject of this book, the Etruscans.

[Ella Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lawrence deeply respected the vivacious Etruscans. It was the anima or the soul of the Etruscans he was most taken by, I think - their strong glamour in movement; their fluid life-accepting nature and the way that they depicted the hot-blooded bird flowing through the density of matter. The broken pieces of the tomb walls and faded frescos, although depressing to him, enlivened his mind- forcing him to disentangle this enigmatic, unknown land and people. Through witnessing weathered symbols of early life, his imagination had space to move: the images in those tombs were not solid, they had no ends.

"Wildly the bacchic woman throws back her head and curves out her long, strong fingers, wild and yet contained within herself, while the broad-bodied young man turns round to her, lifting his dancing hand to hers till the thumbs all but touch. They are dancing in the open, past little trees, and birds are running, and a little fox-tailed dog is watching something with the naïve intensity of the young. Wildly and delightedly dances the next woman, every bit of her, in her soft boots and her bordered mantle, with jewels on her arms; till one remembers the old dictum, that every part of the body and of the anima shall know religion, and be in touch with the gods. Towards her comes the young man piping on the double flute, and dancing as he comes. He is clothed only in a fine linen scarf with a border, that hangs over his arms, and his strong legs dance of themselves, so full of life. Yet, too, there is a certain solemn intensity in his face, as he turns to the woman beyond him, who stoops in a bow to him as she vibrates her castanets."

[José Simões · Rating 5 out of 5]

Que viagem, que escrita, que leveza e que altura melhor para ler este livro do que o Verão. Um livro que não me abandona e dificilmente abandonará, não só por ser o relato (o da expedição de Lawrence aos ditos lugares etruscos de Itália) que evoca uma época não tão distante assim (os anos 20 do séc. XX), mas que é tão outra que chegamos a sentir uma certa nostalgia ingénua desse período entre guerras. E depois há o fascínio do autor pela civilização etrusca, que é contagiante, mesmo se altamente parcial. E o livro a acabar e nós a querer que continuasse por mais e mais páginas.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting read while I was visiting many of the places Lawrence wrote about. Many things have changed since he was there but many are, surprisingly, still the same. His history might have been inaccurate but his passion for his subject was evident.

[Jeremy Neal · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing experience, because this is a travel book... written by DH Lawrence! It elevates the mundane accordingly and reveals a beautiful soliloquy on a lost world, far from the beaten track in both time and space. There were no tourists beating a path to lonely Etruria in the 1920s to look at the buried necropoleis of a forgotten people, and I doubt there are very many today. I know that after reading this, I would love to go, and not just because of this wonderful work of non-fiction, but also out of a professional interest. The tomb of Orcus was one of the many grave sites that Lawrence visited on his tour of Etruscan places.

What shines through, quite apart from the beauty of the writing, is the vivacity of the Etruscans, their passion for life, their egalitarianism, their sense of beauty and life. At least this is Lawrence's interpretation, as he phrases it:

"From the shadow of the prehistoric world emerge dying religions that have not yet invented gods or goddesses, but live by the mystery of the elemental powers in the Universe, the complex vitalities of what we feebly call Nature."

And if convention is made from the lens of the seeing-eye, then he makes so many important observations about truth being in the eye of the beholder and how dogma is made, quite often by observers and recorders of history with very little imagination or appreciation for beauty.

This renders Etruscan Places a remarkable experiment. Perhaps Lawrence is correct and we are forced to apprehend the past through a brutish, and rather gauche academic collectivism. The wrong people giving opinions that are limited by their small imagination. Lawrence says:

"It is all a question of sensitiveness. Brute force and overbearing may make a terrific effect. But in the end, that which lives lives by delicate sensitiveness. If it were a question of brute force, not a single human baby would survive for a fortnight. It is the grass of the field, most frail of all things, that supports all life all the time. But for the green grass, no empire would rise, no man would eat bread: for grain is grass; and Hercules or Napoleon or Henry Ford would alike be denied existence."

Here he is exorcising his own demon.

What I wonder is how many of our perspectives on culture would be improved by the application of more sensitive minds to the problems of interpretation, and how much we might now realise that was never imagined in the first place, because a conventional, safe, dull, limited man (and it is nearly always a man isn't it?) had the last word on the matter.

So, apart from the innate beauty of Lawrence's writing, this is the most poignant message of the book; that quite apart from a 'new' - for all its antiquity - perspective on the Etruscan culture, one wonders how many benefits Lawrence might have bestowed on other domains of human insight.

Most of all though, he gives Etruria and its people their due, and you will not find this on any Wikipedia page, or within the pages of an archaeologist's quarterly:

"The natural flowering of life! It is not so easy for human beings as it sounds. Behind all the Etruscan liveliness was a religion of life, which the chief men were seriously responsible for. Behind all the dancing was a vision, and even a science of life, a conception of the universe and man's place in the universe which made men live to the depth of their capacity. To the Etruscan all was alive; the whole universe lived; and the business of man was himself to live amid it all."

[Sue Cartwright · Rating 5 out of 5]

On arriving in Italy in 1926 following a four year trip around the world, D H Lawrence returns to the country he liked best for its 'flowery sunlit days, slow rural rhythms ... and the earthy vigour of the Italian people.'

Having read the scholarly works of historians, George Dennis and P. Ducati, and visiting museums in Florence and Rome, Lawrence wanted to explore the Etruscan tombs to see the only remains of this powerful and wealthy civilisation of ancient Italy.

Over nine centuries the Etruscan people developed the earliest urban civilisation in the northern Mediterranean before being formally absorbed by Rome around 100 BC. The tombs visited by Lawrence in Tarquinia, Cerveteri and Volterra revealed the shape of huts or houses with structural details providing the only surviving evidence of Etruscan residential architecture.

By examining the beautiful and intricate frescoes, carvings and paintings, even though mostly vanished, Lawrence was able to use his intuition and imagination to visualise and understand the Etruscan way of life he so admired.

In six remarkable essays, Lawrence delves into the very essence of Etruscian life by piecing together various remnants including archaic lettering of a lost language 'slanting with the real Etruscan carelessness and fullness of life'; low relief carvings 'so easy and friendly, as natural as breathing'; faded Etruscan paintings with 'the quiet flow of touch that unites the man and the woman on the couch'; the tight angle of the roof where a pigeon, 'the bird of the soul coos out of the unseen'; and symbols such as the Arc on the women's tombs 'where lies the mystery of eternal life' and phallic stones on the men's tombs with paintings of banqueting scenes 'as natural as life'.

One can only wonder how Lawrence could paint such a glorious picture of this lost race of people with such little physical evidence, as he says: 'Yet even in the last breath of colour and form, how much life there is!'

On leaving the tombs he contrasts the exuberant, sensual and joyous Etruscan way of life with the 'drab peasants in ugly clothing straggling across the waste bit of space, trailing home, songless and meaningless.' He says something that could in some ways be applied to our lives today: 'We have lost the art of living ... we have psychology instead.'

Further richness and depth can be found in philosophical references and comparisons between Lawrence's present day and the ancients who he believed 'saw consciously, as children now see unconsciously, the everlasting wonder in things. They were like children but they had the force, the power and the sensual knowledge of true adults.'

As much as this book can be described as a travel book, particularly for historians with an interest in Etruscan culture, it is also a fabulous window into the past perhaps not documented so vividly or fondly elsewhere, and also a work in philosophy which is of particular interest to me, and why I shall be returning to this book for further insights and comparisons.

[Eddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Etruscan Places by D.H. Lawrence has served me as both a guide to the tombs of Tarquinia and other sites, and as a travel book offering an insight into Italy in the late 1920s. You can still find it for sale at the museum in Tarquinia.

In the book, Lawrence visits Cerveteri (the closest Etruscan site to Rome), Tarquinia, Vulci, and Volterra (the most northerly Etruscan city). He describes the paintings in individual tombs and draws conclusions about the Etruscans’ character from these works of art. The other major sources on Etruscan history are Roman—sources Lawrence views with deep mistrust—since the Etruscans themselves left little that is useful for historians.

For example, at the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing in Tarquinia, he describes a banqueting scene for the dead (a common funerary tradition) in which slaves serve wine while others play instruments. Lawrence argues that the slaves, as depicted, are surging with life and far from the downtrodden figures one might expect.

It is, of course, easy to say that Lawrence romanticised the Etruscans. In the introduction to the edition I read, Massimo Pallottino, an archaeologist, notes that much of the mystery surrounding the Etruscans—such as their writing system—has since been solved. In fact, Pallottino says, there is not much to be gleaned from their surviving texts. Yet works like Etruscan Places lend the Etruscans an enduring aura of mystery and suggest that their writing has yet to be truly understood. Whatever the historical accuracy, Lawrence has done much to keep public interest alive. The tombs themselves are largely unchanged: there are road signs and a small gift shop in Tarquinia, but nothing like mass commercialisation. Italy, however, has changed enormously for visitors since the 1920s.

Lawrence’s Italy is not the Italy of today’s tourist experience. In the 1920s, travellers were far fewer and often viewed with suspicion. Lawrence, for his part, had little time for some of the people he encountered, such as the proprietor of his lodgings in Civitavecchia who insisted on seeing his passport, or the German student at the tombs who was far less moved by them than Lawrence himself. But he also found moments of connection and ease, such as with the shepherds in Cerveteri, sharing broth thickened with macaroni in a café built into a cave.

[Jim Coogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written during a trip to Tuscany in 1927 (but only published posthumously), this collection of stories from visits to necropoli near four of the cities of the Etruscan Dodecapolis reads like a 21st Century travel blog. The author, D. H. Lawrence, is probably better known for his controversial romance writings - but his observations of the contrast between early Fascist Italy and the remnants of the “lost” Etruscan civilization are powerful and devoid of taboo topics. During amateur archaeology explorations of tombs in Caere, Tarquinii, Vulci and Volaterrae, the author described the artwork in his narrative so clearly that I could actually imagine the scenes in color. Lawrence spends time comparing the imagery of the tomb scenes with artwork found elsewhere and makes observations about the character or personality of the people entombed with it. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of the living Italians he met while traveling - each one is an example of the kind of people you encounter when you go looking for history that is hidden amongst (or beneath) the modern infrastructure. It’s probably a universal thing: there is always a difficulty in finding the (only) person in town who actually knows “where the bodies are buried.” I’ve actually had many similar experiences while roaming the Italian countryside in Sicily and Campania - and I’ve loved every minute of the search and the people I communicated with along the way. The book talks about life 100 years in the past but may as well be talking about 1000 or even one year ago - I don’t think things change very quickly in the “Old World. The Italians (along with the Spanish, French, Greeks and Germans) are sitting on top of so much ancient art, engineering and mystery but don’t always know it. When they do, however, they can blow you away with their intelligence, friendliness and pride of being descended from the founders of our entire culture. I’d love to follow D. H. Lawrence’s guide to the letter - and maybe even keep going until I’ve seen all 12 of the Etruscan cities. A good read!

[Richard Hessney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This slim book recounts a journey D.H. Lawrence took around Tuscany visiting Etruscan tombs and trying to glean something of their elusive culture. They did not leave a written record, and the little that is known about them comes from their tombs. Lawrence surmised that they were a happy, carefree people full of joie de vivre; the Romans, in contrast, were monsters who exterminated them. The names of the ancient tomb sites are the titles of the six chapters: Cerveteri, Tarquinia, Vulci and Volterra (Tarquinia has three chapters devoted to it).

Lawrence says the Etruscans seem to have come from Asia Minor, Crete or Cyprus. They were already in Italy at the twilight of our history. "The twilight of the beginning of our history was the nightfall of some previous history which will never be written."

"To the Etruscan all was alive; the whole universe lived; and the business of man was himself to live amid it all. . . . With the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Etruscans, strictly there were no personal gods. There were only idols or symbols. It was the living cosmos itself, dazzilngly and gaspingly complex, which was divine."

Lawrence asserts that the ancients saw the everlasting wonder in things, and further that every consciousness is, and therefore is divine. Since we encounter and perceive reality through our consciousness, this is not too different from the view that reality itself is divine. Unfortunately, our species in general today does not see it that way. Instead, the real or natural world is to be exploited for profit, bolstered by such sacred cows as "progress" and "individual freedom."

One could conclude that Lawrence had a naively mythical view of the Etruscans, but if he were at all close to what they were all about, we would be smart to adopt their view of reality and the natural world.

[Marko Vasić · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kao prva informacija u vezi sa nekim od najpoznatijih etrurskih gradova, ovaj putopiščić nije loš. Na momente me podseća na Geteovo Putovanje po Italiji ali je manje kvalitetno u pogledu ličnih utisaka i samih opisa mesta i predela. S obzirom na vreme kada je Lawrence posetio etrurske gradove (dvadesete godine XX veka), jasno je koliko se sve od tada promenilo, ali ipak - ne može da ne upadne u oči njegova britanska nadmenost prema italijanskim seljacima od kojih traži prenoćište, hranu i vodiče, a na momente ih opisuje kao neku nižu vrstu, što me poprilično iznerviralo. Večita je opaska da, kad siđe s voza, se nalazi "in the middle of nowhere".

Što se samih opisa lokaliteta tiče - jako su slabi, ali nisam ni očekivao da će ih opisivati iz ugla arheologa. Ipak, daje dovoljno informacija da mogu da izvučem teze i reference da dalje istražujem u literaturi ono što me zanima. Detaljno je opisivao freske na zidovima grobnica, ali nedovoljno upućeno da ih tumači, te da nije bilo obilja forografija istih u ovom Folio Society izdanju, ne bih verovatno pohvatao o kojim scenama piše.

Sve u svemu, lagodan i neopterećujuć putopis i dobar uvod u dalja istraživanja ove teme.

[Nicolle · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Y, una vez más, pensé que la Italia de hoy es más etrusca que romana: sensible, insegura, anhelante de símbolos y misterios, capaz de deleitarse con verdadero placer con las cosas pequeñas, espasmódicamente violenta y, por lo general, sin severidad y sin una voluntad de poder innata."

"Los etruscos no son una teoría ni una tesis. De ser algo, son una experiencia."

Ojalá todas las civilizaciones antiguas que desaparecieron por la crueldad de imperios que aplastaban todo a su paso en la búsqueda desesperada de una inmortal grandeza, fuesen recordados cómo D.H Lawrence recuerda a los etruscos, con una calidez maravillosa y capaz de transportarnos a esa existencia más sencilla pero sin duda superior a la actual.

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

For Lawrence, the Etruscans were in touch with 'life', which is the vital mystery of the world. This idea is echoed in his other works, e.g. Lady Chatterley's Lover. A sense of futility and gloominess pervades this book: at Vulci and at Volterra, most of the tombs were emptied, the crest of the labyrinth has fallen. Ending the chapters is a story about imprisonment and escape. The world in which this is written, with the fascist regime compared to Rome that destroyed Etruria (as Lawrence has it), certainly has a visible impact on Lawrence's imagination of the lost world of subtle and mysterious vitality.

[John Tetteroo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the best one D.H.Lawrence ever wrote. It is fun as a time capsule, two man traveling the Italian countryside in 1926. Casual observers to rising fascism and the decline of the romantic Italian dreamscapes of the 19th century. Performing amateur archeology in empty tombs and rather the fore-runners of modern day archeo-tourists. Some pondering and philosophizing is going on around the Ertruscan lifes, but nothing insightful or spectacular. Can I even say that this account of a few weeks galupping around in Etruria is rather boring? Yes I can.. and I will.. two stars

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Etruscan Places is certainly not a travelogue, nor an anthropological tract. In spirit, it seems to be a startlingly unrestrained challenge to the assumptions, traditions, and even mannerisms of our essentially post-Roman western world, using a speculative conception of the Etruscans as a colorful alternative. Then again, my local library places it among travel guides.

At first, Etruscan Places read to me like a stream-of-consciousness travel journal soaked with philosophical assertion. Enjoyable, but something which could have been created by many a decent writer with a thorough historical philosophy - who was willing to crawl on their belly through fenced-off tombs. But the cohesion of Lawrence's ideas, and the occasional paragraph or page of singular speculation, eventually pulled me in.

As one infers from the foreword, the book is best read as suggestion rather than assertion. Otherwise one is likely to encounter friction somewhere, be it with Lawrence's phallus philosophy, or the transience he attributes to major religions ("And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing"), or elsewhere.

Through his speculation on the Etruscans, and his commentary on the Romans and post-war Italy, Lawrence challenges the foundations and implications of our essentially post-Roman western world, and presents colorful alternatives. Like other good books, Etruscan Places stuck with me, and keep me thinking. But in this case, I was thinking about our framework of life.

[VinitaF · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don’t get me wrong by the 3 stars, this book is good and I learned a great deal about the Etruscans, their settlements, art, philosophy and their stark difference to the Romans who assimilated them - obviously by force. The part of this book that is a let down, despite it being DH Lawrence is well, the writing style plods along quite boringly. I wanted to keep reading and I did but this was a barrier to enjoyment

[Jessica Snow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lawrence explores the spirit of the Etruscans with a fascinating first-hand exploration of the tombs and museums, his descriptions of the paintings and carvings take the reader into the ancient world and shows that the Etruscans had a love of life and joyfulness that was largely lost in later civilizations.

[Strider · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very cute little book.
I believe that D.H.Lawrence is not an expert in Etruscan culture, so I didn't expect to learn something, I wanted to see what were his impressions. And I have gotten even more: he had many wonderful observations, often daring and out-of-the-box.
This is also a travelogue through Tuscany during Mussolini times.

[Basem Ra'Ad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lawrence represents a unique prespective that is generally critical of the contruct called Western Civiization, which is what motivated this work as well as his observations in America. He's all for indigenous cultures. One sentence that captures the mentality of colonial demonization is enough to get the highest admiration" "To the greedy man, everyone in the way of his greed is vice incarnate."

[Se Se · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lawrence is such a masterful illustrator of language and a wonderful interpreter of the world around him. He slips effortlessly from observation and analysis, into into musings and prose without leaving the reader behind… usually. A wonderful read for history-aficionados and those who have the patience and curiosity that reading Lawrence requires.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is no exception to Lawrence’s attention to detail and reflecting that in his writing. The only thing that gets lost is his rhetoric which is train of thought and gets lost in what he is talking about

[Canon Purdy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this while traveling to almost all the towns he did, looking at the same tombs, same medieval walls, same long arch of history. I was struck how much had changed from when he wrote it, and how much more had stayed the same. Just marvelous.

[ANTHONY CUTLER · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't enjoy travel writing and have never admired D H Lawrence. This must be an odd book for me to have read. Nevertheless, my wife and I are great enthusiasts for Italy, its culture, its history, its art. Its food and wine. I saw this book heavily recommended in some newspaper.

I did find this interesting as a description of (cultural) tourism in the 1920s. All these sites will now be heavily "curated". Back in 1927 they were obscure bone yards, accessible only by negotiating the moods and volatile price structures of the locals. The poverty is striking too, though much of the world was poor in those days.

I found Lawrence's sentimentality for a supposed Etruscan closeness to nature, vigour in living and contact with some pagan spirituality, all a little comical. It was all slightly Golden Bough or even Madam Blavatsky. A fashionable mood of the age. The young German archeologist was by far the most sympathetic character.

I did wonder though. The second century Roman protagonist of Marius the Epicurian talks about echoes of an old religion. Is that the religion of the Etruscans that Lawrence is talking about?

I should add that I read this in a strange "self published" edition by somebody named Will Jonson. Decent soft binding but printing was a bit like the sort of guide you now buy at one of those Etruscan Places.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so interesting -- both for the content about the Etruscans and the effects it had on DHL, and also the historical value of what it took to get to the tombs back in the 20's when there was no tourism infrastructure.

[Laurelyn Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was boring and forever taking and I hated it.