Keeping Up With the Lawrences

In January 1921 DH Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, left their Taormina home in Sicily and set off on a nine-day excursion to and through Sardinia and back to Sicily via mainland Italy. At the end of the year 'Sea and Sardinia', Lawrence's fast-paced account of their journey, was published in New York by Thomas Seltzer. 'Keeping up with the Lawrences' is Niall Allsop's contemporary account of making the same journey, as far as possible keeping to the same route, the same timescale, the same mode of transport and the same overnight stops as the Lawrences.Like 'Sea and Sardinia', 'Keeping up with the Lawrences' is written in the present tense but there the comparisons end for, unlike Niall, Lawrence was not a tolerant traveller, was not the sort to initiate conversations, was not what Italians call 'simpatico'. Lawrence travelled at time of heightened tensions in Europe after the Great War and these are reflected in his outlook and the people he encountered, most of whom he gave nicknames such as Hamlet, the Bounder and the Sludge Queen.Niall traversed the same route in a different world, a brave new world of iPods and tele-communications masts, and here he met Julius Caesar and Cicero, Wonderwoman and Red ... and many more colorful and interesting characters, brought to life on the pages of this unique travelogue.