Ronald Victor Courtenay Bodley

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RVC Bodley, ca.1914.

Ronald Victor Courtenay Bodley , MC (born March 3, 1892 in Paris , France , † May 26, 1970 in Bramley , Surrey , England , Arabic بودلي ، ر. ف. ، و) was a British Army officer, writer and journalist. he was born in Paris and lived in France until he was nine years old before attending Eton College and then the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst . He was in the King's Royal Rifle Corps adopted and served in the First World War . After the war, he spent seven years in the Sahara and then toured Asia . He wrote several travelogues and was considered the most prominent British writer on the Sahara and one of the main sources in Europe about the Japanese South Seas Mandate .

Bodley went to the United States in 1935 , where he worked as a screenwriter . At the beginning of the Second World War he returned to the British Army and moved to Paris for the Ministry of Information . He later immigrated to the United States, where he again worked as a writer and as an advisor to the United States Office of War Information .

Life

Youth until the First World War

Bodley was born on March 3, 1892 in Paris. His father was the civil servant and writer John Edward Courtenay Bodley and his mother Evelyn Frances Bodley (née Bell). He was the oldest of three children; his brother Josselin and sister Ava were born in 1893 and 1896. The parents divorced in 1908. Bodley was a descendant of Sir Thomas Bodley , founder of the Bodleian Library, and through his mother a cousin of Gertrude Bell , a writer and archaeologist who helped establish the Hashimites as a dynasty. His grandfather owned a Turkish palace in Algiers , which Bodley often visited as a child.

Bodley was educated at a Lycée in Paris before being sent to Eton College and then to the Royal Military College . Bodley became interested in writing and wrote poetry in Eton and for a cadet magazine in Sandhurst. After graduation, he was accepted into the King's Royal Rifle Corps as a Second Lieutenant in September 1911 . He served in a regiment in British Raj for three years , where he began to write and perform plays. His commanding officer once remarked: The plays are amusing. You are an asset to the regiment and everyone, but did you join the army to become a soldier or a commedian? "Shortly thereafter, the First World War broke out and Bodley was transferred to the Western Front for four years . also of poison gas . at 26, he won the rank of lieutenant colonel and was commander of a battalion. Then he was on 15 August 1918, assisting military attaché appointed and sent to Paris. he participated in the and attended the Paris peace conference in 1919 in part. What witnessed there leaving him with the feeling that he and millions of other soldiers had fought for nothing; he later wrote that "selfish politicians laid the foundation for World War II - each country was just trying to snatch as much as possible for itself, national antagonisms were created and secret intrigues rejuvenated. ”Disaffected with the military, Bodley considered a political career. Dari n he was encouraged by David Lloyd George .

However, Gertrude Bell introduced Bodley to TE Lawrence . Bodley met Lawrence on the sidelines of the peace conference and told him about his plan to get into politics. Lawrence went mad and called him a "moron and a traitor" (idiot and traitor). When he replied that he had no other perspective after the war was over and asked what to do, Lawrence replied, "Go live with the Arabs." Bodley confessed that his conversation with Lawrence, "lasted less than 200 seconds," proved life-changing. Immediately he settled his affairs and with cash of £ 300 and no prospect of further income, he moved to the Sahara to live . His astonished friends gave another farewell party. They agreed that he would likely be back within six weeks. However, he stayed in the Sahara for seven years.

Travels through the Sahara and Asia

Bodley spent seven years in the Sahara with a nomadic Bedouin tribe . He bought a flock of sheep and goats. Then he hired 10 shepherds for his flock and made a 120% profit. He dressed according to local customs, spoke Arabic and practiced the Muslim rules of belief. Most of all he abstained from alcohol (خمر); even after his stay in the Sahara he stayed dry. He left the tribe on the instructions of the chief, who indicated to him that there was no point in pretending to be an Arab. In 1927 he published the book Algeria from Within (Algeria from the inside), after which the publisher Michael Joseph had encouraged him to do so. The book is based on his experience in French Algeria . The success of the book far exceeded his expectations, after which Bodley made writing his profession. his first novel, Yasmina , was published that same year; it sold well and was reprinted. However, the next novel, Opal Fire , was again a commercial failure. Bodley valued his time in the Sahara as "the most peaceful and contented years" of his life. Bodley was considered to be one of the most distinguished British writers on the Sahara.

“One of the strongest impressions I had while living with the Arabs was the 'everydayness' of God. He determined their food, their travels, their businesses, their loved ones. He was her hourly thought, her closest friend, in a way that is impossible for people whose God is separated from you by rites and formal worship. "

After his time in the Sahara, Bodley spent three months in Java on a tea plantation before moving on to China and Japan . The success of Algeria from Within enabled him to find work as a journalist in Asia. He became a foreign correspondent for The Sphere in London and for The Advertiser in Australia . Bodley was one of the few Westerners to gain access to the Japanese South Sea Mandate areas in the 1930s and became one of the primary sources of events in those areas. The Japanese South Sea mandate consisted of islands in the North Pacific that had belonged to the German colonial empire and had been occupied by Japan during the First World War. Japan administered the islands under a mandate of the League of Nations . Like other Europeans who visited the region, he reported that there was no evidence that Japan was militarizing the region. Bodley's trip had been "carefully choreographed" by the Japanese Foreign Ministry . Bodley wrote about his experience in his 1934 book The Drama in the Pacific . He reports that he has visited almost every island and nothing has been done to establish naval bases. Mark Peattie defends Bodley in his book Nan'yo: the Rise and Fall of the Japanese in Micronesia , 1885-1945 (1998). He describes how complex the militarization of the area was. The misjudgment had nothing to do with naivety. Bodley was also a passenger on the Shizuoka Maru ship when it ran aground and sank on a reef north of Yap in April 1933. Thereafter, Bodley was offered a job as an English lecturer at Keio University and taught for nine months. He published his experiences in 1933 in the book A Japanese Omelette . Bodley and Professor Eishiro Hori made extensive notes on the Japanese textbook version of Round the Red Lamp by Arthur Conan Doyle , and in 1935 Bodley published a biography of Tōgō Heihachirō .

In America

In 1935 Bodley immigrated to the United States to work as a screenwriter . He traveled from Japan on board the Chichibu Maru . In October 1936, Bodley was hired by Charlie Chaplin . He was supposed to adapt the novel Regency by David Leslie Murray for a film. It was the first time Chaplin had hired someone to write a script. Before that, he wrote the scripts himself. Bodley completed a draft by January 1937, and had a final version by March, but Chaplin dropped the script in May for another project he was working on. Bodley also worked on the screenplay for the film The rascal from America ( A Yank at Oxford ) (1938). In the United States, Bodley was known to his friends as "Ronnie" and was often referred to in the press as the Bodley of Arabia .

At the beginning of World War II, Bodley immediately rejoined the King's Royal Rifle Corps and received the rank of major . He was seen as too old for active service and put him in the Ministry of Information in Paris, so he experienced the German invasion of Paris in May 1940. He writes in The Soundless Sahara that he was behind after the fall of Paris worked the German lines until he was suspected by the Gestapo and then fled on foot across the Pyrenees . A biographical article by William Snell of Keio University mentions neither this work nor his escape, but claims that he was staying with his mother and stepfather at Bayonne . Snell writes that he and three other Britons fled to Spain by car after their mother and stepfather refused to leave the country. A friend of Bodley's at the British Embassy in Madrid helped them. Snell claims that Bodley was sometimes prone to dramatic embellishments. Bodley returned to the United States via Portugal . Upon his return he concentrated on his writing and lecturing activities. Bodley often withdrew completely from writing his books and spent up to 10 weeks in complete isolation. Several of his books he wrote in York Harbor ( Maine ). Bodley regularly traveled to lectures in the United States. After reaching retirement age, he had not been a member of the British Army since March 3, 1943 , although he often referred to himself as a major or a colonel. In 1944 he became an American citizen and was advisor to the Arabic Desk of the United States Office of War Information .

In 1944 Bodley published Wind in the Sahara . In 1949 the book was published in its seventh edition and was translated into eight languages. In 1945 he wrote the satirical novel The Gay Deserters , which was inspired by his escape from the German army but was not well received. Robert Pick ( Saturday Review ) wrote, "It's not humorous in any way." Bodley later admitted that his talent as a writer was in the genre of "non-fiction," which is the many novels and plays he has written only four have been relocated and none of them have found readership. He wrote an essay, I Lived in the Garden of Allah , which was reprinted in Dale Carnegie's do-it-yourself book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living . In 1953 he wrote The Warrior Saint , a biography about Charles de Foucauld . John Cogley ( The New York Times ) praised Bodley's "neat, poetic, and simply admiring summary" of Foucauld's life. In 1955 Bodley wrote the partly autobiographical In Search of Serenity , which was received positively from various sides. His last book, The Soundless Sahara , was published in 1968; according to the blurb, Bodley lived in Massachusetts during this time and spent part of his time in England or France. He also contributed information to the book The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia by Phillip Knightley and Colin Simpson , published by Thomas Nelson in 1969. He died on May 26, 1970 in a retirement home in Bramley, Surrey.

family

Bodley was the first to marry Ruth Mary Elizabeth Stapleton-Bretherton on April 30, 1917 on home leave. With her he had a son, Mark Courtenay Bodley (born May 22, 1918). His wife filed for divorce because Bodley cheated on her and drank excessively. He did not contradict the petition and the divorce was enforced on June 8, 1926. In his 1931 memoir, Indiscretions of a Young Man , Bodley recalls that this marriage was an "unfortunate action" that "proves the folly of young people who do not listen to their parents' advice." the folly of very young people ignoring the advice of their parents. ”) In 1927 he married the Australian Beatrice Claire Lamb , whom he traveled to North Africa. had got to know. She obtained a divorce in 1939. Bodley's son became a lieutenant in the Royal Armored Corps and was killed during the Western Desert Campaign in Libya in 1942; Wind in the Sahara is dedicated to him. In November 1949, Bodley married the divorced American Harriet Moseley ; in The Soundless Sahara (1968) Bodley writes that they are still married. William Snell writes that there is very little information about Bodley's final years, but he believes Bodley's marriage to Moseley ended in divorce no later than 1969.

Awards

Works

Bodley published 18 books:

  • Algeria from Within (1927)
  • Yasmina: A Story of Algeria (1927)
  • Opal Fire (1928)
  • Indiscretions of a Young Man (1931)
  • The Lilac Troll (1932, The Lilac Troll)
  • A Japanese Omelette (1933)
  • Indiscreet travels East (Java, China and Japan) (1934, Indiscreet travels in the east)
  • The Drama of the Pacific (1934)
  • Admiral Togo (1935)
  • Gertrude Bell (1940, with Lorna Hearst)
  • Flight into Portugal (1941)
  • Wind in the Sahara (1944)
  • The Gay Deserters (1945, The Merry Deserters)
  • The Messenger (1946, The Messenger)
  • The Quest (1947, The Search)
  • The Warrior Saint (1953, the warrior saint)
  • In Search of Serenity (1955, In Search of Serenity .)
  • The Soundless Sahara (1968, the noiseless Sahara)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Carnegie 1981: 280
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t William Snell: RVC Bodley ("Bodley of Arabia") at Keio University, 1933. In: The Hiyoshi review of English studies. Keio University , 2013, 63: 17-49.
  3. ↑ Carnegie 1981: 280
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h Englishman in the Garden of Allah. In: The Sydney Morning Herald August 9, 1947.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h Janet Flanner; Eugene Kinkead; Russell Maloney: Bodley of Arabia. In: The New Yorker February 27, 1943.
  6. ↑ Bodley 1968.
  7. ↑ London Gazette, is. 28532: 6882-6882, Sep 19, 1911.
  8. ↑ "The plays are amusing. You're a credit to the regiment and all that, but did you join the army to become a soldier or a comedian? "
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Trudy McCollough: Writer Bodley Loves His Quietude. In: Abilene Reporter-News , July 23, 1944: 50. p. a. Glancy 1999: 220.
  10. ↑ Bodley 1945.
  11. ↑ Bodley 1968.
  12. ^ Dutton 2001: 164
  13. ↑ "selfish politicians [were] laying the groundwork for the Second World War - each country grabbing all it could for itself, creating national antagonisms, and reviving the intrigues of secret." Carnegie 1981: 281.
  14. ↑ Carnegie 1981: 281.
  15. ↑ Bodley 1955: 149.
  16. ^ Alonzo W. Pond: Algeria from Within. by RVC Bodley. In: American Journal of Sociology vol. 33 eat. Mar 5, 1928: 844-845. doi: 10.1086 / 214565
  17. ↑ p. WC: RC Bodley: Algeria from within - RC Bodley. In: The Geographical Journal , The Royal Geographical Society , vol. 70, eat. Oct. 4, 1927: 398-399. [[doi: 10.2307 / 1782074 | jstor = 1782074]]
  18. ↑ the most peaceful and contented years of his life. Carnegie 1981: 280
  19. ↑ Speake 2003: 886.
  20. ^ "One of the strongest impressions I had when I lived with the Arabs, was the 'everyday-ness' of God. He ruled their eating, their traveling, their business, their loving. He was their hourly thought, their closest friend, in a way impossible to people whose God is separated from them by the rites of formal worship. "Ronald Bodley, commenting on life in the Sahara, Cranston 1949: 171.
  21. ^ Peattie 1992: 245.
  22. ^ Peattie 1992: 246.
  23. ↑ "having visited practically every island ... I am convinced that nothing has been done to convert any place into a naval base". Peattie 1992: 246
  24. ^ Peattie 1992: 333-334.
  25. ^ A b News and Comment of Stage and Screen. In: Fitchburg Sentinel , September 26, 1936: 10.
  26. ↑ Shiela Graham: Nothing to Harlow, Taylor Romancing. In: Lincoln Evening Journal , January 26, 1937.
  27. ↑ Flom 1997: 118.
  28. ↑ Robinson 1992: 482-483-
  29. ↑ Bodley 1945.
  30. ↑ Bodley 1968.
  31. ^ Row. W. Nickerson: World Traveler, Author to Speak Tonight at Bowdoin College. In: Portland Sunday Telegram. Portland, Maine, February 15, 1948: 52.
  32. ^ News of the Yorks. in: Portland Sunday Telegram. Portland, Maine, December 5, 1948: 38.
  33. ↑ London Gazette, eat. 35926: 1065, March 2, 1943.
  34. ↑ Bailey 1963: 326.
  35. ^ A b Nomad Contracts to Publish Book About Serenity. In: Kingsport Times-News , April 24, 1949: 27.
  36. ↑ Bodley 1945.
  37. ^ "It isn't even humorous at all". Robert Pick: Tempest Tost Guests of USA: The Gay Deserters by RVC Bodley. In: Saturday Review , November 24, 1945: 32.
  38. ↑ "the many novels (...) and several plays had written, four were published and two produced, and all failed to arouse any interest." Bodley 1955: 66.
  39. ↑ Carnegie 1981: 280
  40. ↑ "written a clean, poetic and frankly admiring account" of Foucauld's life. John Cogley: The Saint of the Sahara. May 10, 1953, The New York Times.
  41. ↑ Elsie Robinson, The Index-Journal , Jan. June 1955; Phyllis Battle, Tipton Tribune ; Robinson: "a must for every rasped spirit".
  42. ↑ Phyllis Battalle: Assignment America. In: Tipton Tribune , Tipton, Indiana, April 15, 1955: 2.
  43. ↑ Bodley 1968.
  44. ↑ Knightley 1969: vii.
  45. ↑ London Gazette. eat. 45238: 13034, Nov. 26, 1970.
  46. ↑ Marriages ( Memento of the original from February 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The Tablet , May 5, 1917: 24. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / archive.thetablet.co.uk
  47. ↑ Bodley 1968.
  48. ↑ London Gazette, eat. 29608: 5570-5571, June 2, 1916.
  49. ↑ London Gazette, eat. 31222: 3279-3280, March 7, 1919.
  50. ↑ London Gazette, eat. 31812: 2868, March 5, 1920.
  51. ↑ London Gazette, eat. 31812: 2874, March 5, 1920.
  52. ↑ London Gazette, eat. 32268: 2388, March 22, 1921.

literature

swell

Secondary literature

personal data
SURNAME Bodley, Ronald Victor Courtenay
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bodley, RVC; بودلي ، رونالد ڤيكتور كورتناى (Arabic, Israel); بودلي ، ر. ف. ، و (Arabic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British military and writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris , France
DATE OF DEATH May 26, 1970
Place of death Bramley (Surrey) , England