Haunted by his dreams of the Masai, Tim Curtiz journeys to East Africa to research and write a screenplay about the enigmatic Claudia Cohn-Casson, an early anthropologist betrayed to the SS upon her return to France during the war. By the author of Look at It This Way.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In a striking fusion of cultural journeys, Booker Prize finalist Cartwright (Look At It This Way) jump-cuts between past and present, Africa and Europe, the gentle Masai and a French-Jewish family who met a horrifying fate in the Nazi death camps. In the late 1930s,Claudia Cohn-Casson had been a dedicated anthropologist gathering data on Masai customs when an epic lion hunt she staged for filming ended in tragedy. Two Masai warriors lay slain; cameramen gloated over the carnage, snapping "fantastic" footage. Months later, this colonial cruelty found a parallel in Nazi barbarism as Claudia was seized in Paris and deported to Auschwitz with her brother and eminent father, a "collabo" doctor who thought himself safe. Narrating these events as well as the present-day action is screenwriter Tim Curtiz, touring the heart of Africa to demystify Claudia's life and death in a film intended to re-create many truths ("we are all Jews, all Nazis, all humans capable of anything. The movie must speak to everybody... "). But Curtiz works for a rich, sybaritic and eccentric producer who considers casting his transvestite mistress as Claudia. Or will he cast Julia Roberts, with Mel Gibson as Claudia's other, Anglo lover? Yesterday and today flow seamlessly into one another as the novel replays events in an ongoing now, like a movie that unreels, dreamlike, before the spellbound spectator.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Journalist Tim Curtiz journeys to Africa to write a screenplay about Claudia Cohn-Casson, an anthropologist who worked with the Masai and was betrayed to the SS when she returned to France near the end of World War II. In Kenya, Curtiz discovers three elderly people whose lives have been touched by Cohn-Casson: an English adventurer and aviator who had been her lover, a dowager who had observed this relationship, and the Masai laibon, or tribal leader, whose brother was executed by the British, perhaps because of his relationship with the anthropologist. Woven throughout Curtiz's account of his research and self-examination are two other stories. The first could be perceived either as Curtiz's finished screenplay or as Cohn-Casson's actual biography. This tale of deception, misunderstanding, and betrayal over cataclysmic moral issues is juxtaposed against the second story, concerning S. O. Letterman, an over-the-hill Hollywood producer who is bankrolling and casting the film. Letterman uses this position to seduce a young French actress, who has a few secrets of her own. A fascinating, multitextured novel. George Needham
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hugely daring.,
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This review is from: Masai Dreaming (Hardcover)
This beautiful and idea-filled novel is so daring in its choice of subjects and scenes that one is stunned by its cumulative effect. In what may seem at first to be an unlikely or inappropriate juxtaposition, the author contrasts the horrors of the Holocaust with the pastoral, and seemingly simple life among the Masai in Kenya. This never feels demeaning, insensitive, or inappropriate, however. By developing both these subjects, Cartwright is able to illustrate in unique and imaginative ways the wider universal issue of ethnicity as a factor in the search for justice, love, and a Universal Spirit.On the surface this the story of journalist Tim Curtiz's search for the truth about Claudia Cohn-Casson, a French Jewish researcher of the Masai, who was betrayed to the Nazis when she returned home in the final days of World War II. Curtiz is planning to write a screenplay for an "Out of Africa"-type film to be shot in Kenya, and in his attempt to understand the "real" Claudia, he interviews both an elderly British ex-patriate, Tom Fairfax, who was Claudia's lover, and the elderly laibon of the Masai community which Claudia studied. Both men suffered great losses as a result of their contact with Claudia, something with which Tim Curtiz, also suffering a loss, can identify. As the narrative unfolds, it seems intentionally to follow the hypnotic, circular dancing patterns of the Masai as it twists, leaps, and turns back upon itself, while gathering in the details of Claudia's life, the mystery of her disappearance, and the complications in the lives of the subordinate characters. The elasticity of Cartwright's prose is perfectly suited to this style, as he varies his sentence lengths to control the overall pace and moves from positively lyrical descriptions of the African savannah to turgidly doom-filled passages describing the cattle cars transporting Jews to the camps. Award-winning author Cartwright deserves to have this excellent novel reprinted for U.S. distribution. Until that happens, however, interested readers might want to check it out at Amazon's site in the U.K., where it is readily available. END
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