Customer Reviews

Masai Dreaming

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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