SHADOWS OF THE GRASS

To any reader who met Baroness Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) first through her memorable Out of Africa these new pieces carrying us back to her African plantation will be heart warming news. Twenty five years absence has depended the memories, sharpened certain features, and made possible these human reflections of the life and the people that gave it meaning. Her Somali servant, Farah, emerges life size, a towering presence — "my servant by the grace of God"- who made her every action and decision momentous. After a quarter of a century she can sub-title her pen sketch "Portrait of a Gentleman". There's humor as well as philosophical content in her choice of incidents to round out this sketch. And there is, too, a growing understanding of his religion as a Muslim. There are others of her staff and her neighborhood but this stands out. Then too she writes of adventures — of hunting and the lion she shot, feeding on a dead giraffe; of her role, confessedly one imposed by a superstition-ridden people, as a healer, with a scrap of letter written by her king as a magic piece; of Abdullah, Farah's small brother, and the different place he held in her household, in her life. Throughout one senses deeply the role she played as mistress and friend — and the philosophy that grew within her in the ten years she struggled to keep the plantation intact. The writing needs no encomiums; every reader knows there is delight in store.