Santal (Sun and Moon Classics)

the long version

This novella by the British novelist Ronald Firbank begins in a mosque, and follows the young boy, Cherif, home through a fantasy vision of a North African community, with palm-laden streets and colorful bazaars. But the young boy is disinterested in the outer beauty of the world, and instead seeks the spiritual adventure, exemplified by the mysterious Prophet living in the desert. From the busy house of women - mother, aunts, and sisters - Cherif escapes to undergo a long and arduous journey to find the Prophet, The All-Knowing One. The fact that Firbank's unusual tale ends in the boy's failure and resignation towards death only reiterates the theme of this Firbankian work: the sensual and the spiritual are in eternal war, and a truce between the two is at best fleeting.