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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
Boek gekregen van Gordon "for an aviatrix about an aviatrix". Mooi beeld van Afrika en vliegen over Afrika.
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2018/05/28/day-1222-west-with-the-night/
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2018/05/28/day-1222-west-with-the-night/
The writing is just gorgeous and I found myself highlighting a lot (I was reading a Kindle book). And Markham led a fascinating life. The book doesn’t touch on Markham’s three husbands and several lovers. It’s rather the story of her girlhood in British East Africa, her career as a young horse trainer, and then as an aviator. Only the final chapter concerns her historic east-to-west crossing of the Atlantic in 1936. The book was published in 1942, when Markham was only 40 and she lived to be nearly 84. I’m interested enough to seek out a biography that might include the second half of her life. And I still intend to read Paula McLain’s book, but wanted to read the memoir first. I know there’s a controversy about whether Markham wrote the book entirely by herself or had help from a husband or lover. But whoever wrote it, it’s lively and graceful prose, and I very much enjoyed the personality that comes through — a great read.
"There are all kinds of silences and each of them means a different thing. There is the silence that comes with morning in a forest, and this is different from the silence of a sleeping city. There is silence after a rainstorm, and before a rainstorm, and these are not the same. There is the silence of emptiness, the silence of fear, the silence of doubt. There is a certain silence that can emanate from a lifeless object as from a chair lately used, or from a piano with old dust upon its keys, or from anything that has answered to the need of a man, for pleasure or for work. This kind of silence can speak. Its voice may be melancholy, but it is not always so; for the chair may have been left by a laughing child or the last notes of the piano may have been raucous and gay. Whatever the mood or the circumstance, the essence of its quality may linger in the silence that follows. It is a soundless echo."
"I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesterdays are buried deep — leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it. I have learned this, but like everyone, I learned it late."
"Africa is never the same to anyone who leaves it and returns again. It is not a land of change, but it is a land of moods and its moods are numberless. It is not fickle, but because it has mothered not only men, but races, and cradled not only cities, but civilizations — and seen them die, and seen new ones born again — Africa can be dispassionate, indifferent, warm, or cynical, replete with the weariness of too much wisdom."
"There are all kinds of silences and each of them means a different thing. There is the silence that comes with morning in a forest, and this is different from the silence of a sleeping city. There is silence after a rainstorm, and before a rainstorm, and these are not the same. There is the silence of emptiness, the silence of fear, the silence of doubt. There is a certain silence that can emanate from a lifeless object as from a chair lately used, or from a piano with old dust upon its keys, or from anything that has answered to the need of a man, for pleasure or for work. This kind of silence can speak. Its voice may be melancholy, but it is not always so; for the chair may have been left by a laughing child or the last notes of the piano may have been raucous and gay. Whatever the mood or the circumstance, the essence of its quality may linger in the silence that follows. It is a soundless echo."
"I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesterdays are buried deep — leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it. I have learned this, but like everyone, I learned it late."
"Africa is never the same to anyone who leaves it and returns again. It is not a land of change, but it is a land of moods and its moods are numberless. It is not fickle, but because it has mothered not only men, but races, and cradled not only cities, but civilizations — and seen them die, and seen new ones born again — Africa can be dispassionate, indifferent, warm, or cynical, replete with the weariness of too much wisdom."
Beryl Markham created an interesting, adventurous life for herself at a time when that was far from the norm. This a well-written tale of adventure. Some of the phrases were so beautiful that I dog-eared the pages (which I almost never do).
adventurous
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Beautifully written book by an amazing woman who learned to hunt as a child with the Africans who lived nearby, was probably the first and youngest woman licensed for horse training and who then won a major race, who took up flying in the 1920s/1930s and flew dangerous routes including solo west to east from England ... a book Ernest Hemingway said was among his favorites.
My favorite book in the world. I loved it.
2021: I just read it again and I still love it. What brilliant writing and I admire her sense of adventure.
2021: I just read it again and I still love it. What brilliant writing and I admire her sense of adventure.
If I were giving stars for how interesting a persons life is, this would get an easy five. Beryl grew up in Kenya with a menagerie of animals around her, she learned to hunt, break horses, and along the way became a Thoroughbred horse trainer and a pilot. Oh yeah, she's the first person to fly from England to America. She has a delightful way of telling a story too though I found the book to be a bit disjointed and I had a hard time picking the book up after setting it down.
Beryl Markham left England as a small child and grew-up in East Africa (present day Kenya). She became a horse trainer, elephant scout, adventurer and pilot - she is the first person to fly west to east from Europe to Nova Scotia. Her memoir West with the Night chronicles her life and travels through out East Africa. I have read other reviews and how disappointed they were because in her memoir she didn't write any juicy tidbits about her marriages or her lovers. I wonder if we read the same book? She has written about her greatest love. Her life long love affair with East Africa. Highly recommend.