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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I loved the descriptions of Africa in the early 1900's. I felt like I could almost see the grasslands and animals she wrote about. Beryl's story was breathtaking. From being raised with Masai Warriors then being bit by a lion at her father's farm, then training racehorses and learning to fly planes, making a solo crossing, from England to North America in 1936. Now I want to go watch Out of Africa again. I read this for book club and some of it was challenging for me to read. This was a 4.5 stars read for me.
The immaculate story of Kenyan born English Aviator Bery Markham. She lived a life of adventure, broke all the rules of life and above all had a penchant for writing. Her autobiography covers the wild life of colonial Kenya to the building up of the country as a game hunters paradise.
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
Adventurous tale of a multi talented woman
Not only was Beryl Markham a pilot, entrepreneur, and hunter, she was also a gifted writer. The stories of her adventures growing up in Kenya were nearly unbelievable, I mean, a lion attack?! A wild boar attacking her dog?!
A bit of googling revealed that this memoir barely scratches the surface of her life's adventures. I'm going to have to research and see what books have been written about her later escapades and romantic entanglements.
Three stars because there's a significant portion of the book devoted to hunting elephants for their ivory. I realize this was written at a different time, but it was hard to overlook something that is so inhumane.
A bit of googling revealed that this memoir barely scratches the surface of her life's adventures. I'm going to have to research and see what books have been written about her later escapades and romantic entanglements.
Three stars because there's a significant portion of the book devoted to hunting elephants for their ivory. I realize this was written at a different time, but it was hard to overlook something that is so inhumane.
Beautifully written memoir by a fascinating woman. She grew up in East Africa. She was attacked by lions twice. A leopard came into her hut and tried to kill her dog, but she rescued the dog. She was almost trampled by an elephant. She trained racing horses. Then she learned how to fly and became a pilot. She scouted for elephants by plane for hunters, which was dangerous and risky. She was the first person to fly westbound over the Atlantic Ocean, from Ireland to North America.
"If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work."
"You can live a lifetime and at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself. You learn to watch other people, but you never watch yourself because you strive against loneliness. If you read a book, or shuffle a deck of cards, or care for a dog, you are avoiding yourself. The abhorrence of loneliness is as natural as wanting to live at all. If it were otherwise, men would never have bothered to make an alphabet, nor to have fashioned words out of what were only animal sounds, nor to have crossed continents-each to see what the other looked like.
Being alone in an aeroplane for even so short a time as a night and a day, irrevocably alone, with nothing to observe but your instruments and your own hands in semi-darkness, nothing to contemplate but the size of your small courage, nothing to wonder about but the beliefs, the faces, and the hopes rooted in your mind-such an experience can be as startling as the first awareness of a stronger walking by your side at night. You are the stranger."
"If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work."
"You can live a lifetime and at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself. You learn to watch other people, but you never watch yourself because you strive against loneliness. If you read a book, or shuffle a deck of cards, or care for a dog, you are avoiding yourself. The abhorrence of loneliness is as natural as wanting to live at all. If it were otherwise, men would never have bothered to make an alphabet, nor to have fashioned words out of what were only animal sounds, nor to have crossed continents-each to see what the other looked like.
Being alone in an aeroplane for even so short a time as a night and a day, irrevocably alone, with nothing to observe but your instruments and your own hands in semi-darkness, nothing to contemplate but the size of your small courage, nothing to wonder about but the beliefs, the faces, and the hopes rooted in your mind-such an experience can be as startling as the first awareness of a stronger walking by your side at night. You are the stranger."
adventurous
inspiring
medium-paced
adventurous
medium-paced
A Small Slice of Markham's Africa, Aviation, & Adventure: 3.8 stars. Published in 1942 when Beryl Markham was 40, this book had room for improvement. My applicable background: I'm a woman who loves memoirs, I'm a feminist who has great respect for pioneers, I love airplanes and flying and animals, I have an appreciation for indigenous knowledge and storytelling, and I plan to go to Africa some day. Which means, I'm probably a hard grader on this one.
It is true that she used elegant language and had a great storytelling style, but the stories she chose to tell could have covered why her family came to Africa, or elaborate on why she chose to become a pilot, her first and second marriages or any of her scandalous affairs, or her association with the "Happy Valley set." You know, some of the basics you get from Wikipedia. She poured a lot of detail into lions, boars, and other African animals. Maybe that information was more exciting and exotic 79 years ago. I want to know why Ernest Hemingway thought she was "very unpleasant" and a "high-grade bitch." It seems this is the scrubbed and 'socially appropriate' version of those ~23 years of her life. I needed MORE WHY.
I liked how she described SMALL FAVORS in Africa as currency.
Then came her explanation of a person as a KEYSTONE. She asked an indigenous man how he knew that someone was going to die. It was difficult to decipher whether her explanation was her own interpretation or the one she was given, because she said "I found an answer for myself." She continued, "Dennis was a keystone in an arch, whose other stones were other lives. If a keystone trembles, the arch will carry the warning along its entire curve. Then if the keystone is crushed, the arch will fall, leaving its lesser stones heaped close together, though for awhile without design. Dennis' death left some lives without design. But they were rebuilt again, as lives and stones are, into other patterns." THAT was the most fascinating concept I got out of the entire book.
She described nightmares of SIAFU (Swahili word for safari ants) in a way that compels me to research them before I travel to Africa.
Her insights and stories on ELEPHANTS were the only animal talk that piqued my interest. She worked as a safari spotter by air, but I was disappointed that she knew how intelligent they were and yet still participated. Survival of the fittest adrenaline junkie I guess. She also described an elephant's scream, but this time it was of warning rather than pain like in 'Water for Elephants.'
I liked her thoughts on MAPS: "A map in the hands of a pilot is a testimony of man's faith in other men. It is a symbol of confidence and trust. It is not like a printed page that bears mere words, ambiguous and artful, and whose most believing reader, even whose author perhaps, must allow in his mind a recess for doubt. A map says to you 'Read Me Carefully. Follow Me Closely. Doubt Me Not.' It says 'I am the Earth in the Palm of Your Hand. Without Me, You are Alone and Lost.' And indeed you are. Were all the maps in this world destroyed and vanished under the direction of some malevolent hand, each man would be blind again. Each city made a stranger to the next. Each landmark become a meaningless signpost, pointing to nothing" ...
There are other books about Beryl Markham (from Wiki): "author Mary S. Lovell visited Markham in Nairobi and interviewed her extensively shortly before Markham's death, in preparation for her biography, Straight on Till Morning (1987)" and "A novel written by Paula McLain about Markham's life, Circling the Sun, was released in 2015." I'm not sure I have it in me to invest more time though, haha.
If you choose to read this book, I recommend reading this 1987 NYT article afterward. It answered my Hemingway question and more: A High Life and a Wild One
If you choose to listen to the audiobook narrated by Julie Harris, note my two minor nitpicks: (1) She pronounces 'fuselage' differently than employees of the greatest airplane maker in the world, and (2) You can hear her turning the pages, which was a first for me in over 200 audiobooks.
It is true that she used elegant language and had a great storytelling style, but the stories she chose to tell could have covered why her family came to Africa, or elaborate on why she chose to become a pilot, her first and second marriages or any of her scandalous affairs, or her association with the "Happy Valley set." You know, some of the basics you get from Wikipedia. She poured a lot of detail into lions, boars, and other African animals. Maybe that information was more exciting and exotic 79 years ago. I want to know why Ernest Hemingway thought she was "very unpleasant" and a "high-grade bitch." It seems this is the scrubbed and 'socially appropriate' version of those ~23 years of her life. I needed MORE WHY.
I liked how she described SMALL FAVORS in Africa as currency.
Then came her explanation of a person as a KEYSTONE. She asked an indigenous man how he knew that someone was going to die. It was difficult to decipher whether her explanation was her own interpretation or the one she was given, because she said "I found an answer for myself." She continued, "Dennis was a keystone in an arch, whose other stones were other lives. If a keystone trembles, the arch will carry the warning along its entire curve. Then if the keystone is crushed, the arch will fall, leaving its lesser stones heaped close together, though for awhile without design. Dennis' death left some lives without design. But they were rebuilt again, as lives and stones are, into other patterns." THAT was the most fascinating concept I got out of the entire book.
She described nightmares of SIAFU (Swahili word for safari ants) in a way that compels me to research them before I travel to Africa.
Her insights and stories on ELEPHANTS were the only animal talk that piqued my interest. She worked as a safari spotter by air, but I was disappointed that she knew how intelligent they were and yet still participated. Survival of the fittest adrenaline junkie I guess. She also described an elephant's scream, but this time it was of warning rather than pain like in 'Water for Elephants.'
I liked her thoughts on MAPS: "A map in the hands of a pilot is a testimony of man's faith in other men. It is a symbol of confidence and trust. It is not like a printed page that bears mere words, ambiguous and artful, and whose most believing reader, even whose author perhaps, must allow in his mind a recess for doubt. A map says to you 'Read Me Carefully. Follow Me Closely. Doubt Me Not.' It says 'I am the Earth in the Palm of Your Hand. Without Me, You are Alone and Lost.' And indeed you are. Were all the maps in this world destroyed and vanished under the direction of some malevolent hand, each man would be blind again. Each city made a stranger to the next. Each landmark become a meaningless signpost, pointing to nothing" ...
There are other books about Beryl Markham (from Wiki): "author Mary S. Lovell visited Markham in Nairobi and interviewed her extensively shortly before Markham's death, in preparation for her biography, Straight on Till Morning (1987)" and "A novel written by Paula McLain about Markham's life, Circling the Sun, was released in 2015." I'm not sure I have it in me to invest more time though, haha.
If you choose to read this book, I recommend reading this 1987 NYT article afterward. It answered my Hemingway question and more: A High Life and a Wild One
If you choose to listen to the audiobook narrated by Julie Harris, note my two minor nitpicks: (1) She pronounces 'fuselage' differently than employees of the greatest airplane maker in the world, and (2) You can hear her turning the pages, which was a first for me in over 200 audiobooks.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
A little on the slow side. She was an amazing woman who did what interested her in a time when women were expected to support their husbands and raise a family.