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book_concierge's review
5.0
I had a farm in Africa. One of the best opening lines.
What glorious writing. I first read this in 1998, and re-read it for my book club in 2013. I revisited it again in 2017 and now, here I am again. If you're expecting the movie you'll be greatly disappointed - Denys Finch-Hatton is barely mentioned. No, the great love of her life was Africa itself.
While I still love Dineson’s writing, and love the way she puts me right into early 20th century Africa, I am more attuned to social justice these days, and have to cringe a bit at some of the references to the indigenous tribes. The colonialists had such a superior attitude. But this a product of the era and of the social status of the writer, and we must give her her due. She worked long and hard to try to succeed in this doomed effort to grow coffee at too high an altitude, and with a husband who basically abandoned her as soon as she arrived.
Here are a couple of passages:
Night on the farm: It rained a little, but there was a moon; from time to time she put out her dim white face high up in the sky, behind layers and layers of thin clouds, and was then dimly mirrored in the white-flowering coffee-field.
The view from a plane: You have tremendous views as you get up above the African highlands, surprising combinations and changes of light and colouring, the rainbow on the green sunlit land, the gigantic upright clouds and big wild black storms, all swing round you in a race and a dance. … You may at other times fly low enough to see the animals on the plains and to feel towards them as God did when he had just created them, and before he commissioned Adam to give them names.
The view from the perfect spot: “To the South, far away, below the changing clouds lay the broken, dark blue foothills of Kilimanjaro. As we turned to the North the light increased, pale rays for a moment slanted in the sky and a streak of shining silver drew up the shoulder of Mount Kenya. Suddenly, much closer, to the East below us, was a little red spot in the grey and green, the only red there was, the tiled roof of my house on its cleared place in the forest. We did not have to go any further, we were in the right place.”
For this, my fourth re-read of this work, I choose to listen to the audible audio, performed by the marvelously talented Julie Harris. Unfortunately, this is an abridged version of Dinesen’s memoir. While I really enjoyed Harris’s performance, it’s worth the time to read the entire book.
Entire review UPDATED, March 2021
What glorious writing. I first read this in 1998, and re-read it for my book club in 2013. I revisited it again in 2017 and now, here I am again. If you're expecting the movie you'll be greatly disappointed - Denys Finch-Hatton is barely mentioned. No, the great love of her life was Africa itself.
While I still love Dineson’s writing, and love the way she puts me right into early 20th century Africa, I am more attuned to social justice these days, and have to cringe a bit at some of the references to the indigenous tribes. The colonialists had such a superior attitude. But this a product of the era and of the social status of the writer, and we must give her her due. She worked long and hard to try to succeed in this doomed effort to grow coffee at too high an altitude, and with a husband who basically abandoned her as soon as she arrived.
Here are a couple of passages:
Night on the farm: It rained a little, but there was a moon; from time to time she put out her dim white face high up in the sky, behind layers and layers of thin clouds, and was then dimly mirrored in the white-flowering coffee-field.
The view from a plane: You have tremendous views as you get up above the African highlands, surprising combinations and changes of light and colouring, the rainbow on the green sunlit land, the gigantic upright clouds and big wild black storms, all swing round you in a race and a dance. … You may at other times fly low enough to see the animals on the plains and to feel towards them as God did when he had just created them, and before he commissioned Adam to give them names.
The view from the perfect spot: “To the South, far away, below the changing clouds lay the broken, dark blue foothills of Kilimanjaro. As we turned to the North the light increased, pale rays for a moment slanted in the sky and a streak of shining silver drew up the shoulder of Mount Kenya. Suddenly, much closer, to the East below us, was a little red spot in the grey and green, the only red there was, the tiled roof of my house on its cleared place in the forest. We did not have to go any further, we were in the right place.”
For this, my fourth re-read of this work, I choose to listen to the audible audio, performed by the marvelously talented Julie Harris. Unfortunately, this is an abridged version of Dinesen’s memoir. While I really enjoyed Harris’s performance, it’s worth the time to read the entire book.
Entire review UPDATED, March 2021
lmkramer507's review
4.0
Nothing exciting, but interesting picture of life in Africa in days gone by. Audiobook is well-done.
libellum_aphrodite's review
3.0
Karen Blixen is a pretty impressive lady, and gives a very vivid account of Africa in the early 1900s. She reminded me of a lady running a store on a lonely highway in Alaska that we met while traveling there. Both were taking care of business and not about to let big scary animals get in their way.
My initially-rapt attention petered out about halfway through the book, but I really loved that first immersion, hence the the 3-star average rating.
It so happened that at the tail end of reading this, the movie showed up on Netflix. Meryl Streep portrays Karen as much less badass than I pictured her (although, to be fair, I was reading Karen's own account of herself). After watching, in an attempt to reconcile the differences between book and movie, I did a bit more background research and reading about the Blixen, Finch Hatton, and others from the story, and about the period in general. https://aelarsen.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/out-of-africa-wonderful-movie-fuzzy-history/ captured a great deal of interesting historical context in its comparison.
My initially-rapt attention petered out about halfway through the book, but I really loved that first immersion, hence the the 3-star average rating.
It so happened that at the tail end of reading this, the movie showed up on Netflix. Meryl Streep portrays Karen as much less badass than I pictured her (although, to be fair, I was reading Karen's own account of herself). After watching, in an attempt to reconcile the differences between book and movie, I did a bit more background research and reading about the Blixen, Finch Hatton, and others from the story, and about the period in general. https://aelarsen.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/out-of-africa-wonderful-movie-fuzzy-history/ captured a great deal of interesting historical context in its comparison.
knod78's review
2.0
I'm not going to lie, I had a hard time with this book until probably halfway through it when I got used to the writing style. It was all over the place with the thoughts, sentences, and time period. It reminded me of when my husband says, "Focus," when I talk and then go off on a tangent, which I tend to do. This book was a giant tangent of thoughts. She would literally start a chapter with the first sentence about an antelope (which we don't know is an antelope) and then it just went off for three pages about the parks and monkeys before we finally learn that the animal of the chapter name is in fact an antelope. Sometimes, we didn't get back to the original thought and just kept going on with the tangent. One of the sections was just random diary thoughts that had no particular order or theme.
However, I couldn't stop reading this book. At first, I didn't know if I could continue on, but I got used to it and I was enthralled. I wanted to know more about the farm. I was engrossed in the story of the daily life events that happened to her in Kenya. I couldn't get enough. And the last two long chapters took forever for her to end (going back home after a failed farm). I was kind of happy about it.
I just wished Isak could focus more. I mean there is literally only one chapter where she briefly mentions her husband. I mean she was in Africa because of him, I felt like there could have been more about him. Oh well. I don't think I would read this book again, but I definitely ended up enjoying. The movie was awful though.
However, I couldn't stop reading this book. At first, I didn't know if I could continue on, but I got used to it and I was enthralled. I wanted to know more about the farm. I was engrossed in the story of the daily life events that happened to her in Kenya. I couldn't get enough. And the last two long chapters took forever for her to end (going back home after a failed farm). I was kind of happy about it.
I just wished Isak could focus more. I mean there is literally only one chapter where she briefly mentions her husband. I mean she was in Africa because of him, I felt like there could have been more about him. Oh well. I don't think I would read this book again, but I definitely ended up enjoying. The movie was awful though.
abbeyhar103's review
2.0
i guess i can't really review this because I only got a quarter of the way through, but this book was mega boring.
jenmat1197's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
This is the story of the author's time in Kenya. (Isak is her pen name - her real name is Baroness Karen Blixen who was Danish). She owned a coffee plantation there from 1914 to 1931 and this book covers her tales from the locals, the people who worked for her, and even a visit from the Prince of Wales. Tales are woven among descriptions of the landscape around her.
This is a pretty good book. I love a good non-fiction and this one spun a good story about the author's time in Kenya. There were some dry bits, but overall a fascinating tale in the early 20th century about a very capable woman running a plantation. She saw a young boy shot and killed and the fall out from that. And then finally the collapse of the cost of coffee where she had to sale the farm. It was a heartfelt memoir overall and I am glad I read it.