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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
I picked this up as a library discard (!), a Modern Library edition in a nice tight, small cover, easily packed into my bookbag or thrown into the backseat of the car. Ever since having seen the movie several years ago, I've thought I should read the book, and when it appeared thus, I decided to do just that. The opening line, "I had a farm in Africa," has stuck with me since seeing the movie. Blixsen has a way of making mundane seem poetic and landscape alive. Africa is a fascinating place and the interaction between all of its peoples at the turn of the twentieth century is rich for exploration. It was a delight each time I opened it up, but it was easy to put down since it allowed for further contemplation of what the experience must have been like or what my experience might have been like if I had been there.
"But it was so far away that the four peaks looked trifling, hardly distinguishable, and different from the way they looked from the farm. The outline of the mountain was slowly smoothed and leveled out by the hand of distance."
When I visited Susquehanna University and was a part of their writing program for the summer, I met one of the teachers who originally came from Africa. He read parts of his nonfiction stories that described what it was like to live in Africa and it made me think of this book. What I liked about being able to hold this book in my hands was that I could reread the most vivid lines of description.
Not only does the narrator tell about her time spent in Africa, but she illustrates all the unusual aspects of the landscape, peoples, and animals. Her sophisticated language and charming personality make each individual story in the book a pleasure to read. Her subtle comparisons between people all over the world and their styles of living become real once she introduces each character with their names and occupations. The narrator takes great care to keep an open mind when learning about the culture of the African people, and even finds that she can't bear to leave her new life behind.
My favorite short story that was told in the book was when Lulu the antelope came to live with the narrator. This amazing story of the bond between her and the antelope was entertaining to read, as it felt emotional and tangible. Overall I found the book to be filled with wanderlust and striking imagery. It was delightful to read a book that I could put down then pick up several times and still be interested in its plot.
When I visited Susquehanna University and was a part of their writing program for the summer, I met one of the teachers who originally came from Africa. He read parts of his nonfiction stories that described what it was like to live in Africa and it made me think of this book. What I liked about being able to hold this book in my hands was that I could reread the most vivid lines of description.
Not only does the narrator tell about her time spent in Africa, but she illustrates all the unusual aspects of the landscape, peoples, and animals. Her sophisticated language and charming personality make each individual story in the book a pleasure to read. Her subtle comparisons between people all over the world and their styles of living become real once she introduces each character with their names and occupations. The narrator takes great care to keep an open mind when learning about the culture of the African people, and even finds that she can't bear to leave her new life behind.
My favorite short story that was told in the book was when Lulu the antelope came to live with the narrator. This amazing story of the bond between her and the antelope was entertaining to read, as it felt emotional and tangible. Overall I found the book to be filled with wanderlust and striking imagery. It was delightful to read a book that I could put down then pick up several times and still be interested in its plot.
As far as writing/language, this is a beautiful book that does an excellent job of painting a picture of a coffee plantation in Africa in the early 20th century. The author has a keen eye for detail, a knack for description, and an obviously very deep love for her subject. All this is why we still read this book 85+ years after its publication. And it's worth a read!
However, it IS written by a white person who went to Africa in the early 20th century as a colonist to run a farm and employ the local "natives" who were allowed to remain living near the farm so long as they worked for the author 180 days out of the year. The colonist's mentality that pervades the book put a little bit of a damper on it for me.
For her time, it may be that the author had a pretty liberal attitude towards the African people. She is, after all, a kind and benevolent employer, she helps them with food and medical attention, and has an attitude that ranges from wary tolerance to authentic appreciation when it comes to their culture. She also professes to like them: "As for me, from my first weeks in Africa, I had felt a great affection for the Natives. It was a strong feeling that embraced all ages and both sexes. The discovery of the dark races was to me a magnificent enlargement of all my world."
But from where I sit here in the early 21st century, her writing about the people of Kenya was cringe-worthy over and over again. I got a real sense that she subscribed to the "noble savage" mentality. Additionally, she constantly compares the "Natives" to animals, and I mean CONSTANTLY. To be fair, she also occasionally compares a white person to an animal, but with the Natives, it's disturbingly incessant. Here's a quotation that sort of encompasses both of these aspects of her attitude toward Africans:
"Sometimes on a Safari, or on the farm, in a moment of extreme tension, I have met the eyes of my Native companions, and have felt that we were at a great distance from one another, and that they were wondering at my apprehension of our risk. It made me reflect that perhaps they were, in life itself, within their own element, such as we can never be, like fishes in deep water which for the life of them cannot understand our fear of drowning. This assurance, this art of swimming, they had, I thought, because they had preserved a knowledge that was lost to us by our first parents; Africa, amongst the continents, will teach it to you."
The author is at her best when she's describing the beauty of the land or an experience and the feelings that they give her. For example, on the glorious activity of flying in a plane above her plantation:
"It is a sad hardship and slavery to people who live in towns, that in all their movements they know of one dimension only; they walk along the line as if they were led on a string. The transition from the line to the plane into the two dimensions, when you wander across a field or through a wood, is a splendid liberation... but in the air you are taken into the full freedom of the three dimensions; after long ages of exile and dreams the homesick heart throws itself into the arms of space."
Themes: memoir, Africa, Kenya, auto-bio, farm
However, it IS written by a white person who went to Africa in the early 20th century as a colonist to run a farm and employ the local "natives" who were allowed to remain living near the farm so long as they worked for the author 180 days out of the year. The colonist's mentality that pervades the book put a little bit of a damper on it for me.
For her time, it may be that the author had a pretty liberal attitude towards the African people. She is, after all, a kind and benevolent employer, she helps them with food and medical attention, and has an attitude that ranges from wary tolerance to authentic appreciation when it comes to their culture. She also professes to like them: "As for me, from my first weeks in Africa, I had felt a great affection for the Natives. It was a strong feeling that embraced all ages and both sexes. The discovery of the dark races was to me a magnificent enlargement of all my world."
But from where I sit here in the early 21st century, her writing about the people of Kenya was cringe-worthy over and over again. I got a real sense that she subscribed to the "noble savage" mentality. Additionally, she constantly compares the "Natives" to animals, and I mean CONSTANTLY. To be fair, she also occasionally compares a white person to an animal, but with the Natives, it's disturbingly incessant. Here's a quotation that sort of encompasses both of these aspects of her attitude toward Africans:
"Sometimes on a Safari, or on the farm, in a moment of extreme tension, I have met the eyes of my Native companions, and have felt that we were at a great distance from one another, and that they were wondering at my apprehension of our risk. It made me reflect that perhaps they were, in life itself, within their own element, such as we can never be, like fishes in deep water which for the life of them cannot understand our fear of drowning. This assurance, this art of swimming, they had, I thought, because they had preserved a knowledge that was lost to us by our first parents; Africa, amongst the continents, will teach it to you."
The author is at her best when she's describing the beauty of the land or an experience and the feelings that they give her. For example, on the glorious activity of flying in a plane above her plantation:
"It is a sad hardship and slavery to people who live in towns, that in all their movements they know of one dimension only; they walk along the line as if they were led on a string. The transition from the line to the plane into the two dimensions, when you wander across a field or through a wood, is a splendid liberation... but in the air you are taken into the full freedom of the three dimensions; after long ages of exile and dreams the homesick heart throws itself into the arms of space."
Themes: memoir, Africa, Kenya, auto-bio, farm
I listened to the audiobook narrated by Susan Lyons. I generally enjoy her narration, but something about this work didn't connect with me. I wasn't expecting this to be a collection of short stories, especially since I saw the movie adaptation first, which presents as one narrative. The short stories were often not connected or given a place in the whole work. Or rather I was never sure why I should care about the different topics covered. I wish Dinesen had written about the circumstances that led her to Africa and how she felt about moving there initially. The story about Denys - at the end - made me cry. I thought that was beautiful, but it wasn't enough to redeem the whole work for me. It seemed like a travel memoir Dinesen wrote for herself, but then had published. It didn't seem to be written so much for her eventual audience.
Despite other very positive reviews of this "classic" I'm afraid to say I struggled to engage with this pretty much most of the time. There were at times stunning descriptions of Africa which were undoubtedly beautifully written, but overall I just felt bored and often annoyed at Karen's white privileged experience of her time in Africa, which was heightened further when she tells of her leaving.
3.5*
Trigger warning for animal hunting.
I am pleased I finally got round to reading this! I was expecting much more descriptive writing of the African landscape but instead found myself picking out chunks of descriptive writing about the natives. This book, or memoir, has 5 main chapters, four of which read very much like a memoir turned fiction story which I greatly enjoyed.
However, there was one chapter, titled 'From An Immigrant's Notebook' and this is exactly how it read. There were sub-chapters that were very short and didn't add anything much to the story in a chronological sense and at this point I got rather bored as it felt as if Karen Blixen could no longer be bothered to weave these journaled parts of her life into a narrative and instead just copied them all down and shoved them into one chapter.
Despite this, I did feel that the concluding chapter where Blixen says goodbye to her farm in Africa that all these little lose stories came together, in a way to bid her farewell.
All in all, I very much enjoyed learning about Blixen's time and life in Africa, especially about how the natives lived during this time.
Trigger warning for animal hunting.
I am pleased I finally got round to reading this! I was expecting much more descriptive writing of the African landscape but instead found myself picking out chunks of descriptive writing about the natives. This book, or memoir, has 5 main chapters, four of which read very much like a memoir turned fiction story which I greatly enjoyed.
However, there was one chapter, titled 'From An Immigrant's Notebook' and this is exactly how it read. There were sub-chapters that were very short and didn't add anything much to the story in a chronological sense and at this point I got rather bored as it felt as if Karen Blixen could no longer be bothered to weave these journaled parts of her life into a narrative and instead just copied them all down and shoved them into one chapter.
Despite this, I did feel that the concluding chapter where Blixen says goodbye to her farm in Africa that all these little lose stories came together, in a way to bid her farewell.
All in all, I very much enjoyed learning about Blixen's time and life in Africa, especially about how the natives lived during this time.
It's been 25 years since I read [b:out of africa|781787|Out of Africa (Modern Library)|Isak Dinesen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178296503s/781787.jpg|1189079] the first time. What remains with me from this autobiographical account of [a:isak Dinesen|8147|Isak Dinesen|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1200335489p2/8147.jpg]/Karen Blixen's life in Kenya from 1914-1931 and her romance with Denys Finch Hatton is not just the scale of the land and its influence on all around, which was huge - but the author's own resposne to the challenges of her household, farming, work, and repatriating back to Denmark. Those images of her will to influence and make the best of small things remain just as strong for me as those of her Kenya. In that way she reminds me so of [a:gavin maxwell's Camusfearna experience. His [book:ring of bright water|1075635|Sue Sereno|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] is in many ways a story like Dinesen's for me - how living in a place, and who you meet there, can change you and develop what you will later be cabable of (or not)!
Incredible Quote: "The true aristocracy and the true proletariat of the world are both in understanding with tragedy. To them it is the fundamental principle of God, and the key, the minor key, to existence. They differ in this way from the bourgeoisie of all classes, who deny tragedy, who will not tolerate it, and to whom the word of tragedy means in itself unpleasantness" (212)
(This is obviously a colonial read and thus problematic which everyone else has noted so I will not)
I liked the movie more than the book which is not something I ever thought I would say/write. The writing is descriptive, lush, transports you straight to Kenya. However this read more like a collection of short stories to me than a memoir, I think if I hadn't seen the movie I would have been confused about who this Denys was and why she never talked about her husband. It didn't provide much detail about her life which disappointed me. I wanted to know about her upbringing, battling syphilis. Not that it's any of my business but when you decide to write a memoir these questions are fair game no? I just wanted to know how this amazing woman was created because Baroness Blixen is an absolute badass and totally unaware (at least based on this book).
The entire memoir details her expeditions in a nonchalant manner, she never dwells on how she's one of the few women who own and work a farm, one of the few out there shooting lions and driving people to the hospital and just getting shit done. Instead she tells stories, many of which I found boring, because they seemed random (or just came across as her writing down memories as they occurred to her). She also seemed to be unaware that people would be truly interested in her stories, in the ones I was fully immersed I was often frustrated at the abrupt endings. She didn't seem to question why things happened the way they did (for example when Esa left her to go work for another mistress and then returned after a year. Why did he leave? What did this woman have on him??).
A memoir that reads more like a collection of vignettes than it focuses on the author but she's absolutely inspiring and is able to employ a wonderful turn of phrase, she excels as a storyteller, just don't expect this to reveal much about the Baroness herself. Although the end with Denys is fairly illuminating.
"The people who expect the Natives to jump joyfully from the stone age to the age of the motor-cars, forgot the toil and labour which our own fathers have had, to bring us all through history up to where we are" (301). This applies to so much more than just automobiles and to so many people other than 'natives'.
(This is obviously a colonial read and thus problematic which everyone else has noted so I will not)
I liked the movie more than the book which is not something I ever thought I would say/write. The writing is descriptive, lush, transports you straight to Kenya. However this read more like a collection of short stories to me than a memoir, I think if I hadn't seen the movie I would have been confused about who this Denys was and why she never talked about her husband. It didn't provide much detail about her life which disappointed me. I wanted to know about her upbringing, battling syphilis. Not that it's any of my business but when you decide to write a memoir these questions are fair game no? I just wanted to know how this amazing woman was created because Baroness Blixen is an absolute badass and totally unaware (at least based on this book).
The entire memoir details her expeditions in a nonchalant manner, she never dwells on how she's one of the few women who own and work a farm, one of the few out there shooting lions and driving people to the hospital and just getting shit done. Instead she tells stories, many of which I found boring, because they seemed random (or just came across as her writing down memories as they occurred to her). She also seemed to be unaware that people would be truly interested in her stories, in the ones I was fully immersed I was often frustrated at the abrupt endings. She didn't seem to question why things happened the way they did (for example when Esa left her to go work for another mistress and then returned after a year. Why did he leave? What did this woman have on him??).
A memoir that reads more like a collection of vignettes than it focuses on the author but she's absolutely inspiring and is able to employ a wonderful turn of phrase, she excels as a storyteller, just don't expect this to reveal much about the Baroness herself. Although the end with Denys is fairly illuminating.
"The people who expect the Natives to jump joyfully from the stone age to the age of the motor-cars, forgot the toil and labour which our own fathers have had, to bring us all through history up to where we are" (301). This applies to so much more than just automobiles and to so many people other than 'natives'.
I'm not certain how much is real in this account vs. how much is fiction, but for the most part I liked reading the book. I learned a few things, some things I looked back on with some disgust. I'd like to think we as a society are so much better than we were back then, but we are not so nearly as enlightened as we give ourselves credit for. Still, for her time, I think she was more so than many of her contemporaries.
The story, or rather stories, themselves ranged from being good, not so good, some happy, some devastating. It reads more like a serial than a single story. You get some of the cast of characters to appear in multiple stories, sometimes a particular few are the focus, it's not a linear sort of story telling. I don't mind that so much but I know some are bothered by it.
The ending. It didn't feel so rushed as, I don't know. I thought I'd figure out what I mean by sleeping in it, but I still don't know the right word. It's as if she wrote this fascinating bunch of love stories about people and a place and then was told there would be no more. Don't want to spoil the ending by saying more on that. I felt the last section was a weird kind of tying up lose ends. It felt different than the rest of the writing. More reserved? I'm not sure. I read it faster and felt less engaged. I went from being able to imagine the scenes to mostly just reading words with an occasional flash of imagery.
Still, in the end, I gave it 4 stars. I was tempted to knock off a star for the last section, but decided against it in the end.
The story, or rather stories, themselves ranged from being good, not so good, some happy, some devastating. It reads more like a serial than a single story. You get some of the cast of characters to appear in multiple stories, sometimes a particular few are the focus, it's not a linear sort of story telling. I don't mind that so much but I know some are bothered by it.
The ending. It didn't feel so rushed as, I don't know. I thought I'd figure out what I mean by sleeping in it, but I still don't know the right word. It's as if she wrote this fascinating bunch of love stories about people and a place and then was told there would be no more. Don't want to spoil the ending by saying more on that. I felt the last section was a weird kind of tying up lose ends. It felt different than the rest of the writing. More reserved? I'm not sure. I read it faster and felt less engaged. I went from being able to imagine the scenes to mostly just reading words with an occasional flash of imagery.
Still, in the end, I gave it 4 stars. I was tempted to knock off a star for the last section, but decided against it in the end.