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ewein2412 's review for:
West with the Night
by Beryl Markham
Someone in our book group commented, "This makes me feel like I live such a boring life." Also, it makes me feel like I don't work nearly hard enough.
I remember my college roommate carrying this book around in the mid-1980s when she was taking flying lessons, and I was intrigued by it, but I have never read it. 25 years later, having seen Mombasa and Voi and the Rift Valley myself from the cockpit of a small plane, with a pilot's license in hand and several books about Africa behind me, having read just about every early aviator's autobiography and considering myself fairly knowledgeable on the subject of pioneering women pilots, it is UNBELIEVABLE that this is the first time I've read West with the Night. But it is.
And I love it. Not so much for the sharing of a fantastic childhood of a European girl spearing boar with Nandi tribesmen, or for the incredible descriptions of sky and sea and desert as seen from the air, but for the occasional crystallization of things I feel deeply myself. Like this:
'When you fly,' the young man said, 'you get a feeling of possession that you couldn't have if you owned all of Africa. You feel that everything you see belongs to you -- all the pieces are put together, and the whole is yours; not that you want it, but because, when you're alone in a plane, there's no one to share it. It's there and it's yours.'
There is so much left out of this book -- so many personal details, the messy background of Beryl Markham's life that we hunger for in a biography, which of her companions she was in love with and what happened to her mother and children (I personally found myself wondering furiously what the heck she was doing in 1942, in East Africa or in Europe or wherever she was, in addition to publishing this book). I longed for pictures, for talismans, for the face of the young Beryl to pore over. There's nothing here but the carefully measured portion she chooses to give us. And yet I feel that she's painted a wonderful portrait of herself, told us how she feels about the world and many more important things than names and dates.
It is very reminiscent of St. Exupéry, in philosophy and tone and style. I gather there is a rumor abroad that he may have helped her write it. I'm choosing to believe she wrote it herself. I mean, come on, guys. She flew the Atlantic herself.
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Best random adage, alleged quotation from Bror Blixen: "Life is life and fun is fun, but it's all so quiet when the goldfish die."
I remember my college roommate carrying this book around in the mid-1980s when she was taking flying lessons, and I was intrigued by it, but I have never read it. 25 years later, having seen Mombasa and Voi and the Rift Valley myself from the cockpit of a small plane, with a pilot's license in hand and several books about Africa behind me, having read just about every early aviator's autobiography and considering myself fairly knowledgeable on the subject of pioneering women pilots, it is UNBELIEVABLE that this is the first time I've read West with the Night. But it is.
And I love it. Not so much for the sharing of a fantastic childhood of a European girl spearing boar with Nandi tribesmen, or for the incredible descriptions of sky and sea and desert as seen from the air, but for the occasional crystallization of things I feel deeply myself. Like this:
'When you fly,' the young man said, 'you get a feeling of possession that you couldn't have if you owned all of Africa. You feel that everything you see belongs to you -- all the pieces are put together, and the whole is yours; not that you want it, but because, when you're alone in a plane, there's no one to share it. It's there and it's yours.'
There is so much left out of this book -- so many personal details, the messy background of Beryl Markham's life that we hunger for in a biography, which of her companions she was in love with and what happened to her mother and children (I personally found myself wondering furiously what the heck she was doing in 1942, in East Africa or in Europe or wherever she was, in addition to publishing this book). I longed for pictures, for talismans, for the face of the young Beryl to pore over. There's nothing here but the carefully measured portion she chooses to give us. And yet I feel that she's painted a wonderful portrait of herself, told us how she feels about the world and many more important things than names and dates.
It is very reminiscent of St. Exupéry, in philosophy and tone and style. I gather there is a rumor abroad that he may have helped her write it. I'm choosing to believe she wrote it herself. I mean, come on, guys. She flew the Atlantic herself.
-------------------------------
Best random adage, alleged quotation from Bror Blixen: "Life is life and fun is fun, but it's all so quiet when the goldfish die."