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barbaraf 's review for:
West with the Night
by Beryl Markham
I'm not sure why I wasn't expecting much from this book but it was really excellent. Even Ernest Hemingway gave it lofty praise. It was on the 'suggested reading list' for Kenya.
This is the memoir of an amazing woman, Beryl Markham, pioneer, successful horse trainer and crackerjack aviatrix. She was the first person to fly non-stop (solo) from Great Britain to North America in 1936. The memoir (drafted in 1942) is beautifully written. She recounts her days in the wilds of Kenya (then British East Africa) where she was raised during the early 20th century. Each chapter tells another interesting story about her fascinating life, the people she met (including boisterous ex-pats), the prideful natives she worked with and the untouched wilderness that she got to explore.
Having already read the fictional account of her life in 'Circling the Sun' (which I enjoyed), I felt it only right to read her actual memoir.
On learning to fly:
"We began at the first hour of the morning. We began when the sky was clean and ready for the sun and you could see your breath and smell traces of the night. We began every morning at the same hour in what we were pleased to call the Nairobi Aerodrome, climbing away from it with derisive clamour, while the burghers of the town twitched in their beds and dreamed perhaps of all unpleasant things that drone - of wings and stings and corridors of Bedlam."
On flying:
"One day the stars will be as familiar to each man as the landmarks, the curves, and the hills on the road that leads to his door, and one day this will be an airborne life. But by then men will have forgotten how to fly; they will be passengers on machines whose conductors are carefully promoted to a familiarity with labelled buttons, and in whose minds knowledge of the sky and the wind and the way of weather will be extraneous as passing fiction."
On Elephants:
"Elephants, beyond the fact that their size and conformation are aesthetically more suited to the treading of this earth than our angular informity, have an average intelligence comparable to our own. Of course they are less agile and physically less adaptable than ourselves -- nature having developed their bodies in one direction and their brains in another, while human beings, on the other hand, drew from Mr. Darwin's lottery of evolution both the winning ticket and the stub to match it. This, I suppose, is why we are so wonderful and can make movies and electric razors and wireless sets -- and guns with which to shoot the elephant, the hare, clay pigeons, and each other."
On getting stuck in Italian territory under Mussolini (this made me laugh):
"I sometimes think it must be extremely difficult for the Italian people to remain patient in the face of their armies' unwavering record of defeat (they look so resplendent on parade). But there is little complaint...However futile the Italian military, there is real striking power behind the rubber stamps of Italian officials...There is no hell like uncertainty, and no greater menace to society than an Italian with three liras worth of authority"
On a drunken night with friends:
"At some bar...there began a historic session of comradely tippling and verbose good-fellowship which dissolved Time and reduced Space to an anteroom. On the table between these good companions the whole of history was dissected and it's moldy carcass borne away in an empty ice bucket. International problems were solved in a word, and the direction of Fate forseen through the crystal windows of two upturned goblets"
On leaving Africa:
"Africa is never the same to anyone who leaves it and returns again. It is not a land of change but a land of moods and it's 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."
The elephant hunting is a bit depressing but the moral compass of those times was unfortunately different. A nicely written memoir with flowing narrative and well organized...
I'm looking forward to Kenya...
This is the memoir of an amazing woman, Beryl Markham, pioneer, successful horse trainer and crackerjack aviatrix. She was the first person to fly non-stop (solo) from Great Britain to North America in 1936. The memoir (drafted in 1942) is beautifully written. She recounts her days in the wilds of Kenya (then British East Africa) where she was raised during the early 20th century. Each chapter tells another interesting story about her fascinating life, the people she met (including boisterous ex-pats), the prideful natives she worked with and the untouched wilderness that she got to explore.
Having already read the fictional account of her life in 'Circling the Sun' (which I enjoyed), I felt it only right to read her actual memoir.
On learning to fly:
"We began at the first hour of the morning. We began when the sky was clean and ready for the sun and you could see your breath and smell traces of the night. We began every morning at the same hour in what we were pleased to call the Nairobi Aerodrome, climbing away from it with derisive clamour, while the burghers of the town twitched in their beds and dreamed perhaps of all unpleasant things that drone - of wings and stings and corridors of Bedlam."
On flying:
"One day the stars will be as familiar to each man as the landmarks, the curves, and the hills on the road that leads to his door, and one day this will be an airborne life. But by then men will have forgotten how to fly; they will be passengers on machines whose conductors are carefully promoted to a familiarity with labelled buttons, and in whose minds knowledge of the sky and the wind and the way of weather will be extraneous as passing fiction."
On Elephants:
"Elephants, beyond the fact that their size and conformation are aesthetically more suited to the treading of this earth than our angular informity, have an average intelligence comparable to our own. Of course they are less agile and physically less adaptable than ourselves -- nature having developed their bodies in one direction and their brains in another, while human beings, on the other hand, drew from Mr. Darwin's lottery of evolution both the winning ticket and the stub to match it. This, I suppose, is why we are so wonderful and can make movies and electric razors and wireless sets -- and guns with which to shoot the elephant, the hare, clay pigeons, and each other."
On getting stuck in Italian territory under Mussolini (this made me laugh):
"I sometimes think it must be extremely difficult for the Italian people to remain patient in the face of their armies' unwavering record of defeat (they look so resplendent on parade). But there is little complaint...However futile the Italian military, there is real striking power behind the rubber stamps of Italian officials...There is no hell like uncertainty, and no greater menace to society than an Italian with three liras worth of authority"
On a drunken night with friends:
"At some bar...there began a historic session of comradely tippling and verbose good-fellowship which dissolved Time and reduced Space to an anteroom. On the table between these good companions the whole of history was dissected and it's moldy carcass borne away in an empty ice bucket. International problems were solved in a word, and the direction of Fate forseen through the crystal windows of two upturned goblets"
On leaving Africa:
"Africa is never the same to anyone who leaves it and returns again. It is not a land of change but a land of moods and it's 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."
The elephant hunting is a bit depressing but the moral compass of those times was unfortunately different. A nicely written memoir with flowing narrative and well organized...
I'm looking forward to Kenya...