Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass

Rating:
Summary: "I will not leave thee...
Review: ...except thou bless me." Karen Blixen's (aka, Isak Dinesen) command of the English language is incomparable. At times, while reading this book, I had to remind myself that I was reading prose and not poetry, though in this particular instance, the distinction matters not, for they are one in the same. If you're searching for a book that will communicate directly with your soul (and you're sick of Chicken Soup), then place this one at the top of your list. A true literary classic in every sense of the term and merits a preferential spot on everyone's library shelf.

Rating:
Summary: "I will not leave thee...
Review: ...except thou bless me." Karen Blixen's (aka, Isak Dinesen) command of the English language is incomparable. At times, while reading this book, I had to remind myself that I was reading prose and not poetry, though in this particular instance, the distinction matters not, for they are one in the same. If you're searching for a book that will communicate directly with your soul (and you're sick of Chicken Soup), then place this one at the top of your list. A true literary classic in every sense of the term and merits a preferential spot on everyone's library shelf.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully Written
Review: A wonderful book in every sense of the word. Forget the movie and read the book.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: Blixen's prose is sheer poetry - her use of language is nothing less than honey on the tongue; read it out loud and you can feel the joy, sorrow, bitterness and simple pleasures Blixen experienced during her years in Africa. This one is a keeper.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: Blixen's prose is sheer poetry - her use of language is nothing less than honey on the tongue; read it out loud and you can feel the joy, sorrow, bitterness and simple pleasures Blixen experienced during her years in Africa. This one is a keeper.

Rating:
Summary: Africa
Review: Dinesen shows a great love and understanding of Africa and its people, for better or worse. Her writing is poetic and alive, and you can hear and smell Africa in her work. Another newer book on Africa, A TELLING TIME by Glynnis Hayward, does this too.

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorites!
Review: I read constantly, but rarely the same book twice. I've read this one four times, and each time it gets better. This is real writing!

Rating:
Summary: My Bedside book
Review: I'm an avid reader, and this is my favorite book, I strongly recomend it. The writing is beautiful and magical, the description of the places and the people are so good that you can imagine being in the same room with Fitch-Hatton and Barckley.

Rating:
Summary: Here I am, where I ought to be.
Review: I'm another reader who comes to Out of Africa by way of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye; and it became recommended reading before I visited Kenya for myself in the early 90's. So, having just finished it and now half way through Shadows on the Grass, my overall impression is a pleasant one. I enjoyed Dinesen's writing style very much, and would agree with many readers that Out of Africa deserves a place among the classics in English literature. It's Karen Blixen's memoirs of her time in Kenya around WWI, living and working on her coffee plantation near Nairobi. Her descriptions of the Natives, her European friends, the land, the animals, flora and fauna are incredible. The chapters shift back and forth in time, some focused on specific events and individuals, some more whimsical and anecdotal. Reading Out of Africa transports the reader into early 20th Centrury colonial Kenya, and more concretely, onto Ms. Blixen's farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills. Years later she takes up her time in Africa again in Shadows on the Grass, talking more about her loyal Somali servant & right-hand man, Farah, taking a more philosophical tone regarding "masters & slaves", Native superstitions, manners, and so on. Shadows is inferior in many ways to Out of Africa, and it feels more like an "addendum" to the main work, which is poetry by comparison. By the time she writes it, she seems to have grown slightly more distant, and well, Colonist European.

As for Out of Africa, if you've seen the movie version and are looking for it here you're in for a surprise because the book contains no overt romance between Karen & Denys, nor mention of siphylous, nor much in the way of Karen's own personal life. Her ex-husband, Bror is almost non-existant. That makes sense seeing that she wrote under a pseudonym for whatever reaons. Still, I was slightly disappointed not to find more personal thoughts or emotions from her, or discussions regarding the politcal, historical, or economic backdrop of Kenya. Or the workings of the coffee business there. (I have yet to read it, but from what I gather "Uhuru" by Robert Ruark is an excellent novel dealing with these types of affairs in Kenya in the next generations after Blixen, in the 1950's & 1960's). Also, Blixen is very much a product of the times and her colonial attitudes and mindset sometimes come across as condescending or negative towards the Africans (mostly in certain passages in Shadows though). However, I do believe that in her frequent comparisons between the animals, land, and Natives Blixen is actually praising and admiring the people, not being racist or mean, as one reviewer here claims. She frequently praises the Kikuyus, Masai, and Somali she lives with for their numerous attributes (as well as the European settlers) and for their simplicity and harmony with nature, versus the repressed and "civilized" Europe she comes from. One other thing that's different from the movie is her attitude towards hunting. In the movie it's as though she doesn't hunt at all, but in the book she specifically mentions her intitial desire to shoot one of every kind of local game (though she does later express some distaste for hunting, she remains enthusiastic about shooting lions, comparing it in Shadows to "a declaration of love" and hunting to being a sort of "love-affair"). She means respect, but oh how the times have changed now with all the big game enthusiasts shooting game with . . . cameras from pop-top mini-vans!

Once I let go of the movie (its own masterpiece of beauty & cinematography) and my intellectual curiosities, and came to accept Blixen's memoir as it is, I enjoyed it more and more as I read on. I took my time reading it, savoring it, and reflecting upon my own safari experience (with a camera) in Kenya not too many years ago, and found much to admire and contemplate in her writings, even if from a different era. While Out of Africa isn't especially deep or philosphical, nor dramatic or emotional, it somehow comes across as a grand novel, and there are moments when all of the above hit you. This is due primarily, I think, to Blixen's having lived a fascinating life in a unique period and place, and knowing how to tell a story without overdoing it - she just writes her own experiences. One good example of this balance can be found in one of my favorite chapters entitled, "A Fugitive Rests on the Farm" from Part III. In it, a Swedish immigrant and traveler named Emmanuelson stays briefly on Karen's farm, discusses his lonely and peripatetic life with her, and eventually walks off into the Masai reserve all alone, putting his fate into God & the Masai's hands. The sparse detail and images are great. Likewise, her rememberances with Denys Fitch-Hatton are wonderfuly scenic and memorable as well, and subtly romantic. All the vignettes she relates are mostly undramatic, straight-forward, and though unforgettable. Out of Africa is a unique literary memoir and journal of a diverse group of people come together in one specific place and time, bonded together by the very soil in which the coffee trees they lived for were once planted, and live on in these organic pages.

Rating:
Summary: Gorgeous
Review: If any of you have ever wanted to visit Africa and know you will never have the opportunity, read this book. It is a narrative without artifice, written in gorgeous prose and with extreme tenderness. Karen Blixen's love affair with Africa will make you long to roam the Masai reserves and to hear the cry of the eagles and the roar of the lions. This book will stay in your heart long after it ends.