Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass [Paperback]

Isak Dinesen (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 23, 1989

With classic simplicity and a painter's feeling for atmosphere and detail, Isak Dinesen tells of the years she spent from 1914 to 1931 managing a coffee plantation in Kenya.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Out of Africa is Karin Blixen's love letter to the country she called home for nearly 20 years. Arriving in British East Africa (now Kenya) from Denmark in 1914, Blixen--Isak Dinesen was her pen name--was immediately seduced by the landscape of the Ngong hill country, not to mention the animals and people who inhabited it. Her descriptions bring this wonderland alive for readers: out on safari, she recalls the movements of a group of giraffes, "in their queer, inimitable, vegetative gracefulness, as if it were not a herd of animals but a family of rare, long-stemmed, speckled gigantic flowers slowly advancing." Blixen laces into her reverie the account of her coffee plantation--which ultimately succumbed to high altitude, droughts, and tumbling international coffee prices--and tales of her friendships with other colonials in Nairobi. But one should read her memoir for the stories she tells of cooking with her Kikuyu chef (who almost never ate any of the European delicacies he so expertly created), adopting an abandoned infant antelope, flying over the countryside in her lover's plane--"the greatest, most transporting pleasure of my life on the farm"--and watching the children of her tenant farmers collect at her house each day at noon for the spectacle of her cuckoo clock.

Though some of her references to native Africans will likely make today's readers uncomfortable, Blixen can also be perceptive, particularly in her articulation of the differences between European and African culture and her excitement over what she learns from "her" Africans. It is not long before she is attuned to the rhythms of nature: she can foresee when the rains will come, can spot the new moon before anyone else on the farm, and knows exactly what the silence of night should sound like. Though her sorrow is almost unbearably palpable when at last--after the collapse of the farm, the loss of her lover, and the war looming--Blixen leaves Africa, the reader will close the book richer for her sojourn. --Jordana Moskowitz

From the Inside Flap

With classic simplicity and a painter's feeling for atmosphere and detail, Isak Dinesen tells of the years she spent from 1914 to 1931 managing a coffee plantation in Kenya.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (October 23, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679724753
• ISBN-13: 978-0679724759
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #25,762 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > Travel > Africa > Kenya

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Here I am, where I ought to be. November 19, 2004

By Christopher Nelson

Format:Paperback

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.

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars She loved Africa -the people, the place and the way of life August 12, 2001

By Linda Linguvic HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Writing under the pen name of Isak Dinessen, "Out of Africa", published in 1937, was written by Karen Blixen who lived in Kenya from 1914 to 1931. She was from Denmark and had come to Kenya to marry her Swedish cousin, but even though the marriage didn't work out, she stayed on their 4,000 acre coffee farm. In loving detail she describes her way of life, including some extensive descriptions of incidents involving her native servants. Through it all her love for the people and for Africa shines though. The reader lives her adventures with her and shares her regrets when the farm fails and she has return to Europe. "Shadows on the Grass", published in 1960 is a much shorter work and describes her relationships with some of her African friends in the years after she had to leave. Together these two books form the story of her world and stand today as both a literary and historical document to the times.

Ms. Dinessen used her words well. I particularly loved her characterizations of the native people who touched her life. . She had no medical training with the exception of a first-aid course and yet she doctored to the many people who worked for her. She was also a fine huntswoman, good with a gun. There were seasons of drought on the farm as well as attacks by grasshoppers and she wrote about all of this. Often her European friends stayed at her home, bringing food delicacies and wine. One of the men died horribly in a plane crash and her description of his funeral and his burial was most moving.

Perhaps some of her views on the differences between Europeans and the natives as well as the way she casually killed animals might not be considered politically correct today. And it was never clear to me if the man who died was her lover or not. She also makes not one reference to her failed marriage; I learned about that in the preface written by others. The central theme of this memoir is one of love, of a deep love for a people and a place and a way of life. I understand that the farm she lived on has become a shopping mall today. But we are all indeed fortunate to have her beautiful writings that bring us back to a time and place that is no more. Her words live on. And I thank her for them. Highly recommended.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Out of this world November 3, 2003

By M. A Newman VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Isak Dinesen is one of my favorite authors and one of the books contained in this volume, "Shadows on the Grass" is my favorite book of hers. I must confess that I think as a fully realized piece of literature, "Out of Africa" (making this collection of the two a real bargain) and for trademark decadent splender, "Seven Gothic Tales" is better, but I like this one for one story and one in particular which seems to merge both elements. This is "A Letter from A King" in which Dinesen recalls a lion hunt which she and Denys went on. Upon shooting a rather large lion she had it skinned and sent to the king. His majesty Christian X sent her a warm letter of thanks which she in turn used as a king of magic totem with the natives who worked on her coffee farm. The story contains far more elements than just that. I also must confess that when I first encountered this work of literature it was in the course of watching a film at the Karen Blixen house in Denmark where I watched as the author told to the story during the course of the film. The other stories in this book are excellent as well. I recommend this book as well as all of the other books that Isak Dinesen wrote, they are all wonderful.