Customer Reviews

Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass

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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.

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.

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.

Time does not diminish true talent and Dinesen had talent to let. With every re-read, I am transported to a magical place and another time.

It's difficult to find truly magical prose in today's publications. Recently, I was hungry for some poetic fiction and pulled this volume from my bookshelf. I'm so glad I did.

Karen Blixen writes with true insight and an artist's approach about her beloved farm in Africa. There's a paragraph where she wonders if Africa knows of her like she knows of Africa. What other author has ever asked that question? She also details the migration of buffalo, elephant and antelope with such majesty that the mind's eye can almost see the dust rise from under their hooves.

If you're looking for a satisfying story that will entertain you for many nights, read "Out of Africa." You will not be disappointed.

I came to this book expecting to read one woman's personal experience of living in Africa, and that's what I found. There is no sociology here, and very little historical context. She does not illuminate THE African experience. She records HER African experience. Certainly that is all she owes the reader? One woman's experience, one woman's life in a time very different from our own.

Do some of her observations shock the modern reader's sensibility? Oh certainly. There are things one simply does not SAY, and back when she wrote, she did. On the whole, her love and respect shine through when speaking of the people who entered her life as neighbors, employees and friends.

Dinesen brings to life a physical landscape that most of us will never get to see. She takes passionate delight in her work, her companions, and her surroundings. Even her setbacks are embraced, as they compose part of a life she knew was slipping away from her.

I was intrigued by what she didn't write. The book maintains almost complete silence about her husband, her health, and her relationship with Denys Finch Hatten. It is only in writing of his death that we understand how deep her feelings were. She writes around that love. Her discretion made my heart ache.

Very highly recommended.

The prose in this book is lush, the writing lyrical, even if it often rhapsodizes the ordinary, like many books white people write about Africa, where the landscape and animals are more important than the people. But at least Dinesen does devote time to people - her African servants, especially Farah, who she clearly comes to love, albeit in the way that one loves a lesser mortal.

Despite that, Dinesen's view on Africa is fundamentally racist, very much a product of its time. She incessantly compares Africans to animals. As an African, I read much of this book with disdainful amusement at so much ignorance masquerading as truth, and, less often, with empathy at her misguided earnestness. All her generalizations on the different tribes are silly - "all `Natives' have in them a strong sense of malice, a shrill delight in things going wrong." And her epiphanies are even sillier - when a `Native' shows himself to be a genius at western-style cooking, she thinks to herself: aha! perhaps Western civilization is divine and predestined.

Most shocking is that SHADOWS ON THE GRASS, written years after she left Africa, sounds more racist than OUT OF AFRICA. One would have thought that time and changing attitudes would have changed her views, and released her from the cage of the `times she lived in.' It is in SHADOWS ON THE GRASS that she propounds her theory of retarded mental growth in black people. Kikuyu children, she writes, stop developing mentally at age nine. But the irony is that she seems to be unaware that her stories of her Kikuyu servants - who come across as intelligent - do not support this theory.

At the end, she writes about the servants she has kept in touch with. Moving enough, but there was something about the insistent tone that made me wonder if this was a woman keen to present an `image of herself.

...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.

Those who loved this book as I do should also read Beryl Markham's alleged autobiography [actually a biography] "West with the Night", and also "The Lives of Beryl Markham" by Errol Trzebinski [Norton]. And, if you can find it, "Silence will Speak: A study of the life of Denys Finch Hatton and his relationship with Karen Blixen", also by Trzebinski. Out of print and hard to find, but worth reading. PS: needless to say, "Letters from Africa" and a couple of the good biographies of Dinesen.

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.

The movie kind of left me feeling indifferent, however, the book, so well written, far surpasses it. If you miss the skilled, thoughtful, clever, intuitive way Blixen describes what might be seen as an everyday event by the casual observer, you simply miss the gift of this work. She communicates in such a way that you are certain you have felt that way once or shared those identical feelings. I am reading this book again for the second time and it has a peculiar way of transporting me out of my current curcumstances into the world of South East Africa in the early 1900's. I am sure that when I finish it, I will feel like I did the first time, as if I was losing a close friend.