Customer Reviews

Out of Africa

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Isak Dinesen, nee Karen Blixen, lived in East Africa for almost twenty years making a living as the proprietor of a coffee plantation. Out of Africa is a memoir of her experiences there. But the book is so much more.

The stories are interesting to be sure. They relate to the plantation or the people and events that one way or another impacted her life there. But it is Blixen's writing that I found so sublime. I have never read anything like it. The way Blixen turns a phrase is both lyrical and enchanting all at once - you become literally swept up in the words and imagery. It is obvilious that Blixen loved Africa - something about the continent got under her skin. In a similar fashion her words have gotten under mine. I have read Out of Africa several times; each time I marvel at the beautiful language she uses. Read this book and I am sure you will feel the same way.

Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) has been elevated to star status by the feminists for her independent stance and courage, but don't read this book because of that. Don't look for the tragic story of her misguided marriage and the heartbreak and barrenness it brought her, or for descriptions of her love affair with adventurer Denys Finch-Hatton. None of that appears here.

Instead, "Out of Africa" is a storytelling book woven in the imaginative Danish style. Dinesen's finely tuned sensitivity is revealed here, as well as her (again typically Danish) well-developed gift for friendship with many kinds of people. In her case this gift extends to African animals as well, like Lulu, the beautiful gazelle who graced her plantation for years.

Her descriptions of the Kenya of her day are exquisitely written, factual and magical at the same time. Africa is the star of the book, not Dinesen herself, not the tribespeople or the colonials, not her struggles with raising coffee in land "a little too high", nor her political dealings with the government officials. Her writing evokes the Africa she knew well and loved deeply.

Forget the movie and read the book instead. Isak Dinesen's love for Africa and her adopted homeland shines through every page as she helps us to vicariously experience like on a Kenyan farm. The book is loosely plotted and Dinesen is not shy about expressing her personal views, so expect some opinionated writing from this lady. She doesn't romanticize Africa, as many writers do. She tells it like it is, which is great, as far as I'm concerned. If you're looking for King Solomon's Mines, foget it, but if you have any interest in Africa, past or present, you're sure to like this book.

Out of Africa is an literary accomplishment that will remain in history as portraying Africa as it really was in that era. Karen Blixen was so in touch with the native tribes of Kenya. Her deep respect for their customs and lives is obvious in this book, which wasn't common then among the new European settlers. The way that her fascinating stories unfold is remarkable, making long hours of the night spent trying to put the book down without success.

I saw Out of Africa as a child, and read the book in college, which inspired me to go to Kenya when I graduated. I visited the land that Karen Blixen donated upon her departure from Kenya, which was turned into a town named "Karen", and her home and everything in it have been preserved, down to the lantern she would leave on for Finch-Hatton. Still today the town's people speak of Karen Blixen in great admiration, perhaps giving back what she unconditionally gave to them.

I would recommend this book to anyone who knows how to read!

I decided to read this book because in the book "Catcher in the Rye," Holden says that he "wouldn't mind calling this Isak Dinesen up." So anyway, I agree with him for the most part, and there's no doubt that Baroness Blixen would have some interesting stories to tell over the dinner table. However, the book Out of Africa is a bit less enjoyable than a one on one chat, and her descriptions in general are pretty objective. There were two main things that bothered me:
-Much of the beginning of the book is a sort of 'how Europeans are different than Africans.' I understand that her second class treatment of the natives was an accepted attitude of the time, but it seems that her observations about race take up a goodly chunk of her book.
-Another thing that irked me was that she quotes many secondary sources in the book, and many of them she doesn't translate into English. I unfortunately don't speak either French or German, and so I wasn't able to interpret much of the poetry and references she included.
Aside from those two things, the book is still an interesting, albeit occasionally slow, read. It was hard to really connect with her at the beginning, because she seems to view herself as some kind of high and mighty princess, and I just wasn't that insterested in her point of view. However, I think as the book progresses she opens up more about her own life, and you really start to understand how much she truly loves Africa, her workers, and the farm that she poured her heart into. She tells about the people she befriends and their adventures and quirks. She also does an amazing job describing the African scenery. I'd reccommend it, but keep in mind that it starts off slow.

This is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. The writing is beautiful and delicate and brilliant. One of the miracles of the book (and I hope I don't scare anyone off by saying this) is that there are many incidents where not a lot is happening, but the writing is so fantastic, it keeps you reading. (There is plenty of drama in the book, too.) And Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen paints the characters wonderfully. As Truman Capote said of this book, "Every page trembles like a leaf in a storm." I lived in Kenya for a year when I was a boy, which increased my interest in the book. But even without that experience, I know I still would have loved it.

Karen Blixen, the author, managed a six thousand acre farm in Kenya, of which some six hundred acres were used for growing coffee, apparently for all intents and purposes all by herself from 1914 to 1931. The movie depicts her moving there from her native Denmark rather haphazardly with an accidental husband, who leaves for his own escapades soon after they arrive, only occasionally returning for a visit. The book hardly ever mentions her husband, and does not run in a chronological sequence like the movie, but consists of a series of mostly time-unrelated stories.

The most beautiful and touching section to me is the opening one entitled "Kamanate and Lulu". The author has been criticized to some degree for assimilating the racism of the day and for her priviledged position as a Baronness in a time of European Colonialism. She writes that in her very young days, "I could not live till I had killed every specimen of African game". A curious attitude for a young woman - perhaps reflective of the coming World War when armies lined up and executed each other for no memorable reason; and perhaps reflective of what was happening in Africa and Asia where Native people were forced off their land, leaving them no choice but to be utterly dependent on menial work for a pittance. But in these opening stories of this young native boy whom she helps to cure of a debilitating illness that nobody seems to pay attention to, and adopts an orphan bushbuck fawn, it becomes clear from the start that she had a real heartfelt love for the Native people and a strong and abiding connection to the harsh beauty of the land and its unbelievable variety and the wonder of its wildlife. She became dependent on the Native people in many ways, and recognized their dependency on her. There is a sense of humility, learned no doubt from the difficulties of being alone in a dangerous and risky place. She knew that she could never know these people for certain, that they would always be somewhat unfathomable, but she cared enough to find out quite a number of things about them and to admire them as well as sometimes being amused by their ways. That the name of the native boy and the bushbuck are juxtaposed lends credence to a criticism that the author does not distinguish between the humanness of the Natives from the animal, or at the very least cannot view them as more than children. But I do not think that criticism is valid here. Her point was that to understand the Native people of Africa one must first understand the land.

A quintessential, lyrical love poem to East Africa. Karen Blixen's years of joy, discovery and struggle unfold beautifully in "Out of Africa"...which she wrote years later (under the pseudonym Isak Denesen) after returning to her native Denmark. What is absent from the book which one finds in the Oscar-winning film are the relationship struggles with her long-time companion Dennys Finch Hatton. Here she keeps her focus on the many friends, employees and characters she met along the way in the operation of her coffee plantation during the early 1900s...and avoids writing romantically about Finch Hatton. Her love affair with Africa though is beautifully and eloquently expressed throughout "Out Of Africa." Those readers who may be interested in reading more about her and Finch Hatton might be interested in reading her "Letters From Africa."

"Out Of Africa" is essential reading for those contemplating a journey to Kenya or Tanzania. It reads like a very colorful and sometimes haunting work of fiction, and is all the more fascinating because this remarkable woman and writer actually experienced it all.

It's maybe one of the best books I've ever read, and I think it is because it's so human. It's not only that the small things that happen became important throughout its pages, but because the atmosphere that reflects the book transports you to a very real place where life is as crude and simple as everywhere else in the world.

I really had a great time reading it, and I will do it again without any doubt.

It's tough to bungle a memoir set in Africa - early 20th-century, a hilltop coffee plantation, with lions, hyenas, giraffes, zebras and views of Kilamanjaro - and Karen Blixen largely avoids it. Surrounded by offbeat adventurers and Kikuyu retainers, the author has innumberable sources of interest to draw from.

I saw the movie when it premiered in 1985 and, maybe because of my youth, found it to be quite a sleeper. Some twenty years later, I find the book, as is often the case, to be significantly better. But, this doesn't disguise the fact that Blixen's written work can be somewhat disjointed. She skips hither and yon and too often casts aside a recollection before it's much anticipated completion. Kamante, a cherished and endearing Kikuyu child, a seemingly essential component, disappears without trace though ostensibly remaining within the author's immediate employ. One is left disappointedly pondering where this disarming youngster has gone.

All things considered, however, the period and place overpower any literary shortcomings. Blixen's scattershot approach still manages to bestow a palpable sense of wonder. It feeds the pull a person feels for the savannah, the safari, the elemental mystique which is the continent of Africa. I recommend it. 4+ stars.