Out of Africa

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View books by Karen Blixen, Isak Dinesen.

Quite Possibly the Most Interesting Read - Rated
Despite of being one of the most renowned authors in history, one might be tempted to ask: Who is Isak Dinesen? Who is this woman who spend her entire life searching for something that could never be? There is no answer to such an impossible question.

"Out of Africa" is first of all an incredibly stubborn piece of literature. It tempts you and annoys both at the same time. Even though it is written with such passion, it is almost impossible not to hate the Baroness for being so damn hard-headed. The line, "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills" has become legendary, and there is not modern reader today who hasn't heard this famous line. But the irony that caught up with Karen was what finally drove her out of her beloved Africa. Africa was never hers. The farm was never really her home. Love never truly trusted her to love. She indulged in a relationship that was never meant to be due to her own intelligence. For a woman who was so smart in life, she sure wasn't very clever in love, and that is why she never received the same love she so eagerly gave away herself.

In the end, this book is a must read. It will fascinate you to no end. Who is this woman? Why does she insist on being so damn hard-headed? Read, and you may find the answers.

Evocative but rather slow - Rated
There is no doubt that Karen Blixen paints a distinctly lyrical and poetic picture of her beloved Africa in these pages. Her knowledge of local customs is vast; her relationship with her native workers is touching; her deepest thoughts and daily experiences are rich and varied.

But on the whole I found reading this book a chore. Although vaguely chronological, most of the events in this book are simply well-observed vignettes stitched together in a loose retrospective narrative. The most absorbing sections by far are the passages dealing with a 'shooting accident' on the coffee plantation...and any pages featuring the exploits of Denys Finch Hatton. I found it difficult to muster any sincere interest when reading entire chapters devoted to a pet antelope, however.

The entire memoir is written so well, you see - but it moves at the pace of a snail. I longed for some excitement along the way...and enjoyed it when it arrived. But it appeared only once in a while. Let's just say that 10% of the writing seems to deal with tense, dramatically engaging issues - and 90% focuses on swaying grass, distant hills and slightly arrogant musing. This, no doubt, mirrors and captures the unfictional events it is describing...but dare I say that it was so true-to-life that it unwittingly held onto the more mundane side of it?

Beautifully written - Rated
I consider Out of Africa to be the best-written portrayal of Africa by a foreign writer. She did a great job in her portrayal, indicating that she was well versed not only with the land, but also with the native African peoples she met and knew as well as their way of life. The fact that Karen respected that way of life made her to have a deep understanding of their customs and lives at a time of colonialism where European settlers lived an exclusive life from the natives and only dealt with them as sources of cheap labor. I could not help recalling other titles set in the colonial era such as THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES, DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, NOWHERE IN AFRICA. However, Karen towered above the others in her unique style of recounting her stories.

Deeply Engaged in Living - Rated
Baroness Karen Blixen's famous memoir of her years on the coffee plantation high above Nairobi is significant for her description of what today's Kenya was like in the early part of the 20th century, for the book's influence for attracting and shaping the reactions of many who followed her to Kenya like Dr. Jane Goodall, and her engaging personality for taking on the challenges, trials, and problems of others while grasping their perspective on her. Although a progressive thinker for her day, sex, and class, nevertheless Ms. Blixen's views on the native Africans will not sit well with most modern readers (from referring to men who worked for her as "boys" to her inclination toward seeing native Africans as perpetually apart from the machine-inventing and using Europeans). Conservationists will be appalled by the casual shooting of lions who might have been chasing domesticated cattle.

The book is also notable for its lack of organization, often scanty details, and rapidly shifting focus. There are several places about 70 percent of the way through the book where you will wonder why she included the material at all, and even more why there in that particular spot.

The book's ultimate appeal is to the concept of being a young woman on her own in a beautiful part of African with the freedom and resources to explore herself and Africa.

I should like to have known her. A woman with such warmth and empathy for others must surely have made a wonderful friend. There's an element of Don Quixote in her as she pursues her impossible dream of a coffee plantation in the wrong place that's also appealing.

After you finish reading the book, I suggest that you think about where you could go today and have such a close connection to your new neighbors. Would you like to do that? What would you be willing to give up for this emotional resonance?

See yourself as others probably see you! Let humility be your guide.

Captivating - Rated
As an avid reader, Out of Africa still remains one of my favourite books. I have returned to it many times to absorb myself in the world of Africa at the turn of the 20th century.

Karen Blixen lived in Africa from 1914 to 1931 where she set up a coffee plantation. Through the book she meanders through her life in no chronological order telling wonderful stories about the people she encountered while there. She gives the reader no hints on her personal live leaving you picking through the story desperately trying to figure out the woman behind the life.

I found this book both stirring and remarkable and will return again and again.

"If I know a song of Africa," she writes, "of the Giraffe, and the African new moon lying on her back, of the ploughs in the fields, and the sweaty faces of the coffee-pickers, does Africa know a song of me?"