A "Top" Amazon review says Babette's Feast is good but Out of Africa is poorly written. LOL, I could say Robert Colin Bryant's review is repetive, verbose, and poorly written.
Excerpts:
I got this book because in Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast”, he was talking to the bartender at a Paris bar, 20-30 years after he lived there, about their mutual friends during the 1920s. During the conversation, Hemingway and he discussed Baron Blixen-Finecke (he and Hemingway were sailing/drinking pals) and Hemingway mentioned that Blixen’s ex-wife Karen wrote an excellent book on Africa, titled ”Out of Africa”. I decided to go for it. Original 1937 edition.
Sad to say, this is a poorly written autobiography that deals with much irrelevant minutiae ... It is not literature. It is a haphazard non-linear journal/memoir.
Pros:
- ... a solid view of the pompous, elitist, decadent New Imperialists of the time. Note: That is not the book’s intention. Termed the “Happy Valley Set”, they were Lords, Ladies, Barons, and Baronesses that overused their inheritances, lost money on their hair-brained schemes, used drugs and alcohol to extremes, and reportedly swapped wives. In short, the lunatics in their own asylum wrote their own rules. This is fascinating to learn, especially after reading Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. One can see how and why the Africans became to loathe their “protectors” and kicked out all the Imperialists in the 1950s and 1960s. Check out the BBC 5-part documentary on Kenyan History on You Tube. Also, Eddie Izzard’s 2000 “Dressed to Kill” standup is spot on;
- From an historical context (again), the English merely “took” the country (termed a “protectorate”) and made it a playground for their rich, thereby pushing the natives into servitude and to the brink of destitution. By 1916, after killing thousands, burning countless villages, razing crops and confiscating hundreds of thousands of farm animals, the English controlled 5 million acres of rich farmland (the “White Highlands”), controlled by 1000 Europeans. They further forced the natives to carry ID cards (think: Germany in WW II (Jews) and China today (Uighurs). Belgium, of course, did even worse with the Congo, and France with Cambodia and Vietnam;
- In spite of history, which was not her doing (but her life choice), Blixen does come across as humanly sensitive, kind, often perceptively brilliant, attuned to nature, African culture and the native peoples;
- ... a lone woman, albeit very wealthy and privileged, living alone, albeit with 100s of slaves…I mean servants…was a unique thing in pre-war America and/or Europe. Indeed, a different read for the time;
5, 6, 7, 8, 9
.... The word “hypocrite” comes to mind.
.... I learned a lot reading this book, specifically about New Imperialism and the British in Africa and India (the Raj). It struck an historical chord with me. I recommend skipping this book, or speed reading it, and watching Redford and Streep. The book has great tidbits for a movie script, but the movie was “loosely based” on the book for a reason. Read Blixen’s short stories from later in her career (the 1950s). That is her craft and she excells at it. “Babette’s Feast” is superb, as is the movie.
RE: A Big House,Tiny Garden Update