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Out of Africa

by Isak Dinesen, Karen Blixen

3.92 · rating details · 6,729 ratings · 472 reviews

Out of Africa is Isak Dinesen's memoir of her years in Africa, from 1914 to 1931, on a four-thousand-acre coffee plantation in the hills near Nairobi. She had come to Kenya from Denmark with her husband, and when they separated she stayed on to manage the farm by herself, visited frequently by her lover, the big-game hunter Denys Finch-Hatton, for whom she would make up s...more

Hardcover, 399 pages

Published January 12th 1984 by Modern Library (first published 1937)

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Community Reviews

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Jan 04, 2008

Andrea rated it

I chose to read this book in high school as one of those free-reading things for which you later have to give a presentation. This is a book about Africa for white people who want to go on a safari and see the cool animals, which is basically what the author did. I kinda hated Karen Blixen for her condescending attitude towards the "natives" and I felt the whole book was nothing but pretentious, self-aggrandizing bullshit. If I had had any courage, I would have done two things differen...more

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Feb 21, 2010

Ken-ichi rated it

Recommended to Ken-ichi by: Elizabeth

Shelves: snoot, africa, memoirs, autobiography, nature

This is a book that I enjoyed without loving, but it nevertheless provided some novel experiences and food for thought, and what more can we ask of our books? I mean, besides spaceships and explosions. Dinesen's writing (and Dinesen herself) seems alternately lyrical and pragmatic, equally direct in describing grisly accidents with firearms or the otherwordly sensation of flying, but the whole was too fragmented and impressionistic to ever really dig its claws into me.

That said, it...more

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Mar 20, 2008

Ebookwormy rated it

Shelves: carp-500, world-africa

This book captures the charm, the majesty, the beauty of Africa and her native people. A beautiful read full of stories about the tensions arising from the colonization of Kenya, and it's benefits (things like better medical care).

However, as far as biography, I found the book rather shadowy. There is reference to a husband, but no discussion of him. Reference to sickness but no clarity as to what caused it. Raferences to male friends, but no insight into their relationship with the ...more

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Dec 22, 2007

Christie VanLaningham rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: reality

This has been on my "must read" list forever. When I picked it up, I'm embarrassed to say, I wasn't immediately aware that it was a memoir. I knew about the movie, and just assumed it was a novel based on Dinesen's experiences. So - it felt a little slow in the beginning, as I got my bearings. But Africa quickly seduced me, and I found myself fighting a low-grade fury that the Africa of her day was lost forever. How often does this irritation rattle me? All these places and times and I...more

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Mar 23, 2009

Lenoir rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: memoirs, 2009

Ok, I'll admit it. I really didn't love this book. I didn't even finish it. I am adding it as read because I read more than half of it and I should get something out of it since I won't be getting my time wasted back. I'm sure you are supposed to read this for the lovely descriptions of Africa (and it does sound quite lovely) but if I had to read another comparison of a native to an animal I thought I was going to scream. There was zero story line. It was just not something that I could apprecia...more

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Jul 05, 2008

Richard rated it

a memoir written about her experiences in Kenya Africa before and just shortly after WWI. She owns a large coffee plantation by herself. There is a husband mentioned briefly but he is gone, but she never elaborates. The book covers the same time period as The Flame Tree of Thicka, which I really liked. Dinesen’s story takes place somewhat north of Nairobi and the Thicka is somewhat south. In about the same area. I wondered often if the two families ever knew each other. Dinesen tells the ...more

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Jan 16, 2009

James rated it

Shelves: memoir, study-group, world-lit, european-lit

Out of Africa is Karen Blixen's memoir about her years in Africa, writing as Isak Dinesen. She recounts the world of Africa, specifically Kenya. It is, like the England of her friend Denys Finch-Hatton, "a world that no longer existed" even then and certainly as she left it. The memoir is a slow read, yet a book with prose in which you can luxuriate, or languish perhaps as it seems to mirror the mammoth African landscape. Reading like a pastoral novel, the narrator interested me with h...more

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Jun 21, 2007

Astrid rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: non-fiction

I first chose this book because the english section in the french bookshop was very limited. However only after a few pages "Out of Africa" really made me stay in my chair, very unwilling to put it down. It is beautifully written and gives such an insight into the colonial life in Kenya in the early 20th century.

Karen Blixen writes about her life on the farm, the daily running of it, her on-farm workers and her place in it all. As her husband was very rarely there, it was K...more

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Jul 23, 2008

Maureen rated it

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: africa, biography

I first ran across Karen Blixen's name in the Janet Flanner/ Solita Solano files in the Library of Congress unpublished manuscripts division. She was a compatriot of theirs in the twenties in Paris. This is the only book of hers that I have read. I enjoyed her descriptions of the wildlife and natural surroundings of Kenya, but I always felt that something was missing from this book. Maybe it was her husband. Maybe it was a feeling I had that she did not tell the whole story about why she ha...more

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Dec 02, 2008

Denis rated it

There's a reason why people keep reading this book decade after decade. It's a masterpiece, a memoir about life on a farm in Africa that is filled with such humanity, generosity, love, and nostalgia that it is impossible to resist. Dinesen does wonders at telling a rather simple story in ways that keep the reader captive. It's enchanting like a real, bittersweet, exotic, mysterious fairy-tale: with the author's words, her life on the African continent becomes an extraordinary adventure of almost...more

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Apr 26, 2008

Karen rated it

Author is a brave woman running a farm in East Africa during World War I. She is super smart but rather dry and especially in the first half of the book, impersonal. Even if one hasn't seen the Hollywood movie, you can't help but ask yourself "Where the hell is Robert Redford?" And in fact, even after his character appears in the novel, you're still not sure it's him, since Dinesen writes as if she is sexless. In this sense, the film does sort of kill the book, b/c without such exp...more

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Mar 12, 2008

Cherie rated it

Shelves: non-fiction

B Isak Dinesen moved to Africa to farm with her husband, who she separated from, and lived alone on her farm with "the Natives" or "my squatters," having her lover visit her occasionally. It's a very interesting portrayal of a white European colonist living in Africa, with her unique experiences. At times, it bothers me a bit (the Europeans living in Africa at that time were racist), but her writing really is lovely and fascinating. Tidbit: I found out about this book from re...more

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Nov 08, 2011

Ann Canann rated it

Shelves: novel

When H/P transferred my family from Singapore to France I took advantage of the opportunity to drop down on the continent between the two, for a long vacation and photo safari on Africa's horn. The utter blackness at night was amazing to this city girl. On the few nights we spent in tents, rather than lodges,there was so much noise – insect, bird and animal hoopla – that it was hard for me to sleep. The lion roars were particularly unnerving. At the same time I was glad to be awake because the c...moreWhen H/P transferred my family from Singapore to France I took advantage of the opportunity to drop down on the continent between the two, for a long vacation and photo safari on Africa's horn. The utter blackness at night was amazing to this city girl. On the few nights we spent in tents, rather than lodges,there was so much noise – insect, bird and animal hoopla – that it was hard for me to sleep. The lion roars were particularly unnerving. At the same time I was glad to be awake because the cacophony had its own profound beauty. Early one morning at the foot of Kilimanjaro, to our delight, my three little girls and I found ourselves up close and personal with an elephant and her baby.

Africa is a continent, of course, not a country, so knowing one part of it might not tell you much about another. My long trek across the Sahara was entirely different than the experience in East Africa. Isak Dinesen lived in and writes in the mid thirties about Colonial Kenya in the area where my then husband amassed a hundred or so photographs of the rear ends of animals running from us. With an unrivaled eye for landscape and character Dinesen shares the tremendous beauty and difficulties of living in what was then British East Africa and later became Kenya. In this memoir, in era of the Great War she comes across as a brave woman who stands up to war, horrid weather, and dangerous animals.

Ahead of her time, she understands that the relations between black and white are like the differences between sexes,different yes, but necessary one to the other. Even her farm and surrounding jungle have a symbiotic relationship. Sadly, in the end she finds herself way too weary to continue fighting the entire world.

I understand Isak Dinesen's insatiable appetite to see and experience, and her desire to leave it all behind and live somewhere else - somewhere entirely different. The book is episodic, reading like a series of short stories. I love that she reaffirms the joy in small things and quiet moments. She presents a luscious picture of Kenya so real you can feel the humidity and smell the soil.(less)

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Sep 19, 2011

Lynne-marie rated it

A brilliantly episodic and descriptive narrative of Dinesen's years "at the foot of the Ngong Hills," as she so famously puts it. Here is a true lover of Africa in its state before colonialism ceased and political correctness hid many of its simple beauties or destroyed them altogether. Dinesen seems to have a sense that she is documenting a time that will soon be lost history, yet she still allows her whimsy and imagination to play. In fact, although one knows disreputable facts ab...more

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Jun 27, 2011

Madeline rated it

Shelves: the-list

"Looking back on a sojourn in the African highlands, you are struck by your feeling of having lived for a time up in the air. The sky was rarely more than pale blue or violet, with a profusion of mighty, weightless, ever-changing clouds towering up and sailing on it, but it has a blue vigour in it, and at a short distance it painted the ranges of hills and the woods a fresh deep blue. In the middle of the day the air was alive over the land, like a flame burning' it scintillated, waved, and...more"Looking back on a sojourn in the African highlands, you are struck by your feeling of having lived for a time up in the air. The sky was rarely more than pale blue or violet, with a profusion of mighty, weightless, ever-changing clouds towering up and sailing on it, but it has a blue vigour in it, and at a short distance it painted the ranges of hills and the woods a fresh deep blue. In the middle of the day the air was alive over the land, like a flame burning' it scintillated, waved, and shone like running water, mirrored and doubled all objects, and created a great Fata Morgana. Up in this high air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be."

In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway called Out of Africa one of the best books written on Africa that he'd ever read. Based on this recommendation, and the fact that it's on The List, I decided to give the book a try.

First thoughts: I can see why Hemingway liked it so much, since a good portion of the story is hunting-related. I imagine Hemingway would have even given Twilight a positive review if it had at least three scenes where the heroine shoots a lion. Aside from all the hunting stories, the writing in the book is truly gorgeous, and Blixen's descriptions of Africa are definitely worth the praise they've been given. She's at her best when writing about incredibly sad subjects, like how her farm went under and she had to sell off her possessions one by one, and my favorite mini-story in the whole book was about Blixen seeing a pair of giraffes about to be shipped off to a zoo in Europe, and ends: "As to us, we shall have to find someone badly trangressing against us, before we can in decency ask the Giraffes to forgive us our transgressions against them."

Things get a bit hairy, however, whenever Blixen is describing the actual people in Africa. Her view of the Natives (always capitalized) is perfectly appropriate for her time period, but will make 21st-century readers a little uncomfortable. She's fond of making impossibly broad generalizations about Africans ("All Natives are gamblers") and often compares them to some wild animal in order to explain their behavior to her white readers. It's historically accurate, of course, but she sometimes comes off sounding like your pretentious friend who studied abroad in South America for a semester and always tells people that Chile is actually pronounced "Cheel-ay."

The focus of the book is Africa, only, to the extent that Blixen absolutely refuses to tell us anything else. Did you know that her husband gave her syphillis, or that she later carried on a long affair with Denys Finch-Hatton? I do, but only because the book's introduction told me. There's very little of Blixen's personal life in this book, and very few of her thoughts that don't relate to Africa. Africa, and everything it meant to Blixen during her time there, is the main character in this book, and there isn't much room left for anything else. (less)

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Jun 14, 2010

Rowland Bismark rated it

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Following Finch-Hatton's death and the bankruptcy of the coffee farm, Dinesen returned to Denmark and moved back into the estate where she was born, Rungstedlund. It was after she returned home and was living with her family that Dinesen began to write in earnest. She adopted the pen name, "Isak Dinesen," the term "Isak" being the Hebrew word for "one who laughs." She also decided that she should write in English, because it is a language that is more widely read th...moreFollowing Finch-Hatton's death and the bankruptcy of the coffee farm, Dinesen returned to Denmark and moved back into the estate where she was born, Rungstedlund. It was after she returned home and was living with her family that Dinesen began to write in earnest. She adopted the pen name, "Isak Dinesen," the term "Isak" being the Hebrew word for "one who laughs." She also decided that she should write in English, because it is a language that is more widely read than Danish. Her first collection was Seven Gothic Tales published in 1934. It secured Dinesen's reputation under her new name and was well received in both America and England. In 1935 and 1936, Dinesen wrote Out of Africa which was first published in 1937 in England and 1938 in America. It was an immediate success. Her later publications include Winter Tales in 1942, Last Tales in 1957, andShadows in the Grass in 1961. She died in 1962 of malnutrition in Runstedlund.

Isak Dinesen longed to be a storyteller in the tradition of Scherherzade, the narrator of Arabian Nights. As she once expressed in an interview, her true ambition was to "tell stories, beautiful stories." Dinesen's desire to be a storyteller is obvious in Out of Africa. The book appears to be a memoir, but is arranged as a series of anecdotes rather than as a chronology of Dinesen's life. Because the book is neither memoir, autobiography, nor novel, it defies being neatly placed into a genre. Some critics, such as Susan Lasner, view Dinesen's decision to make the text structurally ambiguous as an intentional, and subversive commentary against the colonial government that she was describing. Others simply note that Out of Africa fulfills Dinesen's desire to tell amazing stories, in an anecdotal fashion. Robert Langbaum points out that the book is structured in five parts, like the classical tragedies that Dinesen so admired. The initial four parts present Africa as a pastoral paradise; the final fifth part turns tragic and depicts Africa as "paradise lost." Overall, the most frequent comment on Dinesen's work relates to her rich, lyrical style. Because of its detailed beauty, Truman Capote once called Out of Africa, "one of the most beautiful books of the twentieth century."

Out of Africa tells the story of a farm that the narrator once had in Africa. The farm is located at the foot of the Ngong hills outside of Nairobi, in what is now Kenya. It sits at an altitude of six thousand feet. The farm grows coffee, although only part of its six thousand acres is used for agriculture. The remaining parts of the land are forest and space for the natives to live on.

Isak Dinesen proposes that Africa is a pastoral landscape in which men exist in a truer form than they do in Europe. With modernization, industry, and cities, Africa exists as a land where everyone lives close to nature. Man's proximity and reliance on his surroundings place him in a position much as he was at the beginning of time. As a result Africans are able to remember truths that Europeans have since forgotten. Africa exists as a virtual paradise, much like the one where Adam and Eve once dwelt. Dinesen's philosophy emerges from the "pastoral school" consistent with many nineteenth century writers and painters, who believed that man exists in his most godlike form when he has a strong connection to nature.

Dinesen believes that Africans and Europeans are fundamentally different. This difference emerges not because of biology, but because the European and African exist on different planes of history. Because of their different historical backgrounds, natives and Europeans possess fundamentally different characteristics. For example, the native mind functions in a different way than the European mind, because the European mind has lived through the Renaissance whereas the native mind has not. Dinesen does not say whether or not the European or native mind is preferable. Because of the essential difference between natives and Europeans though, Dinesen sees future trouble as they try to resolve their different relationships to modernity. Dinesen is not sure how the native Africans, who exist in a more pure human state, shall manage.

God is a motif that appears frequently in Out of Africa. God primarily appears because he implicitly references the notion that Africa is an paradise- like landscape, which is one of Dinesen's primary themes. When the narrator flies in a plane, she compares looking down to looking with the eyes of God. When she realizes that her mule actually looks like a spoon, she notes that God, with his vantage point, certainly would notice this shape as well. When the narrator writes stories, she compares herself to God who was able to breathe life into Adam. The frequent references to God continue to highlight Dinesen's idea that Africa is a pastoral landscape that remains closer to the ideal as God actually intended.

Dinesen's belief that natives can will themselves to die relies upon her belief of their essential nobility, as well as their harmonious connection to their surroundings. The Masai, for example, die in prison because they cannot live without their glorious plains. In the same way, the stubborn ox resists having his spirit broken and prefers death. Dinesen believes that death is a more valid alternative to being oppressed. She sees the native ability to die as a way they can maintain their freedom, no matter how much Europeans want to control them.

Dinesen frequently discusses storytelling, primarily with references to her favorite story 1,001 Nights or Arabian Nights, as it was recounted by Scherherzade. Dinesen describes that she likes to tell stories to keep her friends entertained. She shares stories with the Somali women. She recounts long oral tales to Denys Finch-Hatton, since he prefers hearing stories to reading them. Dinesen's continual references to her ideal of storytelling help to explain what she is trying to do in Out of Africa. Her ideal is perfectly shaped anecdotal stories that capture characters, colors, and textures and are meant to amuse. The motif of storytelling informs the author's intentions.(less)

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Apr 07, 2010

Kelley rated it

Shelves: four-stars

I really enjoyed the book. There were parts that dragged a bit. There were also very small parts that she wrote in Latin, Danish, German, or something I didn't recognize...all of which I didn't understand and they weren't translated so that broke the story she was trying to tell up for me and detracted from what I got out of it. The descriptions of Africa and her farm made me want to move there and have a grand adventure of my own!!

I loved Lulu the deer(real name forget) and Kamante ...moreI really enjoyed the book. There were parts that dragged a bit. There were also very small parts that she wrote in Latin, Danish, German, or something I didn't recognize...all of which I didn't understand and they weren't translated so that broke the story she was trying to tell up for me and detracted from what I got out of it. The descriptions of Africa and her farm made me want to move there and have a grand adventure of my own!!

I loved Lulu the deer(real name forget) and Kamante the servant. I love the chief Kinanjui who was assumed dead after his strong drink.

Some of my favorite writting....
Fashions have changed, and the art of listening to a narrative has been lost in Europe. The Natives of Africa, who cannot read, have still got it; if you begin to them "There was a man who walked out on the plain, and there he met another man," you have them all with you, their minds running upon the unknown track of the men on the plain. White people even if they feel that they ought to, cannot listen to a recital. They become fidgety, and remember things that should be done at once.

A man who had traveled in Mexico had met a very old Spanish lady, who lived on a lonely farm in the mountains, when she heard of the arrival of a stranger, had sent for him and ordered him to give her the news of the world. "Well men fly now, Madame."
"Yes I have heard of that," said she "and I have had many arguments with my priest about it. Now you can enlighten us, sir. Do men fly with their legs drawn up under them, like the sparrows, or streched out behind them, like the storks?"

"You were up high today, we could not see you, only hear the aeroplane sing like a bee." I agreed we had been up high. "Did you see God?"
"No Ndwetti we did not see God"
"Then I do not know at all why you two go on flying."

The early morning of the African highlands is of such a tangible coldness and freshness that time after time the same fancy there comes back to you: you are not on earth bun in dark deep waters, going ahead along the bottom of the sea. The stars are so large because they are no real stars but the reflections, shimmering upon the surface of the water.
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Mar 02, 2010

Natalie rated it

Recommends it for: anyone who's just finished ring of bright water

Shelves: real-life, memoir, africa

It's been 25 years since I read out of africa the first time. What remains with me from this autobiographical account of isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen's life in Kenya from 1914-1931 and her romance with Denys Finch Hatton is not just the scale of the land and its influence on all around, which was huge - but the author's own resposne to the challenges of her household, farming, work, and repatriating back to Denmark. Those images of her will to influence and make the best of small things remain jus...more

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Jan 04, 2010

Sly rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Imagery beyond mortal imagination is captured by Dinesens descriptive naratives. I felt as though God, himself, was painting on canvass as her words spilled from the page. Here are the three quotes that I read and re-read:

1.) "The cicada sing an endless song in the long grass, smells run along the earth and falling stars run over the sky, like tears over a cheek. YOu are the privileged person to whom everything is taken. The Kings of Tarshish shall bring gifts." *from...moreImagery beyond mortal imagination is captured by Dinesens descriptive naratives. I felt as though God, himself, was painting on canvass as her words spilled from the page. Here are the three quotes that I read and re-read:

1.) "The cicada sing an endless song in the long grass, smells run along the earth and falling stars run over the sky, like tears over a cheek. YOu are the privileged person to whom everything is taken. The Kings of Tarshish shall bring gifts." *from II, A shooting Accident on the Farm, chapter one.

2.) "How beautiful were the evenings of the Masai Reserve when after sunset, we arrived at the river or the water-hole where we were to outspan, traveling in a long file. The plains with the thorn trees on them were already quite dark, but the air was filled with clarity, --and over our heads to the west, a single star which was to grow big and radiant on the course of the night was now just visible, like a silver point in the sky of citrine topaz. The air was cold to the lungs, the long grass dripping wet and the herbs on it gave out their spiced astringent scent. In a little while on all sides, the cicada would begin to sing. The grass was me, and the air. The distant invisible mountains were me the tired oxen were me. I breathed with the slight night-wind in the thorn-trees." * from IV, An Immigrant's Notebook, A war-time safari (chapter 11.)

3.) And finally, lamenting the sad vision she saw of two giraffes that were crated and on their way by ship to a traveling menagerie in Germany, Dinesen wrote,
"In the long years before them, will the Giraffes sometimes have dreams of their lost country? Where have they gone to, the grass and the thorn-trees, the rivers and water-holes and the blue mountains? The high, sweet air over the plains has lifted and withdrawn. Where have the other Giraffes gone to, that were side by side with them when they set going, and cantered over the undulating land? They have left them, they have all gone, and it seems that they are never coming back." *from An Immigrant's Notebook, The Giraffes Go To Hamburg (chapter 25.)
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Dec 07, 2009

Steve rated it

HEADLINE: The film of the same name bears no relation to the book in any truly important respect.

The biggest piece of baggage many of us bring to this book is the film of the same title, admittedly a visually stunning one. However, consider as you read the book what Brenda Cooper of Utah State University points out in her thesis, a point that I happen to agree with adamantly based upon my own reading of this book:

Recent research indicates that questionable choices a

...moreHEADLINE: The film of the same name bears no relation to the book in any truly important respect.

The biggest piece of baggage many of us bring to this book is the film of the same title, admittedly a visually stunning one. However, consider as you read the book what Brenda Cooper of Utah State University points out in her thesis, a point that I happen to agree with adamantly based upon my own reading of this book:

Recent research indicates that questionable choices are made in order to fit women’s stories to the ideological structures that dominate mainstream Hollywood films. As one example, in Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa, the parts of Isak Dinesen’s original stories that resist patriarchal and political ideals of race, gender and religion are omitted, while the parts that survive distort Dinesen’s unconventional stories in ways that reinforce patriarchy and conform to conventional American ideologies (footnote omitted).

The major themes of Dinesen’s autobiography were her criticisms of colonialism and her deep affection for Africa and the indigenous people she lived and worked with for nearly 20 years on her coffee farm in Kenya. The Kenyans’ pain and the European settlers’ bigotry that were major themes in Out of Africa, however, are nonexistent in Pollack’s film version, replaced with narratives that glorify rather than criticize the colonial effort and settlers. Dinesen poignantly expressed her grief over the changes the European settlers had forced on Kenyans and their culture, and her compassion for their struggles to maintain their identity and dignity. In the film, however, Dinesen is recast as one of the "offending European settlers, forcing her will on the native people without any sensitivity to their wishes or culture" (footnote omitted).

Further, the compassion Dinesen expressed for the country and its people in her autobiography are appropriated by the film’s leading male character, Denys Finch Hatton. The real Finch Hatton was committed to the colonial effort, but in the film he is represented as Dinesen’s moral superior. Explaining why he changed Isak Dinesen’s story so dramatically for his film, Pollack remarked: "For film purposes, it seemed . . . (that) invention was much more economical than the facts and dramatically much better" (footnote omitted).

This captures precisely why I so detest seeing great books made into films for the mass market.

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Oct 21, 2009

Lori rated it

Out of Africa, once read, is not easily forgotten. Karen Blixen writing under the name Isak Dinesen tells the story of the 17 years on her coffee plantation in Africa. This is a book written from the heart and my emotions were moved more than once by the prose and thoughts on the written page. What I did find very disconcerting was the flat out racism toward the native people of Africa, acceptable among Europeans at that time but so strongly outdated in this time as to be offensive. She has a mo...more

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Jun 06, 2009

Betty w. rated it

I like Dinesen's descriptive writing. She is a poet. Though written from a colonist view point she did feel at home in Africa and I think the land spoke to her soul and her new sense of identity that she found there. My favorite quote is where she writes of the sadness of relocating the natives to the Kikuyu Reserve from their homeland on her white owned farm when she was forced to sell it. She writes: " I felt that they were not asking for a place to live on but, that they were demanding t...more

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Apr 06, 2009

Edward Waverley rated it

A Fictional Dialogue, Anticipatory of Your Objections to the Present Use of a Book Forum as a Film Forum

You: Greg, you read Out of Africa?
Me: No, but I saw the movie of the same name this weekend.
You: Why are you telling me this? Particularly here?
Me: Because no one reads me on Netflix, and at least two people read me here.

Keep Out of Africa off your Netflix queue. There are of course two conventional camps of opinion about movies like this one. Other mo...moreA Fictional Dialogue, Anticipatory of Your Objections to the Present Use of a Book Forum as a Film Forum

You: Greg, you read Out of Africa?
Me: No, but I saw the movie of the same name this weekend.
You: Why are you telling me this? Particularly here?
Me: Because no one reads me on Netflix, and at least two people read me here.

Keep Out of Africa off your Netflix queue. There are of course two conventional camps of opinion about movies like this one. Other movies that belong in this family include Titanic and The English Patient. These are movies that we go into knowing ahead of time that we are expected by one of the camps to love the movie in question, and being fully aware also that there is the other and opposite camp, the one which expects us to hate the movie. The existence of the hate camp is perfectly understandable from an aesthetic point of view because there is something so distasteful (nearly diseased) about being told relentlessly (and breathlessly) that one MUST admire the movie. However, this objection to being cornered into a particular opinion does not in itself discredit the possibility that the movie might in fact be GOOD. No. The possibility continues to exist that it will be BOTH GOOD and POPULARLY ACCLAIMED. However, as the hate camp will hasten to show, this coincidence of merit and popularity is quite unusual.

Anyway, I’m in the hate camp with respect to Africa. It was just as overblown and underwritten as its critics have likely implied. (No I haven’t read the blurbs on Netflix, nor the old rotten tomatoes stuff. I’m just assuming that this movie has the usual two camps, its champions and its enemies.) Well if you HAVE TO make a movie about a lonely Danish baroness and how she blesses the natives of Kenya with her gracious wit and her building of a village school, then it will HAVE TO star Meryl Streep. And Robert Redford will HAVE TO be the Lord Byron/Heathcliff figure. None of these things guarantees a bad result, not at all. Its just that there is a bad result. Redford actually drops a “what-difference-would-a-piece-of-paper-make?” bomb. As in, why should we marry? I’m free, you’re free, etc. Now why did he say that? Why did he say that line? Or why was it written, or rather plagiarized and regurgitated in that particular way? I mean, what’s the point of writing a script if it’s going to include the observation that a romantic relationship is not altered by bringing in a piece of paper??? Because we’ve already heard that line in lots of different sitcoms and it has no place in what keeps on trying to be an epic but keeps on winding up a soap opera.(less)

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Jan 09, 2012

Harmonybites rated it

Recommends it for: Those Who Love Beautiful Prose

Recommended to Harmonybites by: 1001 Books

Shelves: 2012-around-the-world, biography, classics, fiction, literary-fiction, memoir, non-fiction, travel, ultimate-reading-list

Out of Africa is the memoir of a Dutch woman's seventeen years on her coffee plantation in Kenya from 1914 to 1931. I had never read Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) before--and I haven't seen the film based on this book--but I could immediately tell I was in the hands of a poet. Her description of Africa is very lyrical--the book is studded with prose poems to nature, describing with lush imagery the skies, the trees (it did not grow in bows or cupolas, but in horizontal layers...gave to the solitar...moreOut of Africa is the memoir of a Dutch woman's seventeen years on her coffee plantation in Kenya from 1914 to 1931. I had never read Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) before--and I haven't seen the film based on this book--but I could immediately tell I was in the hands of a poet. Her description of Africa is very lyrical--the book is studded with prose poems to nature, describing with lush imagery the skies, the trees (it did not grow in bows or cupolas, but in horizontal layers...gave to the solitary trees a likeness to...full-rigged ships) or elephant herds in the forest (...in a giant size, the border of a very old, infinitely precious Persian carpet, in the dyes of green, yellow and black-brown). Indeed, the prose is so gorgeous, that given her anecdotal structure and love of 1001 Nights, I'd say this is one magical carpet ride. So many passages are quotable and unforgettable.

I felt more mixed on her depictions of the "Natives." She had some keen observations of customs and behaviors, but she made my inner PC squirm a bit, and continually wonder what the Kikuyu, Somali and Masai would have had to say about her interpretations. Every once in a while, some of the oppressiveness of the colonial system comes through in her tales, as when some of her workers are jailed for performing traditional dances, or her cook flees because his former employer threatens to have him conscripted if he doesn't come back, or a young boy is flogged to death for a minor infraction and the colonist gets off lightly. Dinesen does speak of how the natives were robbed of their lands, and how they can't even legally buy land under the colonial system. I didn't get much of a sense of outrage from Dinesen, but she comes across as far from callous. In fact I think a lot of mutual respect and love between her and the people around her comes through. Remember, this was published in 1937. It was a very different time and Dinesen sees things from a very different lens than we would in post-colonial times. I don't think you can just dismiss her as racist; it's more complicated than that. To enjoy the book, you have to see her view of things as all part of the ride.

I think what I found most wanting though, in what is supposed to be a memoir, is any sense of her inner self beyond her response to Africa. A brief note about Dinesen heading the text hinted at a very interesting life. She had a troubled marriage, an intense love affair with Denys Finch-Hatton, that's pretty much absent from the memoir. Her husband is barely mentioned. The book's brief biographical note says he infected her with syphilis. Ibsen's Ghosts, which deals with that subject, is actually mentioned in the memoir, but Dinesen never alluded to the connection. And while Finch-Hatton is featured in two of the chapters, "Wings" and "A Grave in the Hills" she never hints they were lovers. The book probably should be subtitled "notes about a Kenyan coffee plantation" because what she relates felt very fragmentary, not pulled together into a unified story, and strangely impersonal. I don't think that's a flaw per se, but very much part of her design. But it left me frustrated at times, leaving me wishing I could read some commentator or companion book that would let me know all about what Dinesen leaves obscured.(less)

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Jul 09, 2011

Ants rated it

· review of another edition

It is gratifying that Karen Blixen, writing under the name of Isak Dinesen, has inspired so many readers of her work. Unfortunately, the inspired reading does not seem to correlate to accurate descriptions of the book.

Based on the ISBN number, this book is a Sierra Club picture book that uses quotes from the original story as well as historical and current photos to present a visual image of Isak Dinesen's Africa. The Sierra Club picture book was published in 1985. For this read...more

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Oct 21, 2009

Ruth rated it

One of my all-time favorite books. I find it far more interesting and appealing than her moralistic fantasies. What a fascinating woman she was.

If you only know this as the film, you've missed a lot. Yes the film was visually gorgeous, but it's a mere shadow of the book. And pity poor Robert Redford, in a dreadful case of miscasting. Denys Finch-Hatton was dashing and debonaire.

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Jan 13, 2009

Emily rated it

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen is on the list of 1000 books you need to read before you die. As fascinated as I am with literature depicting the African savannah (since so few books seem to deal with this area), I struggled with Dinesen's work, primarily because I found the narrative hollow and uninspiring. She clearly had a kind heart for the African workers on her farm, and seems to completly give herself over to the life in Africa, but Dinesen never opens up to the reader and while maybe th...more

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May 16, 2009

Millicent rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: no one! why are we still pretending this colonial drivel has value?

Recommended to Millicent by: Mom

Shelves: colonialism-and-imperialism, place

I have no idea why my mom recommended this book to me. A white British colonist tells the story of her privileged life on her coffee plantation in Kenya. She writes some great imagery about the Kenyan landscape and tells funny stories about animals, except that her idea of the landscape and animals includes all the Black servants and workers and "squatters" on her plantation. She is really stupid and proudly naive. It's awful. For example, when she jokingly threatens to fire all o...more

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Nov 26, 2007

Meredith rated it

I loved this book. If I had written it, I would have done it much more conventionally, more as an adventure story. But Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen's real name) has a completely unique voice. Her love of Africa is so vivid that sometimes it's painful. I want to reread it, but it took so much out of me that I'm hesitant to do it all over again.

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Mar 28, 2011

Mardel Fehrenbach rated it

As was true the first time I read this book, 30 some-odd years ago, I initially found it hard to get into the flow of the story, but eventually Dineson's prose, her lyrical way with words, and her charming observations and descriptions won me over. The high point of this particular reading occurred one morning when I found myself sitting out on the edge of the deck watching the sunrise with a cup of coffee as I was reading Dineson's description of coming across a lion and and killing it in the...more

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About Isak Dinesen

Karen Christence Dinesen, Baroness Blixen-Finecke - wrote as Isak Dinesen, Pierre Andrézel, Tania Blixen, Osceola, etc.
A Danish writer, who mixed in her work supernatural elements, aestheticism, and erotic undertones with an aristocratic view of life, Blixen always emphasized that she was a storyteller in the traditional, oral sense of the word. She drew her inspiration from the Bible, the A...more

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Quotes from Out of Africa

“You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions.” — 41 people liked it

“People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue. They also know that the real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom. It is not the freedom of the dictator, who enforces his own will on the world, but the freedom of the artist, who has no will, who is free of will. The pleasure of the true dreamer does not lie in the substance of the dream, but in this: that there things happen without any interference from his side, and altogether outside his control. Great landscapes create themselves, long splendid views, rich and delicate colours, roads, houses, which he has never seen or heard of...” — 24 people liked it

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