Once I got over the feeling of having accomplished nothing remotely noteworthy in my life, I was able to enjoy the excitement of Beryl Markham's, and her appreciation of it. West with the Night is a beautiful book (regardless of the controversy over who really wrote it). Others have expressed the strength of its language and imagery and insights, and the power of the story filled with Markham's remarkable adventures. It is also a book about friendship and acceptance of things, for good or bad. Colonized Africa supplies a complicated setting--far more complicated than I would pretend to understand--for a white, English heroine who clearly respects and loves Africa and Africans but also enjoys the privileges accompanying her English identity. The memoir is broken into parts. The third part ends with Markham informing Arab Ruta, a Nandi friend from childhood-turned loyal servant, that she will leave their established life of training horses to learn to fly planes. He responds, "If it is to be that we must fly, Memsahib, then we will fly. At what hour of the morning do we begin?"