Capitu's review of Seven Gothic Tales
Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen
These tales are like nothing I have read before. Isak Dinessen’s – nom de plume of Karen Blixen – narration feels like a walk through a labyrinth, where the unfolding story thread makes sharp turns, leads us into dead ends and dark corners, until finally we emerge on the other side a bit unsure of the place we have been. Like in a dream, one story merges into another, taking us along into deeper realms. And, with hypnotic powers, the narrator’s voice enchants and enslaves us.
I absolutely loved this book – or the reading experience of it. There is something primal in Blixen’s story telling that transports the reader back to the shaman beside the fire, or the medieval jongleur in a country fair, or yet the bedtime fairy tales we were read as children.
Beautiful and riveting, I feel intoxicated by it right now, and crave more and more of it.
I absolutely loved this book – or the reading experience of it. There is something primal in Blixen’s story telling that transports the reader back to the shaman beside the fire, or the medieval jongleur in a country fair, or yet the bedtime fairy tales we were read as children.
Beautiful and riveting, I feel intoxicated by it right now, and crave more and more of it.
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I'm a huge fan of these tales, too. I know what you mean by feeling intoxicated. It's a disappointment when you have to "surface" from Dinesen's lush universe, isn't it? 
Craving more...Winter's Tales and Anecdotes of Destiny while not quite at the heights of this collection are definately still really great.
Hello Kay and Adam, I had noticed that both of you were fans of Dinesen. I do intend to read more of her fiction – I read her memoir before and enjoyed it too, but was just dumbfounded by her tales. I think I will read Babette’s Feast, as I remember seeing the movie many years ago and being quite intrigued by it.
You might enjoy Judith Thurman's biography of Dinesen, which is very good, if a bit massive. I haven't read "Babette's Feast," either -- perhaps because I shy away from reading things after I've seen the film. It's been so long ago, though -- surely by now it's "safe" for me to read Anecdotes of Destiny, which I believe is the collection that contains that tale. I read a lot of fiction and nonfiction from that era in British East Africa that Dinesen portrays in Out of Africa. The best of the lot, in my opinion, is Beryl Markham's West with the Night, but there are many other vivid memoirs from the era. Dinesen's memoir struck me (in all honesty) as a bit proprietory -- she seems to have a peculiar sense of ownership for the land and people.
Having said that, I realize I should probably go back, look over the book again, and recheck if that impression still holds. Oh dear, I'll never manage to finish the books I'm already reading with all this (however productive) backtracking! Yet why bother amassing the new if one can't retain a grasp of the old?
