The Weather in Africa

by Martha Gellhorn

A collection of three novellas about Europeans in East Africa written by journalist and former wife of Ernest Hemmingway, Martha Gellhorn.

Genres: Africa, Fiction, Travel, Short Stories

Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Martha Ellis Gellhorn (1908-1998) was an American novelist, travel writer and journalist. She is considered to be one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century. The Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism is named after her.

Reviews

[JerryDeanHalleck · Rating 1 out of 5]

A better title would be "The Whites in Africa" since the actual Africans are treated as either background figures or intruders. That aside, its the last, and in many ways the least, of Gellhorn's published fiction, with 3 novellas set in Kenya. It has the usual Gellhorn faults: Flat or melodramatic characters, lack of local atmosphere and detail, and standard plots. Its astounding that Gellhorn lived 14 years in Kenya and yet produced characters/stories that could have been written by someone who only knew Africa as a tourist.

The first, "On the Mountain" is a rather slick/silly story of two sisters who run a Mt. Kilimanjaro Hotel. The homely heroine who loves Africa ends up happy, the pretty sister who hates Africa, ends up sad. Its 50 pages.

The 2nd Novella, "By the sea" is the best. Its only 28 pages but has some emotional wallop. Based on Gellhorn's real life experience, its about a distraught white woman who kills a native in a car accident.

The 3rd Novella "The Highlands" is 100 pages. It tells the -far too long - story of a lonely WW2 Vet who builds a farm in Kenya, and marries a British woman, he learns to despise. None of the characters are convincing. The villainess seems to display every trait Gellhorn hated. She's proudly English, plain, humorless, lower class, conformist, cowardly, and racist. Astoundingly, she's NOT fat, another attribute Gellhorn gave to dislikable women characters. Anyway, its 100% soap opera with an anti-racist twist.

[Thibault Jacquot-Paratte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gellhorn writes in a clear and very straightforward style - perhaps due to her background as a reporter. Nonetheless, you can feel her capacity to play, expriment with, and transform narrative structures, syntax, etc. - this being most felt in the book in "By the sea".

She also shows without becoming heavily descriptive multiple social and psychological traits in her characters. For example, she accurately portrays racism, I find, without it being "explained". What I mean is that her portrait of racism - to take only one of the elements - only appears as "part of the story", or "a reality of the time", without it being done in any visibly voluntary, or "preachy", for that matter, manner. She portrays it, and nothing more, and only by that portrait, do we see, and know how it was.

Her stories are also rich of multiple images. In the first novella, "On the mountain", we may end up asking questions in regards to morals, expectations, how our ideals work out, what we might perceive without knowing "the whole story". The third and longest novella, "In the highlands", in some aspects, resounded in me as an allegory for communism, and in it's whole, felt like a very political novella. Nonetheless, it may lead us to consider class questions on top of other things. The second novella, "By the sea", is in ways more straight forward, yet as I said, the most virtuoso in style and form.

Overall, this is a good book, and not only would I recommend it, but I would enjoy discussing it with others.

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three interesting but not hugely memorable novellas. "On the Mountain" follows the fortunes of 2 sisters, close in age but widely different in every other respect. Both have come back to the hotel their parents built on the slopes of the Kilimanjaro after failing to find what they wanted on other continents. Jane's failed dream to succeed as a singer has left her so bitter and rudderless that the first thing she does when she comes home is to start an affair with a black civil servant. Since Jane is a racist through and through, the affair turns into a sadomasochistic game which has disastrous consequences for both parties. Mary Ann, on the other hand, finds true love with a married botanist who finds a way of extricating himself from his awful marriage and all is well that ends well.
"By the Sea" is a short tale about a distraught woman who can't get over the death of her 8 real old son. On a whim she embarks on a holiday to Africa but has the hard luck of killing a small boy while driving a rental car. Although she is not to blame, the accident reactivates her sense of failure in life, and when a venal hotel attendant tries to blackmail her into paying off the dead child's father, she commits suicide.
The longest story, "In the Highlands", follows the fortunes of Ian from the moment he sets foot in Africa after several years as a prisoner in a German camp to his middle-age as a prosperous farmer with a loving adoptive daughter. Ian's simple life is nearly derailed by a misconceived marriage with an ugly, vulgar and grasping school mistress who briefly deluded him into thinking she is his ideal helpmate. But while Betty adopts a beautiful white girl solely as a faire-valoir, and becomes an object of loathing for the whole expat community, Ian adopts in secret the grand-daughter of one of his farm workers who does become his true spiritual child.
I guess it is one of the weaknesses of theses stories that Gellhorn often pits upstanding people against crass individual who despise Africans and pay the price for it. Excess subtlety isn't in evidence here. On the other hand, Gellhorn is a good story-teller and her portrayal of Kenya on the brink of Independence and just after Independence is of some interest.

[Johanna C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of difficult to rate a book of 3 different stories. The first two I found weak - both in structure and plot. Especially the first one. The second I found much better. Especially after I found out it to be autobiographical and I do like Gellhorn. The last story I found superb. Very well written, excellent characters, and great story line. I know that Gellhorn struggled with fiction and the first story definitely shows this weakness but the last story shows her prowess as a writer. I give the first two stories 3 stars and the last 4.

[Ryan Murdock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three stories of Africa by the journalist and travel writer Martha Gellhorn.

She captures the landscape and the smells of East Africa — the slopes of Kilimanjaro, cool farm highlands in Kenya, the heavy humidity of the coast — but also that sense of dislocation we feel when moving through a place where we are outsiders, and things happen that we can never understand.

[Adrien · Rating 2 out of 5]

wanted to like this one but i just couldnt get into it. some good descriptions but thats about it unfortunatly

[Moniek Baars · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik kan hier heel kort over zijn: het eerste verhaal was schokkend slecht geschreven. Een puzzel voor je brein, omdat bijwoorden werden gebruikt die zorgden voor verkeerde logica. En frustratie. Maar, want, terwijl, hoewel, net even op de verkeerde plek. Lag het aan de vertaling?

Het tweede verhaal ging over een gebeurtenis die Gellhorn zelf heeft meegemaakt en waar ik altijd met verwondering over las: ze reed in Afrika een kind dood en iedereen zei dat het de schuld van dat kind was. Zo wordt het afgedaan in brieven en in haar biografie. Een paar zinnen en dat is het dan. In deze novelle kampt ze wel degelijk met een schuldgevoel en met verwarring omdat iedereen zomaar wijst naar de moeder van het kind die haar zoontje had moeten leren uit te kijken op straat. Echt te zot voor woorden qua inhoud. Wat het verhaal betreft: beter te behappen dan het eerste, al vond ik het wel vervelend dat ze maar blééf heen en weer springen in de tijd.

Het derde verhaal was fijn om te lezen. Ik vergat tenminste haar als schrijfster, en alle achtergrondinfo die ik inmiddels heb. Het ging over een jonge schuchtere man die in Afrika een boerderij koopt van een oude man, en hoe hij zich staande houdt tussen de witte mede-boeren en rijken en ploeteraars. Hij trouwt een vervelende vrouw waar hij geen seks mee heeft want dat vindt hij maar niks. Zij adopteert dan een kind waar ze een verwend poppetje van maakt en hij stimuleert dat die twee zoveel mogelijk op reis gaan of elders bivakkeren. Zelf neemt hij de zorg op zich voor een donker kindje, dat niet van hem is maar dat per ongeluk ter wereld is gekomen. Later, als hij van tafel en bed gescheiden is van zijn vrouw, adopteert hij haar echt. In tegenstelling tot het poppetje-dochtertje kleedt hij dit meisje als tomboy. En zo is iedereen happy ever after. Ik zag het als een schets van het leven daar. Al met al vond ik het tegenvallen. Er wordt altijd zo hoog opgegeven van haar journalistieke kwaliteiten dat ik even vergat dat fictie een andere tak van sport is.

[LindaMoctez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading books about Africa; mainly because I know I'll never go there. Martha Gellhorn clearly has that intrigue of Africa, which so many writers express and draw you towards. The dreamlike landscape takes you into a realm where you’re prepared to experience anything. The first story of the two sisters is powerful as it takes you into their passion and pain, only able to witness the train wreck you see coming. The second story involves a child tragedy and is simply awful so I refuse to relive a word of it. The third story is the best, as the reader enjoys a portrayal of a truly ghastly colonial woman and a broken man who heals himself through devotion to the land and work and the love of a native child. A highly recommended read

[Wendy Greenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slices of life unknown to me. I found these novellas absolutely compulsive. The absorption came from a completely pervasive tense of time and place. This is the African Last Days of the Raj with its accompanying litany of career colonists.

Gellhorn brings a whole lot more to the party. The first two stories - Mountain and Sea felt to me redolent of the journalist. Lots of background colour, small episodes, minor plotting yet each display rippling consequences from careless actions. The third is more plotted, more character driven, more satirical taking a comedy of manners to its outermost edges.

None go well but the intrigue of Africa in this post 2WW war period is magnetic

[M.L. Dunker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Martha Gellhorn’s war journalism and was interested to see how her fiction held up. These three novellas explore colonialism in Kenya post WWI and WWII through the eyes of settlers and outsiders. Africa is a main character with all three stories giving it a star turn of beauty and romance. There are lots of discussion points in the book and I can see it as a book club read, a critical literary read, and an exploration of race, culture, women, and the lack of understanding and unwillingness to accept or respect others. A victim of the time it was written in.

[Filipa Teixeira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Martha Gellhorn writes with striking clarity, portraying landscapes and characters without excess but with deep impact. She shows human flaws, tensions and resilience without preaching, making the stories feel both of their time and timeless.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well told novellas linked in different ways, these tales are about colonialists but the author points out their faults and caprices.

[Guy Salvidge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five stars for 'By the Sea', which is brilliant. One star for 'In the Highlands.'

[Russell James · Rating 5 out of 5]

These three novellas might be cancelled by shallower intellects today, but they should be classed as literature, capturing settler life in and around the time of Kenyan independence.