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Out of Africa #2
Modern Classics Shadows On The Grass
Isak Dinesen takes up the absorbing story of her life in Kenya begun in the unforgettable "Out of Africa", which she published under the name of Karen Blixen. With warmth and humanity these four stories illuminate her love both for the African people, their dignity and traditions, and for the beauty and wildness of the landscape. The first three were written in the 1950s and the last, 'Echoes from the Hills', was written especially for this volume in the summer of 1960 when the author was in her seventies. In all, they provide a moving final chapter to her African reminiscences.
127 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
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1244 people want to read
About the author
Isak Dinesen
167 books565 followersPseudonym used by the Danish author Karen Blixen.
Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke (Danish: [kʰɑːɑn ˈb̥leɡ̊sn̩]; 17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962), born Karen Christentze Dinesen, was a Danish author, also known by the pen name Isak Dinesen, who wrote works in Danish, French and English. She also at times used the pen names Tania Blixen, Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel.
Blixen is best known for Out of Africa, an account of her life while living in Kenya, and for one of her stories, Babette's Feast, both of which have been adapted into Academy Award-winning motion pictures. She is also noted for her Seven Gothic Tales, particularly in Denmark.
(wikipedia)
Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke (Danish: [kʰɑːɑn ˈb̥leɡ̊sn̩]; 17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962), born Karen Christentze Dinesen, was a Danish author, also known by the pen name Isak Dinesen, who wrote works in Danish, French and English. She also at times used the pen names Tania Blixen, Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel.
Blixen is best known for Out of Africa, an account of her life while living in Kenya, and for one of her stories, Babette's Feast, both of which have been adapted into Academy Award-winning motion pictures. She is also noted for her Seven Gothic Tales, particularly in Denmark.
(wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
September 15, 2016
Twenty-five years after her return to Denmark from British East Africa, Baroness Karen Blixen wrote “Shadows on the Grass”. The four stories in this novel were additional anecdotes that offered further glimpses of her sojourn in Africa from 1914 to 1931. Readers who love “Out of Africa” will appreciate the opportunity to be re-acquainted with Blixen and her Kikuyu and Somali Squatters. Blixen’s recount was a reprise of sorts – beautiful, tender and nostalgic.
Aspects of Blixen’s strong connection with her servants gained prominence in this short novel of less than 150 pages. In it she captured their voices, idiosyncrasies, and loyalty with a candor that was delightful and heartwarming. Reading what happened to the Natives some thirty years after Blixen’s departure was as gratifying as catching up with long lost friends. Commenting on her writing about her life in Africa, Blixen said, "People work much in order to secure the future; I gave my mind much work and trouble, trying to secure the past." That past was a dream – colorful, comforting, cherished. It became for her a bower of sweet remembrance.
Aspects of Blixen’s strong connection with her servants gained prominence in this short novel of less than 150 pages. In it she captured their voices, idiosyncrasies, and loyalty with a candor that was delightful and heartwarming. Reading what happened to the Natives some thirty years after Blixen’s departure was as gratifying as catching up with long lost friends. Commenting on her writing about her life in Africa, Blixen said, "People work much in order to secure the future; I gave my mind much work and trouble, trying to secure the past." That past was a dream – colorful, comforting, cherished. It became for her a bower of sweet remembrance.
April 28, 2019
ovu autoricu bolje ćeš prepoznati po njenom pravom imenu - karen blixen čije je najpoznatije djelo "moja afrika" (da, da, meryl streep i robert redford..). u ovoj knjižici (niti sto stranica) ona se kroz četiri priče s tridesetogodišnjim odmakom prisjeća svojih kenijskih dana, ljudi i događaja koji su obilježili njen boravak u africi. na neki način, kao da je htjela "upotpuniti", zaokružiti knjigu "moja afrika", kao da je sama imala osjećaj da je izostavila neke važne stvari pa to nadoknađuje sada.
taman mi je, nakon hamsuna, fino legla, kao produžetak jedne pastorale - u sličnom tonu, ali stilski sasvim različita. dio u kojem ti se obrve lagano u čuđenju podignu je onaj u kojem opisuje svoju lovačku strast: "kad sam prvi put došla u afriku, srce mi je bilo nemirno sve dok si nisam pribavila stvarno lijepi trofej od svake vrste divljači. (...) lov na lavove mi je međutim ostao kakav je bio otkad sam došla u ovu zemlju, požuda mojih očiju i čežnja mog srca. (...) stajao je nepomično [lav], okrenut na stranu i podignute glave, najljepša meta koju ću ikada vidjeti u životu.". u današnje vrijeme osviještenosti, ovo bi bilo potpuno neprihvatljivo i skandalozno, ali jasno je da se autor ne bi trebao izdvajati iz sredine, vremena i okolnosti u kojima piše.
ako imaš slobodno poslijepodne i zanimaju te običaji nigerijskih plemena i autobiografske crtice jedne dankinje na svojoj nigerijskoj farmi, pročitaj "sjene na travi".
taman mi je, nakon hamsuna, fino legla, kao produžetak jedne pastorale - u sličnom tonu, ali stilski sasvim različita. dio u kojem ti se obrve lagano u čuđenju podignu je onaj u kojem opisuje svoju lovačku strast: "kad sam prvi put došla u afriku, srce mi je bilo nemirno sve dok si nisam pribavila stvarno lijepi trofej od svake vrste divljači. (...) lov na lavove mi je međutim ostao kakav je bio otkad sam došla u ovu zemlju, požuda mojih očiju i čežnja mog srca. (...) stajao je nepomično [lav], okrenut na stranu i podignute glave, najljepša meta koju ću ikada vidjeti u životu.". u današnje vrijeme osviještenosti, ovo bi bilo potpuno neprihvatljivo i skandalozno, ali jasno je da se autor ne bi trebao izdvajati iz sredine, vremena i okolnosti u kojima piše.
ako imaš slobodno poslijepodne i zanimaju te običaji nigerijskih plemena i autobiografske crtice jedne dankinje na svojoj nigerijskoj farmi, pročitaj "sjene na travi".
March 14, 2018
Author wrote this one 30 years after she left Kenya. Its the last book she wrote. She died shortly after its publication. It fills in the facts of what happened to the people that Karen wrote about in her book Out of Africa. We get more information about Farah, the Somali-born servant who acted as her chief of staff. He is depicted as fiercely arrogant and utterly loyal, and his death is one of the most moving and tragic moments in the author's writing. Other characters who figure prominently include Kamante, who goes blind, old Juma, who dies, and Abdullahi, Farah’s son, who ultimately prospers.
In this book, the author is reflective and self disclosing, admitting that the African experiences made her writing possible. We also learn more about Masai and Kikuyu culture and the introduction of Western technology and culture, all of which made them listless and turned their old lives into boredom. There is less on the exotic landscape and animals and more on human values and spiritual appreciation. Perhaps she was saying goodbye to her friends in Africa. The author died of malnutrition. She was unable to eat. Some speculate that she died of anorexia nervosa.
In this book, the author is reflective and self disclosing, admitting that the African experiences made her writing possible. We also learn more about Masai and Kikuyu culture and the introduction of Western technology and culture, all of which made them listless and turned their old lives into boredom. There is less on the exotic landscape and animals and more on human values and spiritual appreciation. Perhaps she was saying goodbye to her friends in Africa. The author died of malnutrition. She was unable to eat. Some speculate that she died of anorexia nervosa.
April 25, 2025
What a great sequel!! Loved the story’s about someone who was a real world traveler
June 23, 2022
Later thoughts? Completing circles? Pieces from the cutting room floor? Dinesen famously recounted her experiences as a Danish pioneer in Kenta in her widely-acclaimed book, “Out of Africa.” “Shadows” is a modest appendix to her earlier work and adds details not included in the first autographical book.
The four sections of the book serve as short reports of her stay. “Farah” describes the excellent household management services provided by her Somali servant of that name. It also describes the associations of several other colonists with their Somali servants.
“Barua a Soldani” describes what healing power of a letter from a king has for her native servants.
“The Great Gesture” describes Blixen’s role as an impromptu physician to the locals living on or near her farm. It also introduces us to Blixen’s growing understanding of native logic regarding Western medicine. The hesitancy of Masai to go to the hospital is based on their custom of removing a dying person from a house; otherwise, if the person dies the house would have to be destroyed. Not destroying the hospital when someone dies in it was simply not acceptable. Of course, destroying a house in which someone has died from a communicable disease makes every bit of epidemiological sense. Blixen demonstrates a serious sense of cultural sensitivity.
“Echoes from the Hills” completes her book, concentrating on Abdullahi, the brother of Farah, who turned out to be another Somali gem, and small notes on her other servants and friends, ending with her “hibernation” in Denmark during the numbing Nazi occupation, 1940-1945. A snippet of literary information is included – how “Winter’s Tales” was written during this time and how it had to be smuggled out to neutral Sweden, thence to the UK and US for publication.
Throughout the book she paints a picture of what life was like for a European woman settling in Kenya in the first half of the 20th century independent of writings in her earlier book. Her plantation, largely based on coffee production ultimately failed, but she carried on as long as she could.
Blixen’s writing is informal, almost personal, as if she were chatting with a Danish friend not seen in years over afternoon coffee and pastries. I enjoyed the book and now must read its prequel, “Out of Africa!” and the two other previously unread Dinesen volumes I have at home – her wonderful short stories in “Winter’s Tales” and “Seven Gothic Tales.”
The four sections of the book serve as short reports of her stay. “Farah” describes the excellent household management services provided by her Somali servant of that name. It also describes the associations of several other colonists with their Somali servants.
“Barua a Soldani” describes what healing power of a letter from a king has for her native servants.
“The Great Gesture” describes Blixen’s role as an impromptu physician to the locals living on or near her farm. It also introduces us to Blixen’s growing understanding of native logic regarding Western medicine. The hesitancy of Masai to go to the hospital is based on their custom of removing a dying person from a house; otherwise, if the person dies the house would have to be destroyed. Not destroying the hospital when someone dies in it was simply not acceptable. Of course, destroying a house in which someone has died from a communicable disease makes every bit of epidemiological sense. Blixen demonstrates a serious sense of cultural sensitivity.
“Echoes from the Hills” completes her book, concentrating on Abdullahi, the brother of Farah, who turned out to be another Somali gem, and small notes on her other servants and friends, ending with her “hibernation” in Denmark during the numbing Nazi occupation, 1940-1945. A snippet of literary information is included – how “Winter’s Tales” was written during this time and how it had to be smuggled out to neutral Sweden, thence to the UK and US for publication.
Throughout the book she paints a picture of what life was like for a European woman settling in Kenya in the first half of the 20th century independent of writings in her earlier book. Her plantation, largely based on coffee production ultimately failed, but she carried on as long as she could.
Blixen’s writing is informal, almost personal, as if she were chatting with a Danish friend not seen in years over afternoon coffee and pastries. I enjoyed the book and now must read its prequel, “Out of Africa!” and the two other previously unread Dinesen volumes I have at home – her wonderful short stories in “Winter’s Tales” and “Seven Gothic Tales.”
December 6, 2020
Rather like a charming postscript to her previous memoirs. This book mentions some of the author's friends and servants readers will know from 'Out of Africa' (the book and the film). A few of the anecdotes are affectingly rendered, particularly her descriptions of her relationship with Farah. This book, I think, would be most appreciated by those who already know and enjoy her work.
January 20, 2018
There were cringe- worthy moments when reading Dinsen's essays, mostly because of the white saviour complex often associated with colonial writing. And even though she briefly talks about this at one point, it does not water down some of her perceptions or actions, no matter how modest she tries to appear. This is naturally based on a reading of the text and the impression that it leaves, it doesn't necessarily reflect on her per se. There wasn't much that made me think this collection is anything outstanding, but I can appreciate how personal it is to her to follow through on the well-being of those she once knew, and of how her readers would like to have these conclusions after reading her ordeals in 'Out of Africa'.
March 25, 2016
Blixen (pseudonym Isak Dinesen) is a good writer, but she definitely carries a colonial lens over her time in Africa. This was not at all my favorite.
March 25, 2022
Even the humans describing themselves as tolerant could learn something; mutual respect for humans very different to each other in both culture, belief and general behaviour and often not understanding neither. Thus some wars might be avoided!! A great description of Blixen's "summing up" her life and spirit she left in Africa.
October 14, 2020
Um dos expoentes da literatura dinamarquesa, Karen Blixen fez sucesso com sua obra prima: A Fazenda Africana (que eu não li), onde ela narra sobre o período em que viveu no Quênia, administrando uma fazenda de café. Aqui ela mostra fragmentos do que poderia ter sido parte daquele livro, talvez ideias cortadas do original?
Em Sombras na Relva, Blixen não tem um objetivo específico. O livro trata de memórias e pensamentos da autora sobre sua estadia na África, principalmente da sua relação com seus empregados e os nativos que viviam por ali.
O maior mérito de Sombras na Relva é revelar um pouco de culturas e crenças africanas daqueles que viviam na região, seus mitos, ritos, ideologias e sua relação com os Europeus (povo tão estranho). As divagações de Blixen e o choque de cultura são momentos muito gostosos de apreciar (como quando ela usava uma carta do rei da Dinamarca com fins terapeuticos).
De todo modo, o livro soa mais como um acessório à literatura de Blixen e menos como uma obra por si só, uma leitura auxiliar para A Fazenda Africana (que eu não li), o que tira um pouco de seu impacto.
Apesar da inconsistência, a narrativa fluída de Blixen, sua humanidade e sua imensa empatia para com o próximo, lembram muito Antoine de Saint Exupéry, que também amava divagar sobre as pessoas e sobre o tempo que ficou para trás.
Em Sombras na Relva, Blixen não tem um objetivo específico. O livro trata de memórias e pensamentos da autora sobre sua estadia na África, principalmente da sua relação com seus empregados e os nativos que viviam por ali.
O maior mérito de Sombras na Relva é revelar um pouco de culturas e crenças africanas daqueles que viviam na região, seus mitos, ritos, ideologias e sua relação com os Europeus (povo tão estranho). As divagações de Blixen e o choque de cultura são momentos muito gostosos de apreciar (como quando ela usava uma carta do rei da Dinamarca com fins terapeuticos).
De todo modo, o livro soa mais como um acessório à literatura de Blixen e menos como uma obra por si só, uma leitura auxiliar para A Fazenda Africana (que eu não li), o que tira um pouco de seu impacto.
Apesar da inconsistência, a narrativa fluída de Blixen, sua humanidade e sua imensa empatia para com o próximo, lembram muito Antoine de Saint Exupéry, que também amava divagar sobre as pessoas e sobre o tempo que ficou para trás.
October 30, 2020
Breve compendio de recuerdos de la vida en África de la autora, complemento del maravilloso Memorias de África (Lejos de África), con un toque mágico y evocador. Páginas impregnadas de sensibilidad que reflejan su respeto y amor por esa tierra, sus gentes y sus costumbres y su peculiar visión de la vida, y que trasladan a la Kenia de principios del siglo XX.
August 21, 2016
These four brief but beautifully written vignettes are best read as an enjoyable digestif after the author's excellent but meatier Out of Africa. Of course, like all of us, she is a child of her time. Protesting that she is writing from an aristocratic or "colonialist" mindset is like protesting that Virgil writes from the perspective of a Roman slave owner. The fact that things were different then, and times have changed, does not detract from the beauty of the writing, which is luminous with a deep love and respect for the people, animals and landscape in which she lived.
September 28, 2016
Like Out of Africa by the same author this book reads like a love letter to Somali culture. And also the book reads like one lovely sigh as Dinesan reminisces on her life in the African Highlands of Kenya. The book is a little more reflective than Out of Africa, while having the same elenent of 'Paradise Lost.' As a consequence the book is a bit slower and possibly a bit more philosophical. Her Somali farm manager Farah is at centre stage and her memories of her hearing of his death are especially poignant. A short and beautiful gem of a book.
May 29, 2012
This short sequel (well, not really sequel, but additional stories of things that happened during the author's time in Africa) is probably only for people who have read the original book, Out Of Africa. I really enjoy the way that she describes the land and the people with mostly impartial eyes, not in a "isn't this strange?" way, but in a "this is the way it is" manner.
June 30, 2019
This was my first book by Karen Blixen, and I finally understand why she is so cherished - she's SO BADASS! Hunting lions in the African wilderness, receiving letters from kings and you know, just keeping so calm and grateful. I can't wait to read more of her work.
May 14, 2014
4 more memoir/essays on her life in Africa: frequently quite touching and/or revealing, and always smartly written.
May 21, 2015
I probably started with Blixen's books in the wrong end, but nevermind, I really liked this one so I'll just work my way back to her first (and more famous) books!
July 10, 2019
Makes it all about herself
June 9, 2021
Why am I about to call out such an old book for racism? Why bother picking apart the noble savage/white savior themes prevalent throughout this book?
1) Because this is a massively influential book. Dinesen's books have been widely recognized as "literary." although do we maybe think that's because she was born into a noble family that, as the bio at the back of the book says, had a "tradition of making contributions to Danish literature." Like maybe it's not objectively good. Maybe certain people of a certain class with particular connections have their worked judged "literary" simply because it's expected to be literary. I mean, has it ever struck anyone else as weird that all the most well-known poets/novelists of the romantic era hung out together. Literally just basically one clique of rich white kids. Anyhow, earned or not, Dinesen is regarded as one of those "important" and "literary" writers, because all the right people said so, and of course the literary world wouldn't be influenced by money or status, right?
2) Because you should call out evil shit when you see it. Not to punish people (because hello, lady is dead) but because a society needs a shared value system, at least to some degree.
Also, people be giving Dinesen a pass because "it was a different time" and then calling out male colonizers who said or did awful shit.
The leeway given to people of the pst for racism is not applied consistently. I see a clear gender bias and I'm not having it.
If we're calling out past racist shit, we're calling out past racist shit.
And this book is some racist shit.
3) There is too much of this white savior/noble savage shit still prevalent today. Lefties/social justice warriors/ "allies and advocates"/whatever the hell you're calling yourselves now: I am looking at you. All the "poor widdle black people" shit y'all do is gross and reeks of this very insidious, but judt as deeply evil, white supremacy. I saw a lot of it during the George Floyd riots. A lot of proud left-wingers declaring that people of color were reacting with violence due to the trauma of racism, and that they saw no other way to make their voices heard. Anyone who thinks black people are basically children, so low-functioning that the only way they can communicate hurt and frustration is with violence and property destruction, IS A FUCKING RACIST. And when I say things like "anti-racism is actually really fucking racist"-that's the kind of nonsense I mean. You can do all the mental gymnastics you want. If you think black people need white people to save them, OR you go around trying to prove what a good woke white person you are-using BIPOC individuals (or gay people or trans people or whatever group of people) as a PROP to prove your own virtue, if you can not discuss a particular group without bringing their oppression and pain into it and fetishizing the hell out of said pain, you are perpetuating the noble savage/white savior dichotomy (or some other variation of oppressor/subaltern dichotomy) and it's gross. And you should be ashamed.
All you gotta do in this world is be decent and treat people with dignity and respect.
Treating other humans as props to prove your own virtue is not decent.
And we get a LOT of it in this book. It's an old book. but since this "look at me saving these (implied) lesser ignorant people" shit is still prevalent today, we've gotta call it out. Too many Isak Dinesesn white ladies in this world still.
This entire book is her bragging about everything she did for the African people and how much they loved her. Like I'm glad she sent Abdullahi to school and bought him a typewriter. I'm glad he went on to become a judge, and yes, she probably had a hand in that. She sure jerked herself the hell off over it. She also spent a massive percentage of the word count telling us about how she protected the native people from the government, how she advocated and fought for them, how she drove them to the hospital when they were injured or sick.
This lady is a literal colonizer. She actually says that Kenya had a climate "in which white people could not take on manual labor." These people injure themselves working on HER coffee plantation. She doesn't mention that though. She just gives herself a nice long handjob over how she doctored them when injured. And yes, not ALL their injuries were work-induced. As she says, they often slept around open fires, so this was not the result of working her farm. I'm still quite a bit put off by her not mentioning that they workers are injured working HER farm.
Maybe it's just the fact that she is farming African land with African bodies and reaping the rewards of it (I know her farm went under, but with World War 2 just on the horizon, business and trade was bound to be bad for many industries-that doesn't mean she didn't reap colonizer rewards for a good long time). She pilfers African soil with African bodies all while crowing about what a good person she is.
I think my problem is this: everybody stop crowing about what a good person you are. Everybody stop focusing so much on intrinsic traits. everybody I meet who is this focused on intrinsic traits ends up being a massive asshole using the pain of others as a prop to prove their own goodness.
Everybody stop trying to prove how good you are. You're not good. Nobody is good. everybody is a selfish asshole, but you can at least be decent. You can at least treat people with dignity. "I'm a good woke white person saving all the poor widdle black people" is absolutely, decidedly not decent.
And I'll end my rant with some of the crowning jewels of this incredibly racist book that strays from white savior shit into actual Eugenics several times.
"The dark nations of Africa, strikingly precocious as young children, seemed to come to a standstill in their mental growth at different ages. The Kikuyu, Kawirondo and Wakamba, the people who worked for me on the farm, in early childhood were far ahead of white children of the same age, but they stopped quite suddenly at a stage corresponding to that of a European child of nine."
-That passage definitely reminds me of the flavor of progressives who claim it's racist to grade for grammar (apparently black people can't learn grammar-and that.......is anti-racism! Ta-da!). This is that bigotry of low expectations shit. It wears the facade of love and togetherness (Dinesen talks a good game about Unity and how much she adores the African people) but really....it's gross. And the people who do it today in the name of "anti-racism" are also gross.
In another passage, she compares the blood on the King's letter, blood left by her African patients, to the blood on a handkercheif from King Christian IV. She writes, "The blood on my sheet of paper is not proud or eddifying. It is the blood of a dumb nation."
In talking about a precocious African child, she writes, "He was a small, slightly built child with a sudden, wild, flying gracefulness in all his movements and a corresponding, incalculable, crazy imagination of a kind which I have not met in any other Native child, and which maybe will have been due to that mixture of blood."-So again with the Eugenics shit.
In writing about the ability of African people to sneak up on her, she writes, "The Africans have got this to them-they will make their presence known by other means than eyesight, hearing, or smell...Wild animals have got the same quality, but our domestic animals have lost it."
This book reeks of the white savior narrative. It's the same shit we still see in the popular zeitgeist. Not much has changed since Pocohantas and Avatar. We are still writing stories with magical, closer-to-nature, peaceful and placid "nobel savages" who have yet to be tainted by civilization. They are spoken about as if they are an endangered species to be protected. Preserved by the oh-so-caring "good white people."
In narratives such as these, the BIPOC individuals are fetishized, commodified for the consumption of white people who seek to grab hold of their pain-their very being-as a tool to bolster their own egos. To build up their own sense of self.
It is the worst sort of objectification. and do all the mental gymnastics you want, it is NOT anti-racist.
1) Because this is a massively influential book. Dinesen's books have been widely recognized as "literary." although do we maybe think that's because she was born into a noble family that, as the bio at the back of the book says, had a "tradition of making contributions to Danish literature." Like maybe it's not objectively good. Maybe certain people of a certain class with particular connections have their worked judged "literary" simply because it's expected to be literary. I mean, has it ever struck anyone else as weird that all the most well-known poets/novelists of the romantic era hung out together. Literally just basically one clique of rich white kids. Anyhow, earned or not, Dinesen is regarded as one of those "important" and "literary" writers, because all the right people said so, and of course the literary world wouldn't be influenced by money or status, right?
2) Because you should call out evil shit when you see it. Not to punish people (because hello, lady is dead) but because a society needs a shared value system, at least to some degree.
Also, people be giving Dinesen a pass because "it was a different time" and then calling out male colonizers who said or did awful shit.
The leeway given to people of the pst for racism is not applied consistently. I see a clear gender bias and I'm not having it.
If we're calling out past racist shit, we're calling out past racist shit.
And this book is some racist shit.
3) There is too much of this white savior/noble savage shit still prevalent today. Lefties/social justice warriors/ "allies and advocates"/whatever the hell you're calling yourselves now: I am looking at you. All the "poor widdle black people" shit y'all do is gross and reeks of this very insidious, but judt as deeply evil, white supremacy. I saw a lot of it during the George Floyd riots. A lot of proud left-wingers declaring that people of color were reacting with violence due to the trauma of racism, and that they saw no other way to make their voices heard. Anyone who thinks black people are basically children, so low-functioning that the only way they can communicate hurt and frustration is with violence and property destruction, IS A FUCKING RACIST. And when I say things like "anti-racism is actually really fucking racist"-that's the kind of nonsense I mean. You can do all the mental gymnastics you want. If you think black people need white people to save them, OR you go around trying to prove what a good woke white person you are-using BIPOC individuals (or gay people or trans people or whatever group of people) as a PROP to prove your own virtue, if you can not discuss a particular group without bringing their oppression and pain into it and fetishizing the hell out of said pain, you are perpetuating the noble savage/white savior dichotomy (or some other variation of oppressor/subaltern dichotomy) and it's gross. And you should be ashamed.
All you gotta do in this world is be decent and treat people with dignity and respect.
Treating other humans as props to prove your own virtue is not decent.
And we get a LOT of it in this book. It's an old book. but since this "look at me saving these (implied) lesser ignorant people" shit is still prevalent today, we've gotta call it out. Too many Isak Dinesesn white ladies in this world still.
This entire book is her bragging about everything she did for the African people and how much they loved her. Like I'm glad she sent Abdullahi to school and bought him a typewriter. I'm glad he went on to become a judge, and yes, she probably had a hand in that. She sure jerked herself the hell off over it. She also spent a massive percentage of the word count telling us about how she protected the native people from the government, how she advocated and fought for them, how she drove them to the hospital when they were injured or sick.
This lady is a literal colonizer. She actually says that Kenya had a climate "in which white people could not take on manual labor." These people injure themselves working on HER coffee plantation. She doesn't mention that though. She just gives herself a nice long handjob over how she doctored them when injured. And yes, not ALL their injuries were work-induced. As she says, they often slept around open fires, so this was not the result of working her farm. I'm still quite a bit put off by her not mentioning that they workers are injured working HER farm.
Maybe it's just the fact that she is farming African land with African bodies and reaping the rewards of it (I know her farm went under, but with World War 2 just on the horizon, business and trade was bound to be bad for many industries-that doesn't mean she didn't reap colonizer rewards for a good long time). She pilfers African soil with African bodies all while crowing about what a good person she is.
I think my problem is this: everybody stop crowing about what a good person you are. Everybody stop focusing so much on intrinsic traits. everybody I meet who is this focused on intrinsic traits ends up being a massive asshole using the pain of others as a prop to prove their own goodness.
Everybody stop trying to prove how good you are. You're not good. Nobody is good. everybody is a selfish asshole, but you can at least be decent. You can at least treat people with dignity. "I'm a good woke white person saving all the poor widdle black people" is absolutely, decidedly not decent.
And I'll end my rant with some of the crowning jewels of this incredibly racist book that strays from white savior shit into actual Eugenics several times.
"The dark nations of Africa, strikingly precocious as young children, seemed to come to a standstill in their mental growth at different ages. The Kikuyu, Kawirondo and Wakamba, the people who worked for me on the farm, in early childhood were far ahead of white children of the same age, but they stopped quite suddenly at a stage corresponding to that of a European child of nine."
-That passage definitely reminds me of the flavor of progressives who claim it's racist to grade for grammar (apparently black people can't learn grammar-and that.......is anti-racism! Ta-da!). This is that bigotry of low expectations shit. It wears the facade of love and togetherness (Dinesen talks a good game about Unity and how much she adores the African people) but really....it's gross. And the people who do it today in the name of "anti-racism" are also gross.
In another passage, she compares the blood on the King's letter, blood left by her African patients, to the blood on a handkercheif from King Christian IV. She writes, "The blood on my sheet of paper is not proud or eddifying. It is the blood of a dumb nation."
In talking about a precocious African child, she writes, "He was a small, slightly built child with a sudden, wild, flying gracefulness in all his movements and a corresponding, incalculable, crazy imagination of a kind which I have not met in any other Native child, and which maybe will have been due to that mixture of blood."-So again with the Eugenics shit.
In writing about the ability of African people to sneak up on her, she writes, "The Africans have got this to them-they will make their presence known by other means than eyesight, hearing, or smell...Wild animals have got the same quality, but our domestic animals have lost it."
This book reeks of the white savior narrative. It's the same shit we still see in the popular zeitgeist. Not much has changed since Pocohantas and Avatar. We are still writing stories with magical, closer-to-nature, peaceful and placid "nobel savages" who have yet to be tainted by civilization. They are spoken about as if they are an endangered species to be protected. Preserved by the oh-so-caring "good white people."
In narratives such as these, the BIPOC individuals are fetishized, commodified for the consumption of white people who seek to grab hold of their pain-their very being-as a tool to bolster their own egos. To build up their own sense of self.
It is the worst sort of objectification. and do all the mental gymnastics you want, it is NOT anti-racist.
April 2, 2020
"Min høst skulle være komøg", skriver Karen Blixen, da to billeder på katastrofe rammer hendes elskede kaffefarm og samler sig i én sætning. Denne sætning er for mig essensen i denne lille perle af en bog; genialitet og kaos går hånd i hånd. Snart forføres man af smukke iagttagelser af mennesker og natur, snart irriteres man over det sjusk, som kan forekomme i fortællinger om livet. Når man læser Karen Blixen, og særligt erindringsbøgerne som denne, så er det hendes intellekt og evne til empati og indlevelse i fremmedhed, som jeg beundrer. Jeg beundrer hende som menneske og for det mod, som hun udviser gang på gang i tanke og handling. "Skygger på græsset" er minder, som uddyber "Den afrikanske farm", og som går helt tæt på de lokale. Og netop denne historiske tråd er vigtig. Det er sindssygt interessant læsning. Karen Blixens historie om Afrika er kærlighed - bedre er det næppe gjort. Men om det er litterær kunst, det ved jeg ikke - jeg er med andre ord ikke her blæst omkuld. Skygger på græsset vil dog altid fremover, for mit vedkommende, genkalde den lokale befolkning fra et fortidigt Afrika. Jeg vil se dem og bedre kunne forstå.
July 19, 2023
a continuation of dinesen’s time in africa. again, a lovely journey with vivid stories of her love for africa and it’s people
September 12, 2022
No puedo no sentir debilidad por los relatos de este libro. Adoro la película. Qué belleza la prosa de esta mujer poderosa y brillante! Recomendabilísimo!
April 10, 2025
Another great book… stories about Africa and leaving to go back to Europe. When the morning stars sang together. Great line. Enjoyed this very much.
July 12, 2025
Moving and kind-hearted, a beautiful set of moments in time. Also, being writing of the time, deeply paternalistic.
September 6, 2022
Ärsyynnyin Blixenin omatekoisista rotuopillisista höpötyksistä, rasistisesta suhtautumisesta afrikkalaisiin. Ärsyynnyin myös metsästyksen ylistyksestä ja ylimielisyydestä. Sisälsi kirja toki myös mielenkiintoisia kertomuksia afrikkalaisten tapakulttuurista.
May 10, 2023
Delightful, especially after listening to and reading Out of Africa. The narrator does a fabulous job on this book as well. I feel as if I’ve traveled to the past and into Africa.
August 24, 2025
After reading and liking Out of Africa, of course I had to get my hands on this book that is basically #2 in the series, but I was surprised by how much lesser known this book is and how much harder it was to obtain a copy of it.
Main thoughts after reading it:
- In a way this book can just be appended to Out of Africa as an epilogue. There's no real start and end to her story. While some parts are indeed "follow-ups" to Karen's story after she left Africa, there are also many parts that are just more of her observations and insights on indigenous African culture, and more of her random (but very enjoyable) anecdotes on her interactions with locals, e.g. "curing" diseases with the King of Denmark's handwritten letter.
- This book continues to portray Karen as a very kind person who is down-to-earth, deeply compassionate and understanding to Africans' quirks and superstitions, instead of a judgmental snob, which I'd very well expect her to be based on her aristocratic background.
- This book shed more light on the rest of the professions of these European high class Kenyan immigrants outside of Karen's coffee farming. Indeed a lot of them made a living or at least a serious hobby out of big game hunting, which in today's point of view is much more frowned upon. It is interesting as a reader to think about how we can't always judge characters in a book independent of the time they lived in.
- The best part of the book is seeing how Karen kept in touch with many of her Kenyan servants after decades after leaving Africa. Their bond is truly heartwarming. Many of the servants remained loyal to Karen and Karen also went the extra mile to send them Christmas gifts and even expensive equipments like a typewriter that actually helped advance Abdullahi's legal career in his region.
~Quotes~
Most of the immigrants had come to Africa, and had stayed on there, because they liked their African existence better than their existence at home, would rather ride a horse than go in a car and rather make up their own campfire than turn on the central heating. Like me they wished to lay their bones in African soil. They were almost all themselves country–bred and open–air people; many of them were younger sons of old English families, schooled early in life by elderly, dignified keepers and stablemen and were accustomed to proud servants. Themselves untamed, with fresh hearts, they were capable of forming a Hawkeye–Chingachgook fellowship with a dark, untamed nomad or hunter; they accepted and trusted the Somali, as the Somali accepted and trusted them.
-----
We put down domestic animals as respectable and wild animals as decent, and held that, while the existence and prestige of the first were decided by their relation to the community, the others stood in direct contact with God.
-----
The Protestant Missions gave much time, energy and money to make the Natives put on trousers—in which they looked like giraffes in harness. The French Fathers were in better understanding with the children of the land, but they did not have—as they ought to have had—Saint Francis of Assisi at their Mission station; they were themselves but frail souls, and at home had been loaded with a heavy, mixed cultural cargo, which they dared not throw off. The businessmen, under the motto of "Teach the Native to Want," encouraged the African to evaluate himself by his possessions and to keep up respectably with his neighbours. The Government, turning the great wild plains into game Reserves, seemed to succeed in making the lions themselves take on the look of kindly patresfamilias—times might come when our old feline friends would have their regular meals served them from Game Department canteens.
-----
When, on the farm, I was called upon to give judgment in matters between my Mohammedan people, I looked up rules and regulations in the manual of Mohammedan law, Minhaj et Talibin. [...]
"In the case, however," it adds, "of a woman of remarkable beauty, jurists may find themselves not entirely in accordance and will have to weigh the matter between them." The very grave and somewhat pedantic book thus registers woman's beauty as an indisputable, juridical asset in existence.
-----
When I first came out to Africa I could not live without getting a fine specimen of each single kind of African game. In my last ten years out there I did not fire a shot except in order to get meat for my Natives. It became to me an unreasonable thing, indeed in itself ugly or vulgar, for the sake of a few hours' excitement to put out a life that belonged in the great landscape and had grown up in it for ten or twenty, or—as in the case of buffaloes and elephants—for fifty or a hundred years. But lion–hunting was irresistible to me; I shot my last lion a short time before I left Africa.
-----
For some of my years on the farm I had been holding the office of fermier général there—that is, in order to save the Government trouble I collected the taxes from my squatters locally and sent in the sum total to Nairobi. In this capacity I had many times had to listen to the Kikuyu complaining that they were made to pay up their money for things which they would rather have done without: roads, railways, street lighting, police—and hospitals.
-----
The attack, when it came upon him, was indeed terrible to watch, he stiffened in cramp and foamed from the mouth. I sat with my arms round him; I had never till then seen an epileptic attack and did not know what to do about it. Sirunga's amazement as he woke up in my arms was very deep, he was used to seeing everybody run away when he was seized with a fit, and his dark gaze at my face was almost hostile. All the same after this he kept close to me—I have before written about him that he held the office of an inventive fool or jester and followed me everywhere like a small, fidgety, black shadow.
-----
The Africans, though, feared pain or death less than we ourselves did, and life having taught them the uncertainty of all things, they were at any time ready to take a risk.
-----
From the time when I left Africa until the outbreak of the Second World War, every year before Christmas I sent out a small amount of money to my old firm of solicitors, Messrs. W. C. Hunter and Company, of Nairobi. They would always be able to get Farah's address, for he had his home and family in the Somali village of the town, even when he himself was away trading horses from Abyssinia or following some great white hunter on his safaris, and Farah would look up and collect his old staff. Thus in the white–washed Nairobi office my household was gathered together once more, each member of it was handed my Christmas present and was told to deliver in return, for my information, a short report on how he was and on what had happened to him in the course of the year.
-----
Kamante wrote: "I got newly female infant from my wife, who is somewhat good sort."
-----
In the summer of 1936 I told him: "I am now writing a book about the farm. You are in it, and Farah, and Pooran Singh, and Bwana Finch–Hatton, and the dogs and Rouge. If I have good luck with this book, maybe I shall come back to Africa. So now you must pray to God for me." Abdullahi wrote back: "You need not tell me to pray to God for you, for that I do every day. But since in your letter you tell me that you are now writing a book about the farm, and that I am in it, and Farah and Pooran Singh, and Bwana Finch–Hatton, and the dogs, and Rouge, and that if you have good luck with this book maybe you will come back to Africa, I have set three very holy men on to pray for you every day. Then when these prayers are helpful to you, will you give me a typewriter?" What the three holy men were to get out of the arrangement I knew not, but felt that this must remain a matter between them and Abdullahi. My book Out of Africa was published in 1937 and had sufficient good luck, I decided, to bring me under an obligation towards Abdullahi, so I ordered a model typewriter for him in London, with his name on it. When the firm informed me that they could not guarantee its delivery, since from the last place to which they could forward it by post it must still travel for nine days on camel–back, I wrote to Abdullahi that he would have to arrange about the camel himself. He must have done so, for three months later I had a very neatly typed letter from him.
-----
They wrote back to inform me that Farah had died, and that without him they were unable to get on to any of the others.
The news of Farah's death to me was hard to take into my mind and very hard to keep there. How could it be that he had gone away? He had always been the first to answer a call. Then after a while I recognized the situation: more than once before now I had sent him ahead to some unknown place, to pitch camp for me there.
-----
"I rose," Mr. Farson tells, "high in Ali's esteem when I told him that I had lunched in Denmark with his Memsahib. After that I could do no wrong."
The Danish author John Buchholzer in 1955 travelled in Somaliland to collect Somali folklore and poetry, and published a book, Africa's Horn, on his journey. One chapter of the book turns upon the new national and religious movement against the Europeans and relates how, in the market–place of the small town of Hargeisa, the author is being stoned by an angry crowd and is saved from their hands through the intervention of a passing young Somali official. The young man next day looks him up in his quarters and asks him if really, as has been said, he is a Dane. He presents himself as Abdullahi Ahamed, for many years in the past the servant of a Danish lady known to all tribes of Somali. Abdullahi here, in the book, goes through the long list of my benefactions towards him, including the typewriter.
-----
In his letter to me, too, Abdullahi remembers the typewriter. It gave him, he says, a decisive advantage over competitors in the career, and he owes to it that he has now for three years been holding the office of judge in Hargeisa.
"I am," he concludes his letter, "carrying my official duties successfully, with dignity and popularity."
Main thoughts after reading it:
- In a way this book can just be appended to Out of Africa as an epilogue. There's no real start and end to her story. While some parts are indeed "follow-ups" to Karen's story after she left Africa, there are also many parts that are just more of her observations and insights on indigenous African culture, and more of her random (but very enjoyable) anecdotes on her interactions with locals, e.g. "curing" diseases with the King of Denmark's handwritten letter.
- This book continues to portray Karen as a very kind person who is down-to-earth, deeply compassionate and understanding to Africans' quirks and superstitions, instead of a judgmental snob, which I'd very well expect her to be based on her aristocratic background.
- This book shed more light on the rest of the professions of these European high class Kenyan immigrants outside of Karen's coffee farming. Indeed a lot of them made a living or at least a serious hobby out of big game hunting, which in today's point of view is much more frowned upon. It is interesting as a reader to think about how we can't always judge characters in a book independent of the time they lived in.
- The best part of the book is seeing how Karen kept in touch with many of her Kenyan servants after decades after leaving Africa. Their bond is truly heartwarming. Many of the servants remained loyal to Karen and Karen also went the extra mile to send them Christmas gifts and even expensive equipments like a typewriter that actually helped advance Abdullahi's legal career in his region.
~Quotes~
Most of the immigrants had come to Africa, and had stayed on there, because they liked their African existence better than their existence at home, would rather ride a horse than go in a car and rather make up their own campfire than turn on the central heating. Like me they wished to lay their bones in African soil. They were almost all themselves country–bred and open–air people; many of them were younger sons of old English families, schooled early in life by elderly, dignified keepers and stablemen and were accustomed to proud servants. Themselves untamed, with fresh hearts, they were capable of forming a Hawkeye–Chingachgook fellowship with a dark, untamed nomad or hunter; they accepted and trusted the Somali, as the Somali accepted and trusted them.
-----
We put down domestic animals as respectable and wild animals as decent, and held that, while the existence and prestige of the first were decided by their relation to the community, the others stood in direct contact with God.
-----
The Protestant Missions gave much time, energy and money to make the Natives put on trousers—in which they looked like giraffes in harness. The French Fathers were in better understanding with the children of the land, but they did not have—as they ought to have had—Saint Francis of Assisi at their Mission station; they were themselves but frail souls, and at home had been loaded with a heavy, mixed cultural cargo, which they dared not throw off. The businessmen, under the motto of "Teach the Native to Want," encouraged the African to evaluate himself by his possessions and to keep up respectably with his neighbours. The Government, turning the great wild plains into game Reserves, seemed to succeed in making the lions themselves take on the look of kindly patresfamilias—times might come when our old feline friends would have their regular meals served them from Game Department canteens.
-----
When, on the farm, I was called upon to give judgment in matters between my Mohammedan people, I looked up rules and regulations in the manual of Mohammedan law, Minhaj et Talibin. [...]
"In the case, however," it adds, "of a woman of remarkable beauty, jurists may find themselves not entirely in accordance and will have to weigh the matter between them." The very grave and somewhat pedantic book thus registers woman's beauty as an indisputable, juridical asset in existence.
-----
When I first came out to Africa I could not live without getting a fine specimen of each single kind of African game. In my last ten years out there I did not fire a shot except in order to get meat for my Natives. It became to me an unreasonable thing, indeed in itself ugly or vulgar, for the sake of a few hours' excitement to put out a life that belonged in the great landscape and had grown up in it for ten or twenty, or—as in the case of buffaloes and elephants—for fifty or a hundred years. But lion–hunting was irresistible to me; I shot my last lion a short time before I left Africa.
-----
For some of my years on the farm I had been holding the office of fermier général there—that is, in order to save the Government trouble I collected the taxes from my squatters locally and sent in the sum total to Nairobi. In this capacity I had many times had to listen to the Kikuyu complaining that they were made to pay up their money for things which they would rather have done without: roads, railways, street lighting, police—and hospitals.
-----
The attack, when it came upon him, was indeed terrible to watch, he stiffened in cramp and foamed from the mouth. I sat with my arms round him; I had never till then seen an epileptic attack and did not know what to do about it. Sirunga's amazement as he woke up in my arms was very deep, he was used to seeing everybody run away when he was seized with a fit, and his dark gaze at my face was almost hostile. All the same after this he kept close to me—I have before written about him that he held the office of an inventive fool or jester and followed me everywhere like a small, fidgety, black shadow.
-----
The Africans, though, feared pain or death less than we ourselves did, and life having taught them the uncertainty of all things, they were at any time ready to take a risk.
-----
From the time when I left Africa until the outbreak of the Second World War, every year before Christmas I sent out a small amount of money to my old firm of solicitors, Messrs. W. C. Hunter and Company, of Nairobi. They would always be able to get Farah's address, for he had his home and family in the Somali village of the town, even when he himself was away trading horses from Abyssinia or following some great white hunter on his safaris, and Farah would look up and collect his old staff. Thus in the white–washed Nairobi office my household was gathered together once more, each member of it was handed my Christmas present and was told to deliver in return, for my information, a short report on how he was and on what had happened to him in the course of the year.
-----
Kamante wrote: "I got newly female infant from my wife, who is somewhat good sort."
-----
In the summer of 1936 I told him: "I am now writing a book about the farm. You are in it, and Farah, and Pooran Singh, and Bwana Finch–Hatton, and the dogs and Rouge. If I have good luck with this book, maybe I shall come back to Africa. So now you must pray to God for me." Abdullahi wrote back: "You need not tell me to pray to God for you, for that I do every day. But since in your letter you tell me that you are now writing a book about the farm, and that I am in it, and Farah and Pooran Singh, and Bwana Finch–Hatton, and the dogs, and Rouge, and that if you have good luck with this book maybe you will come back to Africa, I have set three very holy men on to pray for you every day. Then when these prayers are helpful to you, will you give me a typewriter?" What the three holy men were to get out of the arrangement I knew not, but felt that this must remain a matter between them and Abdullahi. My book Out of Africa was published in 1937 and had sufficient good luck, I decided, to bring me under an obligation towards Abdullahi, so I ordered a model typewriter for him in London, with his name on it. When the firm informed me that they could not guarantee its delivery, since from the last place to which they could forward it by post it must still travel for nine days on camel–back, I wrote to Abdullahi that he would have to arrange about the camel himself. He must have done so, for three months later I had a very neatly typed letter from him.
-----
They wrote back to inform me that Farah had died, and that without him they were unable to get on to any of the others.
The news of Farah's death to me was hard to take into my mind and very hard to keep there. How could it be that he had gone away? He had always been the first to answer a call. Then after a while I recognized the situation: more than once before now I had sent him ahead to some unknown place, to pitch camp for me there.
-----
"I rose," Mr. Farson tells, "high in Ali's esteem when I told him that I had lunched in Denmark with his Memsahib. After that I could do no wrong."
The Danish author John Buchholzer in 1955 travelled in Somaliland to collect Somali folklore and poetry, and published a book, Africa's Horn, on his journey. One chapter of the book turns upon the new national and religious movement against the Europeans and relates how, in the market–place of the small town of Hargeisa, the author is being stoned by an angry crowd and is saved from their hands through the intervention of a passing young Somali official. The young man next day looks him up in his quarters and asks him if really, as has been said, he is a Dane. He presents himself as Abdullahi Ahamed, for many years in the past the servant of a Danish lady known to all tribes of Somali. Abdullahi here, in the book, goes through the long list of my benefactions towards him, including the typewriter.
-----
In his letter to me, too, Abdullahi remembers the typewriter. It gave him, he says, a decisive advantage over competitors in the career, and he owes to it that he has now for three years been holding the office of judge in Hargeisa.
"I am," he concludes his letter, "carrying my official duties successfully, with dignity and popularity."
March 3, 2022
A further memoir of Danish author Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke (1885–1962), written in the 1950s and 1960, this is almost an epilogue to her earlier book Out of Africa. It consists of four short stories, the first featuring her majestic Somali major-domo Farah Aden. The second story is about “Barua A Soldani” or a letter from a king, which she has received and is seen to have healing properties. The third story is about her attempts to act as a doctor for her people, and their fear of going to the hospital. The final story features the correspondence she has with her former servants after she leaves Africa. I liked Abdullahi Ahamed, the very bright child who’s education she sponsors, who goes on to become a judge.
There is a significant dose of imperialism and white saviour complex going on here, but I found this book more relatable than the first as it tells the stories of people and relationships, and gives more insight into her ongoing sadness and nostalgia over having been forced to have given up the farm and her life in Africa.
There is a significant dose of imperialism and white saviour complex going on here, but I found this book more relatable than the first as it tells the stories of people and relationships, and gives more insight into her ongoing sadness and nostalgia over having been forced to have given up the farm and her life in Africa.
December 15, 2019
Captivating, easy to read and occasionally touching. The Kenyan "shadows" in the title appear as the most vivid personalities in the book even thirty years after the author left Africa for good. The four stories deal with themes such as farming, hunting, health care and dreams, but the core of the book portrays Karen Blixen's African employees, who in practice enabled her to live as a colonizer in Kenya. Particularly detailed is the description of her main servant Farah, faithful but also extremely self-conscious. His younger, super-intelligent brother Abdullahi ends up as a judge in (British) Somaliland.
Although the book may seem nostalgic and politically incorrect, Blixen clearly thinks that the era of the colonizers would be short-lived, and that even the big-game hunters - like herself - had to find themselves replacing their rifles with cameras. (I read the book in Norwegian translation).
Although the book may seem nostalgic and politically incorrect, Blixen clearly thinks that the era of the colonizers would be short-lived, and that even the big-game hunters - like herself - had to find themselves replacing their rifles with cameras. (I read the book in Norwegian translation).
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