Travel to Denmark

Out of Africa (Modern Library)

Format: Hardcover
Author: Isak Dinesen
ReleaseDate: 05 September, 1992
Publisher: Modern Library
Rating:

an enchanted Africa
Africa becomes a fairy-tale world in the Dinesen's book, and the setting for her great love with Denys Finch-Hatton. Karen Blixen's wonderful writing actually reminds of another Dane, Hans Christian Anderson, for its magical quality and ability to make the most ordinary things latent with mystery. One feels her love of him and of the countryside, and especially her devotion for the people who live all around her. A truly beautiful and mystical writer, who could see beyond the surface of things, she has the skill of imparting joy as well as tragedy.

A Breathtaking View of a Vanished World
She tells the reader almost nothing personal; but her descriptions of this vanished place and time are nothing short of magic. I've long been fascinated by Isak Dinesen's life and with this book she lovingly describes the very heart of it, her sixteen years running a coffee plantation in the African highlands. By "erasing" herself from the landscape, you are really and truly experiencing her life there. It was a mesmerizing experience and I hated to finish the book. Fortunately, it's now mine and I can re-read it any time I want to!.

Denisen's Mastery of the Memoir
She is a story-teller, yes, but she does not tell her stories in any way conventional; much of the time you have no idea as to the chronological order of things. Denisen's ability to take you into Africa and make you know it as she did is astounding--she captures feelings very difficult to describe, and makes you want to see Kenya for yourself, the Hills of Ngong. Yet it doesn't matter, because she is conveying feelings and emotions which are not limited by time. And when time does come to play a role in her stories you are informed of it as is necessary. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to experience life as it should be experienced, confusing the primitive life of the Natives with the sophisticated Europeans come to visit Isak on her farm. Through the course of the novel, conflicts arise, celebrations take place, nature's best is described in full detail, and living things die as is natural. Denisen ends her work as beautifully as she began it, and you feel as though you have been through something really important when you finish.

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