She describes the people’s dislike of ‘pedantry’ and while they had ‘no luxuriance’ they had ‘freedom’ born from a relaxed sense of time. The Native justice system worked on a principle of compensation that matched the consequences of the crime, irrespective of the intent. There is much talk of their justice system and ‘indemnifications’. She felt invested in the lives of the natives and worked stoically to keep the farm going.īlixen makes many interesting observations on how the African Natives differ in their outlook on life to the Europeans, also noting differences between tribes such as the Masai and Kikuyu. I felt through her memoir that she possessed an almost spiritual attachment to the place.

Instead, the romance is primarily contained within Blixen’s passion for the essence of Africa and its people. From the flamingos at Lake Natron, to the early morning drives over the plain, Blixen’s memoir soars to paradisiacal heights that most of us can only dream of.įor those of you that have seen the film and hope to find a sweeping romance between the pages of this book, I can reveal that Blixen’s lover, Denys Finch-Hatton, doesn’t really appear until two thirds of the way through the memoir. Indeed, the beautiful descriptions of the landscape is where this memoir truly excels. The book opens with a description of the farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills. After being spellbound by Meryl Streep’s stoic performance and the beautiful, wild landscape of Africa, so unlike my home in England, I hoped the book would equal my enjoyment of the film. I should probably confess that it was the film Out of Africa (1985) that inspired me to read the book. She moved from Denmark to Africa to marry her cousin, Baron Blixen.

Out of Africa (1937) is a memoir by Danish author, Karen Blixen, and follows her time as a white settler on a coffee farm in Kenya in the early 1900s.

Out of Africa by Karen Blixen