Product Description
Karen Blixen went to Kenya in 1914 to run a coffee farm; its failure in 1931 caused her to return to Denmark where she wrote this classic account of her experiences. "Out of Africa" is a celebration of her life there; her friendship with the various people of the area and her sympathetic response to the landscape and animals are drawn with warmth and unusual clarity. Although the book is pervaded by her sense of loss, Karen Blixen looks back with an unsentimental intelligence to portray a way of life that is now gone forever. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A colonial and emotional passage
Karen Blixen's African adventure (now Kenya) as a colonial Master and a coffee planter brought her in immediate contact with the heart and the mind of the Natives.
Her book is a heartrending but also a violent tale about the laws of the white man, the fight against nature (for water), prejudice, customs and inveterate beliefs (healing), and also about the mysterious and sacred moments in the life of the Natives (e.g., dancing).

Life before colonization
The extreme violence of life before colonization is expressed in a Masai dream: `in the old days it was good fun. When the Kikuyu or the Wakamba had got a fat piece of land and fat herds, we came to them. First we killed all men and male children with steel. We ate the sheep and goats. Then before going away, we killed off the women with wood.'

Colonization
The white man stole the black man's land by creating a `Protectorate'. According to the latter's laws, the Natives could not own land (!). But as Karen Blixen says, 'it is more than their land you take away. It is their past, their roots and their identity.'
The Natives were also bombarded by competing Missions: `the intolerance that one Christian Church showed towards the other.'
The treatment of the blacks by the white colons was nothing more than a master/slave relation.

The Natives
In some aspects, the white man filled in the mind of the Natives the place God takes in the minds of the colons.
For the Natives, something written was taken as an evangel.
Their wealth was their livestock, but also `eroticism (which) runs through their entire existence. It is the number and quality of the wives which decides a man's success and happiness in life, and his own worth.'
The fact that `some nations gave away their maidens to their husbands for nothing' was for them incomprehensible. More, `one tribe was so depraved as to pay the bridegroom. Where was their self-respect?'
In judicial affairs, the Natives didn't look for the motive of the crime. The damage done (even in the case of murder) had to be compensated by replacement (cattle).

Karen Blixen's book sketches an objective, but `human' picture of, all things considered, a shameless period of exploitation in the history of mankind.

Highly recommended.
... Read more

Product Description
From the moment Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya in 1914 to manage a coffee plantation, her heart belonged to Africa. Drawn to the intense colours and ravishing landscapes, Karen Blixen spent her happiest years on the farm and her experiences and friendships with the people around her are vividly recalled in these memoirs. "Out of Africa" is the story of a remarkable and unconventional woman and of a way of life that has vanished for ever. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Third on the booklist
One of several books needed for the English class, and the school library needed to provide. I was very satisfied with the price and the condition of the book.

Out of Africa
I did not enjoy this book because I found that it was very long and did not "Catch" the reader. I kept reading only because I was doing a review on it and I had to keep reading. I saw the movie and it is muchbetter!

Wonderfull book that gives a picture of a strong woman
Karen Blixen (Isac Dinesen) is one of Denmarks best writers. Out of Africa is her main book that tells the story of her life in Africa. Read the book it is much more than the loveaffair with Dennys Finck-Hatton (Out of Africawith R. Redford and M. Streep)

The book gives a wonderfull picture ofBlixens relationship with the natives and have that ancient athmospherethat appears in all colonial litterature.

Read the book it gives apicture of a vere strong woman who knew what she wanted but again and againhad to compromise according to her life and the oppotunities it gave her.

The book is one of my favourits because it has got everything. Love,death, hope, history, feminism, nature, africa. ... Read more

Product Description
The biography of Denys Finch Hatton. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

out of africa
Very well written. Absorbing narrative of Denys Finch-Hatton's life in Africa and his relationship with Karen Blixen and others, like Teddy Roosevelt's son, Kermit. Finch-Hatton was a true Renaissance man.

historical dokument
historical dokument of the life in east africa at the beginning of this century ... Read more

Product Description
These five rich, witty and magical stories from the author of "Out of Africa" include one of her most well known tales, 'Babette's Feast', which was made into the classic film. It tells the story of a French cook working in a puritanical Norwegian community, who treats her employers to the decadent feast of a lifetime. There is also a real-life Prospero and his Ariel in 'Tempests', a mysterious pearl-fisher in 'The Diver' and a brief, tragic encounter in 'The Ring'. All the stories have a mystic, fairy-tale quality, linked by themes of angels, the sea, dreams and fate. They were among the last to be written by Isak Dinesen, and show her as a master of short fiction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Jests on the part of Fate
In these brilliantly written short stories with at least one masterpiece (`The Immortal Story'), Isak Dinesen illustrates in powerful and colorful brushes the role of `Fate' in human life. Life is turned into a theatre (a comedy or a tragedy) and theatre into life (`Tempests'). There are victims of Fate, but also `Fate makers'. And, in any case, `let good fortune be even so sweet, it takes strength to bear even that.'

Man and Fate
(People) `tremble before making choices in life, and after having made them again tremble in fear of having chosen wrong'. For, `Ay, that which we rejected is poured upon us abundantly.'
Man is not a fish (`The Diver'): `Man is alarmed by the idea of time, and unbalanced by incessant wanderings between past and future. The inhabitants of a liquid world have brought past and future together in the maxim: après nous le déluge'.

Fate makers
In `The Diver', the powerful see inventions and great dreams as dangerous revolutions. `If indeed the flying boy meets and communicates with angels, what new and revolutionary things the angels may tell him?'
In `The Immortal Story', an old and rich trader tries to turn the immortal story of the sailor who was paid to make love, into reality. Because, `so are the poor jumping-jacks in the hands of the rich, the fools in the hands of the shrewd. They dance and drop as these hands pull the strings.'

Sudden revelations and decisions
In `The Ring', a wife suddenly comprehends that `she was turned away by an impatient husband to whom his sheep meant more than his wife.'
In `Tempests', a young girl decides to become an actress after a theatre performance.
In `Babette's Feast', a brief encounter becomes a missed opportunity which will be remembered all life long: `I have been with you every day of my life'.

Isak Dinesen understands admirably the essence of art (literature). She instills the reader with powerful emotions and burning questions, together with original, personal, crucial and unexpected insights in life's Fate, `poured abundantly upon us'.
This outstanding collection is a must read for all lovers of world literature.
... Read more

Product Description
This new analysis of "Out of Africa" describes the young Baroness Blixen's struggles with a difficult marriage, a pioneer coffee farm, and a complicated love affair in Kenya. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

Out of Isak Dinesen in Africa: Karen Blixen's Untold Story
If you loved the movie "Out of Africa,"you will love this book. Isak Dinesen is a superb storyteller.

Wonderfully balanced biography of a fascinating woman
Dr.Donelson's well-researched biography of Karen Blixen is a balanced look at the Danish writer's years in Africa. Wonderfully sympathetic and leisurely paced, this "Untold Story" is less a revelation of startling new facts as a skillful new presentation of the many facets of Blixen's life on a Kenyan coffee farm.Donelson's sensible narrative is enhanced by a keen insight into Blixen's literary works. The biographer peels back the onion to reveal the link between Blixen's fantastic adult fairy tales and her relationships in Africa.

I am a great fan of literary biographies and this book remains a solid favourite. Donelson shows a great understanding of Blixen's story but her restrained approach lets both Blixen herself and Africa share in the telling.

Well research
The difficulty with writing a biography about Karen Blixen lies in the fact that until the latter part of her life, she lived very much as a solitary and intensely private individual. Consequently, the part of her life we are most interested in, her time in Kenya, are closed except for the glimpses one gets from her letters back home. Donelson has done an admirable job of trying to move beyond Blixen's letters. She relies primarily on interpretations of Blixen's books to give more flavor to Blixen's motivations and state of mind. Naturally, it will always be speculative to speak of someone else's intentions. What I appreciated most in this book was the presence of hard numbers. We do get a better sense of the economics of the whole farm deal than with Thurman's biography.

Ultimately, the picture that emerges of Blixen is an unflattering one. Donelson downplays Blixen's self-avowed attachment to Africans and points at her neediness and helplessness. I'd recommend this book as a good counterpoint to the unrestrained romance of "Out of Africa". Why did Blixen write "Out of Africa" the way she did? On reading "Out of Isak Dinesen in Africa", as was suggested in the introduction, Blixen wrote the book to convince others that her experience in Africa was not a failure; but perhaps also to convince herself that despite the trauma of personal and financial loss, it was worth it.

Beyond the myth
Linda Donelson's book is so far (to my knowledge) the only work on Dinesen to move beyond the Hollywood movie "Out of Africa", the glossy version of Dinesen's own glossy memoir by the same name. Judith Thurman in her wonderful and lauded biography also writes a great deal about Dinesens's years in Africa, but Donelson's book is concentrated wholly on Dinesens's time there.

Donelson's writing is wonderful, transporting the reader to another time and place, but at the same time making Dinesen seem very real and very human. It is also the only work that gives us a Dinesen profile that in fact fits the one that comes to light through Dinesen's OWN letters from Africa (still in print and a must read for any true Dinesen fan) to her family in Denmark during the years 1914-31.

Her memoir "Out of Africa" was Dinesen writing nostalgically in retrospect about her lost paradise several years after her return to Denmark from Africa. The film "Out of Africa" is without doubt a gorgeous and highly entertaining composite version of Dinesen's memoir as well as other works on Dinesen, including Thurman's bio. However, Donelson's book gets at the truth. Whether one likes her work or not depends. If you are the kind of Dinesen fan who prefers the glossy nostalgic version, you might be irritated that someone would "dare" to go beyond the pretty fiction. If however you want the truth, confirmed in Dinesen's own letters, you will enjoy Donelson's book immensely.

Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen
Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen

Inthe movie "Out of Africa" I believe that the writers of the film script missed a wonderful opportunity. In the book "Out of Isak Dinesen in Africa, Karen Blixen's untoldstoy, by Linda Donelson" a reader can find an exciting, wonderful, semsual, complex woman. A woman that is not the same person that appears in the movie. Sometimes, too often movies are made with just the vision of great profits alone, artistry be damned. Too often movie moguls seem to be most interested in maintaining the glory of the lead characters and less interested in telling the great story they have to work with. The Out of Africa Movie would have been so much better with new leading people and a script that didn't have to paint Barron Blixon as such a heavy and could have given a more realistic picture of the marvelous unique man, Denys Finch Hatton. I suspect that the script may have been contaminated by impute from forces that might have been less than insightful. As past history has demonstrated the Moguls some time miss the mark by a long ways.

Linda Donelson in her book, which is smooth reading, does a most wonderful job of letting us see inside the rich character of the real people in this story. But not only that, a long the way you taste and feel Arica and you begin to understand the remarkable history , not only of Nairobi and it's surrounding African wonderlands, this book is magic in the way it blends in social history and world events with close personal feelings and experiences. ... Read more

Product Description
Lapproccio allopera della Blixen attraverso l'arte pittorica e stato il piu naturale punto di partenza per il convegno: talvolta la Blixen menziona opere precise, altre volte ce le fa intuire, ogni tanto ci appaiono deformate, quando non audacemente ridotte in frammenti utilizzati dalla scrittrice in un collage del tutto personale. Lintento dei curatori era in ogni caso di fare che la pittura agisse come una pietra nellacqua, irradiando intorno cerchi concentrici verso altri aspetti figurali dellopera della Blixen: dal suo uso e abuso intertipologico delle opere pittoriche come caratteristica tecnica letteraria, alla sua lingua figurata, ricca di metafore e allegorie, al simbolismo dei colori, ai tableaux ed episodi scenici, alle immagini della memoria formative dellidentita, anche sessuale, alla trasposizione delle storie blixeniane in immagini cinematografiche. Interventi di Bruno Berni, Ivan . Sensen, Hans Goran Ekman, Charlotte Engberg, Anna Maria Di Pascale, Tone Selboe, Concetta DAngeli, Dag Heede, Clara Mucci, Lilian Munk Rosing, Johan Rosdahl Contiene gli abstracts degli interventi e la bibliografia Testi in italiano e danese. ... Read more