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Title: West with the Night by Beryl Markham, Julie Harris ISBN: 1-57270-383-0 Publisher: The Audio Partners Pub. Date: 09 April, 2004 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 8 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.62 (79 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Companion piece to Out of Africa. Should be read together
Comment: From the age of 4, Beryl Markham lived in East Africa and spent her childhood with native Maruni children as her only playmates. She was there during the same era as Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), author of Out of Africa, and reading these two books together gives a lyrical, poetic, and heart-full-of-love picture of the Africa they both knew. But it wasn't only Africa they loved; they both shared a passion for the same men: Bror Blixen (Dinesen's husband) and Denys Finch-Hatton (Dinnesen's lover), so, inevitably their paths collided at times.
Although Dinesen is more well-known and respected as a writer compared to Markham, better known as an adventurer, Markham rises to heights of poetic imagery and her writing style was praised highly by many other writers of her era, including no less than Ernest Hemingway.
Rating: 5
Summary: Wow...a beautiful heck of a book!
Comment: Mere moments have passed since I closed the back cover on "West with the Night", and already I am missing its world and its voice. It is one of those rare books that can, with the simple fluidity of its narrative, pull you in and engulf you entirely.
I am not a big fan of the memoir, but Markham's (or whoever wrote it) voice is neither bombastic nor humble; she feels less a narrator or subject than a fellow traveller, along with you for the ride. Although the life she lived was extraordinary and compelling, she refreshingly views it in clipped, casual, careful terms, as unimpressed with herself as if she'd been a midwestern housewife, not a pilot and horse trainer in Colonial Africa.
Many readers will approach "West with the Night" out of a pre-existing interest in and knowledge of its era and characters, and will no doubt experience it entirely differently than I did. While a few names rang vague bells, for the most it was an engaging introduction. But I read it as literature, not as history, and enjoyed it immensely as such. I found her small personal anecdotes far more interesting than the accounts of her grand feats. The Atlantic flight that made her famous rounds out the end of the book, but is rather dry and dull compared to her African tales. Stories such as her father's pompous parrot had me in spasms of public giggles.
It is little wonder that Hemmingway praised this book, as the sparse directness of its utilitarian prose makes even the Old Man of the Sea seem a flowery romantic. Its structure can be rather meandering, but in that regard it resembles the contours of memory, which makes me believe Markham did indeed write her own book.
Rating: 5
Summary: First aviatrix in Africa
Comment: The rule is, I found, that females can't write. I am staying away from what my own gender writes. Beryl Markham is a wonderful exception to my rule. Ernest Hemingway felt dwarfed by the authoress.
Beryl wrote in 1936, and Africa were she grew up was obviously different than now. She describes first hand encounters with lions and elephants, very interesting observations on animal behavior. She also describes the natives, and I wished she would have even gotten more into them. I love her philosophy on life and often I got the feeling she is writing right now, not 70 years ago. A great book for people curious about Africa! Put it into your collection, because you want to read it again!
Addendum April 30, 2004: After writing the above review I have learned from the biography "The Lives of Beryl Markham" by Errol Trzebinski that Beryl did not write "West with the Night", but her third husband Raoul Schumacher, a Hollywood ghostwriter. I learned that Beryl herself could only write aviation log books and horsebreeding stable accounts, but could not write herself out of a telephone booth if her life depended on it. Nevertheless, the book deserves 5 stars, and sorry to say my conviction that my gender has no literary talents is proven once more. The acclaim for this fine literary jewel needs to go to Raoul Schumacher.
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Title: The Lives of Beryl Markham by Errol Trzebinski, Errol Trzevinski ISBN: 0393312526 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: March, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, Lewis Galantiere ISBN: 0151970874 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 15 October, 1992 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by Elspeth Huxley ISBN: 0141183780 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 31 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass by Isak Dinesen ISBN: 0679724753 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 23 October, 1989 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Out of Africa by ISAK DINESEN ISBN: 0679600213 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 05 September, 1992 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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