It took me months, but I've finally finished it - Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa. And while I can't claim that I loved this massive (at times tedious) meditation on life in Kenya, I certainly came by the end to appreciate Dinesen's timeless, rhythmic narration. There's a consistency to this work (one which mirrors seasons and cycles) that I admire. Below, a few choice offerings from the concluding section of the book:
"Till then I had been part of it, and the drought had been to me like a fever, and the flowering of the plain like a new frock. Now the country disengaged itself from me, and stood back a little, in order that I should see it clearly and as a whole." (317)
"As I stood and looked at them a fancy came back to me that had taken hold of me before: It was not I who was going away, I did not have it in my power to leave Africa, but it was the country that was slowly and gravely withdrawing from me, like the sea in ebb-tide." (365)
...And like the waves, the reader retreats, having been lulled - finally - to sleep.
Do read the sequel, Shadows on the Grass, and also Seven Gothic Tales.
ReplyDelete