Out of Africa & Shadows on the Grass

Karin Blixen is a woman of financial means, living in Denmark at the turn of the 20th Century. She is a woman who longs for more and believes she will find it in Africa. Leaving all she knows behind, she buys a coffee plantation and starts a new life, learning local customs, earning their trust, and gaining a new respect on life. Through peace and war she perseveres to protect her home and plantation, but will it be enough to last the rest of her life?I saw the movie like so many of us and loved Meryl Streep in the role. I always wanted to read the book, so I have. It is excellent beyond words (pun intended). The author writes in such a calm, soothing, and interesting style one cannot help be captivated by her words. I felt like I was right alongside her talking with locals and traveling on safari. It's the sort of story that could be made into a popular Netflix series not that so many others do the same. I highly recommend this book. I was left feeling enriched as a reader and an author myself.

What is Pride ? Is it `Pride' to Review a Classic ?I've always loved the movie version of `Out of Africa' with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. Whether it was the character development, or the wild life, or the Mozart throughout the film score, the symbiosis of all of the above consistently moves me & holds my attention. Then there were the excerpted portions of the book I was introduced to in Literature class. Somewhere among the multitude of reviews of this book are plenty of words to describe how I `feel' about the prose and the somewhat dis-similar treatment by the movie.But who can compete with the authors own words ?"The discovery of the dark races was to me a magnificent enlargement of all my world."From the view to promote the perspective of a tribal native, in this country or any other, I'd like to point out that Baroness Karen Blixen/ a.k.a. Isaac Denison has recorded some highly unique perspectives about the Kenya tribal peoples and their respective roles in the predator vs prey aspects of human slavery.How the Mohammedans played the role of predators in concert with Arab slave traders to capture and sell Africans to the European slave ship masters is treated with pragmatism. The proud people of the Masai game reserve were sometimes assisting the Mohammedans, but if captured and sold themselves were unlikely to survive in captivity. The 'prey' class of social strata, named Kikiyu, who were beneath the 'marriage' qualifications that would suit the upwards-mobility of the Mohammedan women were yet accounted acceptable breeding stock as wives of the Masai, noble and proud.These variations are irregular to the politically correct assumptions of our society, yet as real as they may be in middle eastern cultures, they were described in pre-World War I central Africa. What the American descendants of Mohammedan Africans might be 'sensitive' to or 'offended' by in our culture were matters of 'pride' to the Kenyans of the post Colonial era leading up to World War II. Some readers might enjoy discovering what praise Baroness Blixen had to report about her Mohammedan servant Farah, or the Holy man from India who visited her farm, or the virtues of the Mohammedan women in obtaining a husband.Our culture is perfectly content to adopt a presidential canidate for the sake of lauding his skin color, without appreciating any of the virtues of the Kenyan ancestors who brought him to American territory. But this is one author who has uniquely appraised the strengths of the Kenyan people she knew, from living with them and learning to respect and love them. Consider a bit she writes about 'pride',"...Very proud things were about, and made their presence felt...Pride is faith in the idea that God had, when he made us. A proud man is conscious of the idea, and aspires to realize it. He does not strive towards a happiness, or comfort, which may be irrelevant to God's idea of him. His success is the idea of God, successfully carried through, and he is in love with his destiny...the fulfillment of his fate.""People who have no pride are not aware of any idea of God in the making of them, and sometimes they make you doubt that there has ever been much of an idea, or else it has been lost, and who shall find it again ? They have got to accept as success what others warrant to be so, and to take their happiness, and even their own selves, at the quotation of the day. They tremble with reason, before their fate."[she distils a faith like to, but not to be confused as 'Christian' faith, thus]"Love the pride of God beyond all things, and the pride of your neighbour as your own. The pride of lions: do not shut them up in Zoos. The pride of your dogs: let them not grow fat. Love the pride of your fellow-partisans, and allow them no self-pity.""Love the pride of the conquered nations, and leave them to honour their father and their mother."`Out of Africa' is filled with beautiful descriptive prose. But someone also learned from Africa and her people, and was good enough to leave us a chronicle.

I recommend reading this book in the winter, in front of a fireplace and a glass of good red wine. I think the older generations would appreciate this book far more than the youngsters..

So glad to find a good copy of this book available. It’s about a time long gone, which some might find unacceptable; a time when exotic animals were basically just a commodity but the story itself and the writing about the experiences are superb. The author, an adventurous, courageous female, released her stories under a male pseudonym, l believe in order to get readers and obtain acceptance. I have great admiration for her. She overcame great obstacles and lived a life that only a few women would ever attempt to live at that time or even now. She lived exuberantly, experienced tragedy, love, excitement, respect, peace, sorrow and joy. Her stories were her children, as she could not conceive after contracting an STD from her unfaithful spouse and barely surviving the cure of arsenic treatments. Out Of Africa is one of my favorite movies of all time. I watched it with my husband who has passed away and now the magnificent music scores always bring bittersweet memories when l listen to them. Meryl and Robert did a great job of depicting the adventurers. Anyway, it was nice to find the book and get a deeper look at the lives of people who lived in a time of freedom that people probably will ever know again.

Out of Africa is a remarkably well written memoir about Karen Blixen's life on a highlands Kenyan coffee plantation. One can clearly deduce from her loving reminiscences that this time in her life left a deep and lasting impact on her, mostly positive, though tragedy does sometimes appear as in any person's life. This is a wonderful memoir that tells unique story separated into chapters about the moments that she remembers best about her life in Kenya. One note of caution/interest. This book is substantially different from the film of the same name, the film portrays her story largely as a bidding and tragic romance marred by affair and marital issues. Karen's husband and marriage however is seldom if ever mentioned at all in the book. I highly recommend this read to lovers of nature, foreign cultures and proseful memoires.

After watching out of Africa film and finding it was based on the two books combined. It made me want to read the book.

The first book we received was of very poor -scruffy quality . Had refund . Second book was better quality.

Excellent quality book.

A book I wanted to read, very cheap and good condition

Karen Blixen was a truly remarkable woman, who conveys perfectly (and with affectionate compassion) the gentle decadence of pre-WW1 colonial East Africa.