Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (aka Karen Blixen)
Read in the month of June, 2023
Having seen the movie first, the novel was unexpected. Where the movie is the story of Karen and Denys, the book is more an ode to Africa, the land, the animals, and the people both native and colonists, and written or lived at a time when killing animals at will seemed to be no problem (At one time she comments on wanting to kill every type of animal in Africa), and when being the "lords" of the people, no matter how benevolent, reigned. Denys was one, relatively minor, part of the book. Her descriptions of the difference in perspectives or ways of seeing life, sometimes subtle, sometimes not, between the people native to Africa and the European colonists were interesting and gave fodder to rethink or tweak one's own beliefs. Later in the book, her descriptions of the African landscape are mesmerizing.
Overall I give the book a 4/5. I don't know if it was the translation, but at times there was an awkwardness to her sentence structure. I was committed to reading the whole book, but also looked forward to finishing it so I could move on to the next - Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus.
