Tag: Bios / Memoirs

I wanted to read this book after seeing a film version, which my husband and I both enjoyed. It’s based on the author’s childhood in Kenya just before WWI, where her father was attempting to start a coffee plantation. Literally out in the middle of the bush- nobody else for miles around, a long rough journey by oxcart to reach the place. The story is about how they lived rough at first, then built a house and put in the coffee seedlings. Their difficulties in getting labor to help- most of the people from tribes nearby didn’t understand what they were trying to do, couldn’t comprehend the instructions (language barrier), had varying priorities and expectations about getting paid for their work (cultural differences), etc. Theft and intertribal conflicts were a constant problem. Differences between the Kikuyu and Masai, and a few other tribes they encountered. Eventually some other Europeans came out to develop land on other plots nearby, so they had neighbors of sorts.

The landscape is described beautifully, the encounters with wildlife (especially hunts for leopard and buffalo, a pet dik-dik, a giant python that supposedly swallowed a child) are interesting. The attitudes not so much- there were frequent remarks about how the natives had not improved themselves or their land in thousands of years, and praising the Europeans for turning the country into something productive- discomfiting. Sad to read about how the tribesmen would bring their injured and sick in once they heard one of the neighbors was a nurse- but the ailments were often beyond her skill level or limited supplies. Most intriguing and also what makes this book a bit difficult, is that it’s written from the child’s viewpoint- apparently she was only five or six at the time, so you have to wonder how much is embellished as I can’t believe she recalled all those conversations so precisely. But then there is so much you have to gather by reading between the lines. Notably the love affair between two of the neighboring adults- one whose husband was usually absent, away on hunting trips. I think I picked up on what was going on with that much better in the film than reading the book! where you only get the half-understood comments the little girl heard from the sidelines.

The illustration on my book’s cover is amusing- because while the narrator did often go out riding in the bush with one of her father’s employees accompanying, she had a short fat white pony, not a dark horse. Later in the book she has to live with friends of the family (her father enlists and her mother goes to help with the war effort at a hopsital) and rides a different horse- but this one is also white! And just like another reviewer has noted, this reader was also left wondering what was behind the boomklops– was it really a bird the man wanted to show her, or something sinister?

At the end of this book, I’m really interested to not only read the sequel, but also Out of Africa again. I recall that Karen Blixen wrote a lot about the differences between the Kikuyu who worked on her farm, and the Masai she often interacted with. I’m curious now how that description compares to Elspeth Huxley’s of the same.

Young widow with her four-year-old daughter decided she was tired of washing other people’s laundry for a living, and moved to Wyoming to claim a homstead and asisst on a neighbor’s ranch. She found she loved the hard work, and before long married the neighbor (their homestead plots shared a boundary). The book is a compilation of letters she wrote back home to a previous employer (who must have be a close friend). She tells about the weather, the landscape, the neighbors and acquaintances- none of them lived nearby so visits were always welcome and travelers always given whatever they could share. There is really not much detail about the day-to-day work of the homestead (though she mentions planting potatoes, keeping a large vegetable garden and tending flowers, canning goods, sewing clothes, etc) it is mostly about the people around her, interesting little stories and incidents of character. Some surprising, some quite touching. Lots of examples of making do- improptu weddings, helping at a birth, performing funeral services when nobody else was around to do so. Generosity, humor and plain old gumption are strong in these pages. She certainly was an admirable woman and had a lot of interesting stories to tell. I found out there’s a sequel- shorter, but still sounds good so I’ll keep my eye out for it.

One part that really amused me was about an overnight journey she took with some friends, to a “Leatherstocking dinner”. This reader was just as puzzled as the letter writer as to what a ” ‘stocking dinner” could be. I was surprised when she described with delight the spread on long tables- all the foods mentioned in the Leatherstocking Tales (ie venison cooked six different ways, beaver tail, grouse, and so on). My first thought was: wow, people back then must have really admired these books! it’s like nowadays when folks have a dinner featuring dishes from Jane Austen novels. My second thought was wonder, that the James Fenimore Cooper books had been so popular. I tried one of the more famous and found it very unreadable. So that got me to thinking why. Did people have bigger imaginations back then, with no smart phones or internet or television. Was it easier for them to focus on and picture the wordy flowery descriptions, sitting around in a small room after dark with someone reading aloud (so I imagine)? I also wonder what one of those Cooper fans from the 1800’s would think of today’s popular novels. They might consider that we’ve become less intelligent as a whole (just going by the extensively detailed wordiness those older popular novels had).

There was another bookish part that made me smile. Her daughter received a copy of Black Beauty from the friend, and loved it so much. And later described an incident just like one in the novel- where a man’s team of horses couldn’t pull a load up a steep slope but he got angry and refused offered help. This little girl went on and on about how she wished people would understand about the horses being worked too hard.

A bit more info here.