Just a brilliant book. Let’s start there.
Now many have compared it to (largely because of his flattering comments on the work) Hemingway’s works and I don’t find it too far off base. Hemingway I find deeper in its prose requiring rereadings to understand what is being truly said behind the simple language while this work is truly autobiographical in nature and more straightforward in its recollection. That said…its descriptions of flight, of hunting, of African life…all ring similar to Papa’s works.
Beryl lived an incredible life and shares it in unflinching memory here. From her life as an only child (she did have a brother but he is not present here) growing up on a farm and grain mill in east Africa, she inhabits the same lands as Hemingway’s stories and is in a manner…more scandalous. Her numerous affairs with members of British Royalty, Antoine de Saint Exupery, Denys Hatton and numerous others makes for great ink but its her independent adventurous nature that makes for the best tales. Savaged by a lion and later a warthog, raising, training and racing horses, largely left to her own devices amongst the tribesmen (she cared not for the activities of the tribeswomen) of Kenya, becoming a skilled pilot to the point of being the first PERSON to cross the Atlantic from East to West as well as the first commercial pilot in Africa and on and on. She filled her lifetime with enough stories, adventures, anecdotes and experiences to fill multiple lifetimes…this book capture a mere shadow of what she was.
The style is understated and rings true throughout. Having travelled to Kenya, Egypt and elsewhere that she describes one can see vestiges of what she saw some 90 years ago and feel the love she had for the continent and its people. The work is as quotable as near anything I’ve come across with just one example here though you could pick any page at random and find similar brilliant handiwork “I look at my yesterdays for months past, and find them as good a lot of yesterdays as anybody might want. I sit there in the firelight and see them all. The hours that made them were good, and so were the moments that made the hours. I have had responsibilities and work, dangers and pleasure, good friends, and a world without walls to live in.”
Great stuff…enjoy it. Its a rare gift.