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Average rating4
Karen Blixen went to Kenya in 1914 to run a coffee-farm; its failure in 1931 caused her to return to Denmark where she wrote this classic account of her experiences. *Out of Africa* is a celebration of her life there; her friendship with the various peoples of the area and her sympathetic response to the landscape and animals are drawn with warmth and unusual clarity. Although the book is pervaded by her sense of loss, Karen Blixen looks back with an unsentimental intelligence to portray a way of life that is now gone forever.
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The style of this book was lovely, how it focused on her farm and its people, and the beauty of nature in this corner of the world. She didn't talk much about her own self, and nothing of the other settlers, except in relating stories of her farm and its people; she wrote nothing of her past in Denmark. Her language was highly descriptive without being ornate, and that made everything feel more immediate and real. It was pretty rough going to read about her delight in shooting lions and iguanas and such, so guard your heart a bit if you love animals but don't let it put you off the book - blood red is part of the tapestry.