Out of

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Karen Blixen Museum outside Nairobi, Kenya.  She was a champion, writer, and pioneer in her own right. Her story moved something inside of me. She walked with her grief; still caring, wirting, and serving others.

"I am not a novelist, really not even a writer; I am a storyteller. One of my friends said about me that I think all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them, and perhaps this is not entirely untrue. To me, the explanation of life seems to be its melody, its pattern. And I feel in life such an infinite, truly inconceivable fantasy."

–Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen) in an interview with Bent Mohn

in The New York Times Book Review (3 November 1957), later quoted by Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition (1958).

Isak Dinesen's opening line in her novel "Out of Africa" has stayed with "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills."

We watched the movie Out of Africa last week that was inspired from her memoir published in 1937. Robert Redford and Meryl Streep characters were beautiful.

#opportunity #writer #kenya #africa #learning #travel #inspiration

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.” Karen Blixen

Sticks

 

I finished House of Sticks by Ly Tran this week in South Africa.

I love  memoirs and this one is  beautifully written.  It is not always the easiset to read and I often had to set the book down. My heart hurt for her as she struggled in school and being heard about her needed glasses.  I am grateful for those that noticed and helped Ly.  She is an overcomer with the help of people that receognized the need.

I want to go find her a mom and give her the biggest bouquet of flowers I can find and tell her her worth.

thin book

I ran across this thin book while waiting for a Thai Massage in Kenya. Yes, happenstance for certain.

Miss Read  - The Christmas Mouse.  The cover was tattered and the pages yellowed. But it is almost Christmas and why not.

I finished it on the flight from Nairobi to Johannesburg. It is so sweet and easy to read. It was first published in 1973 and there is a series.   

I found a little history on the author:

Dora Jessie Saint MBE née Shafe (born 17 April 1913), best known by the pen name Miss Read, was an English novelist, by profession a schoolmistress. Her pseudonym was derived from her mother's maiden name. In 1940 she married her husband, Douglas, a former headmaster. The couple had a daughter, Jill. She began writing for several journals after World War II and worked as a scriptwriter for the BBC.

She wrote a series of novels from 1955 to 1996. Her work centered on two fictional English villages, Fairacre and Thrush Green. The principal character in the Fairacre books, "Miss Read", is an unmarried schoolteacher in a small village school, an acerbic and yet compassionate observer of village life. Miss Read's novels are wry regional social comedies, laced with gentle humour and subtle social commentary. Miss Read is also a keen observer of nature and the changing seasons.

Her most direct influence is from Jane Austen, although her work also bears similarities to the social comedies of manners written in the 1920s and 1930s, and in particular the work of Barbara Pym. Miss Read's work has influenced a number of writers in her own turn, including the American writer Jan Karon. The musician Enya has a track on her Watermark album named after the book Miss Clare Remembers, and one on her Shepherd Moons album named after No Holly for Miss Quinn.

In 1996 she retired. In 1998 she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to literature. She died 7 April, 2012 in Shefford Woodlands.

I will hunt for a few more used books from her along the way. #cheers #almostChristmas #travel #read #travelreads