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Nothing lastsPosted on 2008/05/15 17:35:44 (May 2008).   Last night I finished reading The African Farm. Marvellous book. A nice insight into colonized Kenya and its native world, back in the 20s. Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen, which is her pen name) spent 15 years of her life trying to grow coffee up in the Ngong Hills, at a stone's throw from Nairobi. 15 years of hardships tempered with moments of intense felicity. She returned to Denmark as she finally went bankrupt. I enjoyed the book so much that I wished to know more about the writer, buying for the purpose an edition of her correspondence. The following bit of text is an extract from the introduction : On her return to Denmark she told a close friend that she was giving herself six months in which to find out whether or not she would be able to live the life she had now been allotted. And if she found it was impossible she would quietly make her exit from life. [...] In a letter to her brother Thomas Dinesen [...] she writes: ... it seems to me that it would in no way be terrible or sad if I [...] were now calmly to retire from life together with everything that I have loved here. [...] It may perhaps be just as hard for Mother to lose me as for me to lose Ngong; but when one comes to realize the whole nature of life, which is that nothing lasts, and that in that very fact lies some of its glory, the sadness of this is really not so terrible. To me it would seem the most natural thing to disappear with my world here, for it seems to me to be [...] vital parts of myself, and I do not know how much of me will survive losing it. There were times when Karen Blixen could despair over her immediate circumstances and rage against fate, but her nature urged her to be a yea-sayer, no matter what life faced her with. She regarded her life with the eye of a painter, well aware that the dark shadows in the picture were quite essential as the light and the bright colors. Sorrows and adversities were as much a part of the pattern as the rare but never-to-be-forgotten spells of happiness that she had experienced; she may even perhaps have had a partly unconscious need of suffering, because she felt that more than anything else it could mature the artist in her. 
My beloved Corto Maltese hanging in the staircase leading to our rooms La traduction suivra très prochainement. Comment 1 So, do you have all the Corto Maltese novels/stories? He is an interesting early 20th-C construct. I guess not too many people in the UK have heard of him... (Nowadays at least) Posted by Nigel at 2008/05/16 08:17:26. Comment 2Is Denmark really that bad? Posted by John at 2008/05/16 08:37:33. Comment 3Nigel : I don't really fancy the stories. But I like the character.
Posted by Sheri at 2008/05/16 09:53:12. Comment 4Danish girls are nice. I remember having a distinct neck pain due to too much turning my head to look at those beautiful blonde girls.... (drool) Posted by Lox at 2008/05/17 12:05:46. Comment 5While I hate myself for not reading enough... I really stopped reading actually, I spend a lot of time reading on the web but it's not books... :( Posted by Lox at 2008/05/17 12:07:07. Comment 6I have a brilliant (true) personal story about Danish girls but I dare not commit it to the Internet!! Ha!!! :D :D :D Posted by Nigel at 2008/05/17 16:36:35. Comment 7Guys: When it gets a little too sophisticated (or philosophic), you really have nothing to say, have you?!
Posted by Puzzled Sheri at 2008/05/18 08:02:57. Comment 8Hmmm... Sheri, can you really be criticizing me for only talking about the sexy bit? Sheri!!!!! We thought this was a subject close to your heart!!!!!! :D: D
Posted by Nigel at 2008/05/18 08:49:32. Comment 9Nigel : I believe I offended you. I'm sorry. The point is that I can talk sex AND other things. It's not the African Farm which matters here. It's the way we approach death. Not that it's an obsession. I think I accept it. But I need to live first. As a free-thinker. Not as a consumer. Karen Blixen was, I believe, a free-thinker who managed to extract the *sap* of life, if you take my meaning. Posted by Sheri at 2008/05/18 09:03:00. Comment 10Ha! No, no offense at all, Sheri!! I was just enjoying the "discussion"!!!
Posted by Nigel at 2008/05/18 09:32:23. Comment 11Sorry I didn't have anything really intelligent to say Sheri but really I cannot relate to this woman who, frankly, (albeit based only on the passage you present), seems a little self obsessed and overly melodramatic.
Posted by John at 2008/05/18 09:50:28. Comment 12Ah but she was very close to her mother, John! It's just that she believed she had 'served her time' on earth. She loved Africa. She loved 'her people' on the farm. Losing it was tantamount to losing a vital organ. She wasn't sure she could outlive such a loss. It was so intense.
Posted by Sheri at 2008/05/19 15:59:04. Comment 13Nigel : I like the metaphor. Passenger and driver. Posted by Sheri at 2008/05/19 19:41:05. Comment 14You're a wise man, and I'm a pretentious git. Posted by Sheri at 2008/05/19 19:41:47. Comment 15No offence taken Sheri! I can completely understand the sense of frustration when sometimes you want to have a heartfelt discussion and all the people around you are either ignoring it altogether, or just not taking it seriously.
Posted by John at 2008/05/19 21:46:01. | Post a comment |