Helpful Score: 1
As much as I loved the movie "Out of Africa" the story in words takes on a whole new dimension. The short story "Shadows on the Grass" was a pure pleasure to read. I highly recommend this book.
Isak Dinesen's memoir of her years living in and managing a coffee plantation in Kenya in the early years of the 20th century. Beautifully written with an exquisite eye for detail.
This breathtaking story is so rich and descriptive that it puts the movie to shame. Out of Africa is a MUST READ.
Out of Africa is a definitive memoir of Kenya at the turn of the twentieth century, circa 1914-1931, while Shadows on the Grass is a reflection of that time written twenty-five years later. It is a vivid account of master-servant relationships as they were then and a book that I wish I had read sixty years ago. While the authors experiences with the natives are largely positive, one can sense the stirrings of dissent that will arise post World War II. For a recount of these there is no better reading than Robert Ruarks writings of the Mau Mau uprising, Something of Value and Uhuru.
Wonderful
Out of Africa is a classic, a wonderfully written tale of a young woman who marries her cousin, moves to Africa and manages a 4,000 acre coffee plantation while she learns to love Africa. I did not read Shadows on the Grass, but it covers Baroness Karen Blixen's life in Africa as well.
Great read-wonderful!!
Baroness Karen Blixen in the twentieth century at the age of twenty-seven left Denmark and sailed for East Africa to marry her Swedish cousin, Baron Bror Blixen. Together they bought a four-thousand-acre coffee plantation in Kenya. For the next seventeen years she managed the plantation, even after she and her husband separated, and she recorded the expeience in two memorable books, Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass.
Fascinating. Loved the movie, too.
