Isak Dinesen, the life of a storyteller by Judith Thurman

This biography is an absolute treat, especially coming off some of the drab biographies I've been reading lately. Maybe it's partially to the author's raw material. Karen Blixen's life reads as emotionally charged as it was active and adventurous. But it shouldn't get much of the credit; big cheeers for Judith Thurman's intelligent empathy and her wit, delivered through stylish writing. What can I tell ya, she's a scholar and a poet. I was struck by the enormous amount of research and travel and personal interviews that must have gone into Judith Thurman's intimate portrayal of Blixen's complicated self even while I was avidly reading it as pure dramatic entertainment. As it happens, the flynotes will tell you that she spent seven years researching this life story.

So who was this here Karen Dinesen/Baroness von Blixen/Isak Dinesen? Isak DInesen wrote the semi-autobiographical book Out Of Africa, which was also made into the movie starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. I haven't read her book yet, but I did see the movie and I can tell you Thurman's version of events on a coffee farm in Kenya is waaaaay more interesting. Plus, it's all informed by a thorough childhood history and all kinds of personal details - details about her and other glamorous eccentrics circling Africa's British colonies in the first few decades of the 1900s. It's scandal and gossip up the wahzoo, as well good armchair tourism seasoned very lightly with cultural anthropology.

"The letters are also filled with exotic and, at times, rather lurid vignettes: how Bror came home from safari with chiggers under his nails, which had to be plucked out with a tweezer; how a litter of kittens was devoured alive by red ants; how she soaked through her silk lingerie when she had a fever; or how she mediated a drunken quarrel among the 'boys.'...The letters also share a commonn undertone of pride, even vindication. For this was the scope, the freedom, the eroticism, the raw grandeur she had dreamed about in Denmark and of which she had felt so deprived. 'Life is more brutal,' she told Aunt Bess, 'and would probably upset you more than the worst revelations from life at home; I for one, prefer it like that.'"

But the most interesting of all was, for me, life after Africa - or as Thurman argues, a kind of afterlife. Karen Blixen is nearing fifty, she's bankrupt, divorced, the love of her life only very recently killed by crashing his plane, the farm which she struggled on for almost 20 years sold at a loss to a real estate developer who plans to turn it into a subdivision - she must have felt like smeared bug-juice. Imagine the balls (er, boobs) someone would have who responds to all that by locking herself in a room to write a book Seven Gothic Tales, by Isak Dinesen. I could finish by saying that the book was critically acclaimed, a commercial success and the birth of an internationally-renowned author/celebrity, all this is true. But Judith Thurman is writing about real life and so she keeps going for a long while yet, doing an amazing job portraying a compelling, warm, brilliant, destructive, humorous old tyrant. Here's a good bit to sum up:

"Bjørnvig was aware of this paradox in her nature, the way which its greatness would appear unexpectedly, 'like a rare wild animal.' and then vanish again. Suddenly she was present, completely, and suddenly she was gone. What she said, he understood many years later, sounded like wisdom, but it was missing 'that which characterizes wisdom - invulnerability and consistence...' She could crave a responsible and steady relationship 'with all her heart,' but she found it practically impossible to achieve, 'except with her servants and her animals.'

The last word on this subject should be hers. 'If only,' she would complain, 'people would treat me like a lunatic. It would be such a relief.'"







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