"There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel the whole time as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne, bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive.
It seems right that humane beings should live in the nomad fashion and unnatural to have one's home always in the same place; one only feels really free when on can go in whatever direction one pleases over the plains, get to the river at sundown and pitch one's camp, with the knowledge that one can fall asleep beneath other trees, with another view before one, the next night."
Karen Blixen, Letters from Africa, Feb 1918
Karen Blixen is the author Out of Africa, the novel that was made into the well-known Oscar-winning movie starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Karen was a Danish coffee planter and lady aristocrat. After her first marriage broke down, she began a secret affair with a British playboy who was killed in a plane crash. Karen subsequently returned to Denmark where she wrote Out of Africa based on her real personal experience in Africa. She was passed over for the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature in favor of Ernest Hemingway.
Today, I paid a visit to Karen Blixen Museum. The museum is the farmhouse where the writer lived between 1914 and 1931. For me, there was nothing really special in the house. The rooms remain the same as what it looked like when Blixen lived here – typical of aristocrat in colonial Africa I guess. There are photos of Karen, her husband, and her lover on display. Outside of the house, there is a nice, huge lawn, where a plot for wedding banquet was being prepared. My taxi driver told me that it is a popular place for people in town to organize events.
I didn't find the visit as interesting as expected. For one thing, in general this kind of historical sites barely raise my interest. For another, I don't know much about Karen and her stories. I watched the movie long time ago and didn't really appreciate it. But I have downloaded it from emule and am going to watch it again when I am out of Africa.
It seems right that humane beings should live in the nomad fashion and unnatural to have one's home always in the same place; one only feels really free when on can go in whatever direction one pleases over the plains, get to the river at sundown and pitch one's camp, with the knowledge that one can fall asleep beneath other trees, with another view before one, the next night."
Karen Blixen, Letters from Africa, Feb 1918
Karen Blixen is the author Out of Africa, the novel that was made into the well-known Oscar-winning movie starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. Karen was a Danish coffee planter and lady aristocrat. After her first marriage broke down, she began a secret affair with a British playboy who was killed in a plane crash. Karen subsequently returned to Denmark where she wrote Out of Africa based on her real personal experience in Africa. She was passed over for the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature in favor of Ernest Hemingway.
Today, I paid a visit to Karen Blixen Museum. The museum is the farmhouse where the writer lived between 1914 and 1931. For me, there was nothing really special in the house. The rooms remain the same as what it looked like when Blixen lived here – typical of aristocrat in colonial Africa I guess. There are photos of Karen, her husband, and her lover on display. Outside of the house, there is a nice, huge lawn, where a plot for wedding banquet was being prepared. My taxi driver told me that it is a popular place for people in town to organize events.
I didn't find the visit as interesting as expected. For one thing, in general this kind of historical sites barely raise my interest. For another, I don't know much about Karen and her stories. I watched the movie long time ago and didn't really appreciate it. But I have downloaded it from emule and am going to watch it again when I am out of Africa.
.JPG)
The farmhouse
.JPG)
Karen's bedroom
.JPG)
Karen Blixen
.JPG)
A nice wedding banquet plot is being prepared
No comments:
Post a Comment