?Have You Heard??Audiobooks For Your Listening Pleasure?Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen?Narrated by Julie Harris?

Posted August 29, 2018 by RobbieLea in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
Published by Blackstone Audio Inc. on December 16th, 1999
Genres: Personal Memoir
ISBN: 1721551018
ASIN: B00005473X
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Out of Africa is Isak Dinesen's memoir of her years in Africa, from 1914 to 1931, on a four-thousand-acre coffee plantation in the hills near Nairobi. She had come to Kenya from Denmark with her husband, and when they separated she stayed on to manage the farm by herself, visited frequently by her lover, the big-game hunter Denys Finch-Hatton, for whom she would make up stories "like Scheherazade." In Africa, "I learned how to tell tales," she recalled many years later. "The natives have an ear still. I told stories constantly to them, all kinds." Her account of her African adventures, written after she had lost her beloved farm and returned to Denmark, is that of a master storyteller, a woman whom John Updike called "one of the most picturesque and flamboyant literary personalities of the century."

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The choice to download and listen to Out of Africa, a memoir by Karen Blixen writing under her pen name Isak Dinesen, was an experiment of sorts. First of all, I’ve never listened to an abridged audiobook. I’ve just been too leery of the author’s words losing their meaning when huge portions of the narrative are edited out. Another consideration was the fact that one of my favorite movies is based on the book and I wanted to see how they compared. Although the author’s beautiful descriptive language about Africa and her beloved farm are the same, many of the story’s details are lost in the edits and frankly, the movie which lasts 2 hours and 41 minutes compared to 2 hours and 57 minutes for the audiobook presented the storyline much more accurately. For example, the abridged audiobook doesn’t give details about the breakup of Karen Blixen’s marriage, the circumstances of which had a profound effect on her life.  Nor is it explicit about the exact nature of her relationship with Denys Finch-Hatton which was a poignant part of the movie starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. One of the most touching scenes from any movie I’ve seen is the funeral for Finch-Hatton where Karen reads A. E. Housman’s poem “To an Athlete Dying Young”. I have yet to find whether this was a scene from the book or added for the film version. It isn’t in the abridged audiobook.

The late Julie Harris was an excellent choice to narrate this type of book. No performance is needed . . . only her lovely voice.

Do I recommend this audiobook? Absolutely! It is a joy to listen to Isak Dinesen’s prose and she doesn’t need my praise to secure her place in literary history. Even though Out of Africa is considered a memoir, it is not some dull recounting of one person’s life. There is plenty of drama — marriage and infidelity, love and loss, joy and tragedy — all set against a portrait of the African countryside which the author paints with a loving brush.  What I don’t recommend is the abridged version. Treat yourself to the full-length book so nothing of the power of the story is lost in editing.

About Isak Dinesen

Pseudonym used by the Danish author Karen Blixen.

Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke (Danish: [kʰɑːɑn ˈbleɡsn]; 17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962), née Karen Christenze Dinesen, was a Danish author, also known by the pen name Isak Dinesen, who wrote works in Danish, French and English. She also at times used the pen names Tania Blixen, Osceola, and Pierre Andrézel.
Blixen is best known for Out of Africa, an account of her life while living in Kenya, and for one of her stories, Babette’s Feast, both of which have been adapted into Academy Award-winning motion pictures. She is also noted for her Seven Gothic Tales, particularly in Denmark.

The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea

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