West with the Night
by Beryl Markham
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Book Summary Information
Author: Beryl MarkhamEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1982-01-01
ISBN: 0865471185
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: North Point Press
Book Reviews of West with the Night
Book Review: A 5 star book about a 2 star woman
Summary: 3 Stars
This a wonderful, mostly true, story about the early years and astonishing adventures of a young woman who grew up as one of the real "Out of Africa" characters. The other reviews do a good job of describing the story line of the book, so I won't repeat that.
At the time I read the book, I knew little about Beryl, and was so fascinated by this beautifully written, "Hemmingway-esque" book and its heroine that I wanted to know more. First, I read Mary Lovell's autobiography. I thought it was surely a "negative" biography and wanted to try to understand Beryl in a positive light. Then I read the much more impartial and well-researched autobiography by Errol Trzebinski, and realized that as a human being, there was little to like or admire about Beryl; Lovell's book turned about to be sugar-coated!
I came to realize that while "West with the Night" is an accurate description of Beryl's actions, it is a whitewash of her as a person and very misleading. Also, there is such overwhelming evidence that she did not write this extraordinary book, that I am surprised that she is still given credit for being its author. Even at the time, Hemmingway himself doubted that she could have written it. And he was in a position to know as it was written flawlessly in his style and he, shall we say, knew her "well." She barely had a high school education, rarely read anything, and never wrote another word. She wasn't even a letter writer. However, her naïve, love blinded and ill-fated husband, Raoul Schumacher, an experienced ghost writer, did possess the ability to write the book, and most certainly did; the early drafts of the book that were later found leave no doubt about this. Even in her dotage, Beryl refused to give credit to Raoul.
Beryl Markham grew up near Nairobi, raised by a loving father, and was an acquaintance of the much older and now famous Baroness Karen von Blixen. Karen initially thought of her fondly, but came to understand that Beryl was no friend of any woman. It was Beryl Markham that Karen was referring to in the movie when she was furious with Dennis Finch Hatten for having an affair with a younger woman. In real life, both Karen and Beryl aborted his children; one of the few untruths in "Out of Africa" was that Karen was infertile as the result of syphilis.
Beryl's list of sexual partners is a who's who of the times and includes royalty, and other celebrities. However, Dennis may have been the one man that Beryl actually cared for - probably because he cared so little for her. Even so, it must have been difficult for her to have him die during a period in which they were on again, and while flying an errand on which Beryl had originally planned to join him; and then for Karen to play the role of "widow."
Perhaps that was part of what made her such an unpleasant, moody, selfish, misogynous and promiscuous woman, although she had a pretty good start on that prior to Dennis's death. Also, she was no doubt affected by her mother's abandonment when she was a toddler, only to find out much later in life that the woman she thought was her mother, was not. That does not explain, however, Beryl's immediate and irrevocable rejection of her only child, a son, who was born with a rectal defect that required several surgeries and who was later somewhat sickly. The fact that he was not strong and manly was always an embarrassment to her, and she spent very little time with him.
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