Reviews

Maintaining that his godfather Baron Bror Blixen was depicted unfairly in the film Out of Africa, Aschan here presents a beguiling biography of ``Blix'' (1886-1946), son of Danish nobles raised on the family estate in Sweden. Fond but candid, Aschan recalls the baron as roistering, bibulous and randy, a womanizer more chased than chaser. Blix wed ``Tanne'' (Nobelist Isak Dinesen) in 1914, settling in Kenya on a coffee plantation that went bankrupt in 1921. The baroness returned to Denmark, but he stayed on to lead safaris and hunt big game. There are accounts of Blix's many amours and friendships with Hemingway, European nobility and remarkable women like Beryl Markham, author of West with the Night, during his African years. He died in Sweden trying to save the life of his lover after their car crashed. Photos not seen by PW. (September 30)

These biographies of two Europeans who lived in early 20th-century Kenya provide a vivid evocation of the colonial era. With his wife, novelist Isak Dinesen, Bror Blixen left Sweden to cultivate coffee in Kenya; he became instead a highly successful white hunter, leading rich Europeans on safari. Archetypal hero for Ernest Hemingway, Blix was also a happy womanizer. Kenya hunter Aschan paints the exotic scenery and wildlife richly, but Blixen's character remains elusive in this brief, sometimes sketchy book. Lovell's biography of aviatrix Beryl Markham more vividly evokes its subject. Raised in Kenya alongside the sons of Nandi hunters, Markham was the first person to fly west across the Atlantic solo, author of the successful West with the Night, and a champion horse trainer. Her lovers included Blixen, Prince Henry, Leopold Stokowski, and many others, but Markham is more remarkable as a woman who lived for herself. Strikingly beautiful, uninterested in motherhood, she could take apart an airplane, fly across the Sahara with a stuttering engine, write a brilliant memoir, and instantly calm an unmanageable horse. An upcoming television miniseries will keep this highly readable book in demand. Bettina Drew, English Dept., City Coll., CUNY