I read “circling the sun” first, and it worked well for me. It was helpful to have knowledge of Out Of Africa, so I could visualize some of the characters.
Glad to have you on board, RonnieGirl.
I’d recommend reading West With the Night first. It is so lyrical and mysterious, and it is not very long. Markham goes into detail about some aspects of her life, but there are lots of things she doesn’t address. Reading the book makes you respect her greatly.
Circling the Sun does not present Markham in as positive a light. The book is historical fiction. It includes some things that really did happen, some things that might have happened, and a few things that never happened at all.
Like SJCM, I read Circling the Sun first and it worked for me, too. I’m glad I did it that way because I think I would have been too critical of the novel if I had read West with the Night beforehand. I knew nothing about Beryl Markham when I started, so I was able to enjoy the fun of the fictionalized account, and then reflect more seriously on her life when I read the memoir.
RonnieGirl, I’m so glad you’re joining us. Discussion begins in just a couple of days–October 1st–so if you haven’t finished the books by then, be careful about reading the thread because we jump right in with spoilers. (Although I suppose spoilers aren’t quite as big an issue when discussing non-fiction.) Discussion lasts for about 10 days and you can chime in at any point.
Looking forward to being with you all again soon!
I read West with the Night * years ago and had loved the way it evoked East Africa, a place I’d spent a good part of my childhood. I decided to read Circling the Sun first so that I woudn’t be disappointed if it didn’t live up to * West with the Night . After I read the two of them I decided to read Out of Africa which covers much of the same territory as West with the Night and in tone is quite similar. I’m looking forward to finding out from ignatius what parts of of Circling the Sun definitely didn’t happen. I know there’s at least one “fact” that was different in the two books - they can’t both be right. My recommendation would be if you can only read one, to read the memoir first, but if you are definitely reading both, start with the novel - it’s more linear.
It was I who mentioned invented content in Circling the Sun. One thing involved ants. Another involved Gervase.
I agree.
Thanks for the warm welcome! I will join the discussion once I have completed both books.
oops sorry for giving the credit wrong! I meant to go back and look on the other page to see if I had remembered correctly.
I used audible to listen to both. I liked West with the Night. I am still trying to decide how much Julie Harris’s voice played into my liking this story.
The Happy Valley set was a twist to make me consider what the times were like in my grandmother’s era. No wonder my grandfather used to say, it better when the horse knew the way home.
I read West with the Night first, and then Circling the Sun. That wasn’t my plan, but just the timing necessitated by the library’s schedule for the popular Paula McLain title. Whatever the reason, this order worked well for me, after all. I thought the Markham memoir was beautifully written, like a piece of gorgeous painted art really. It captured an essence of life in an earlier time in east Africa that rang true to me. It seemed representative of Markham’s life, even with the omission of so many events and people, and its broken (non-linear) chronology, and it made me want to know more about the person. Circling the Sun, on the other hand, was kind of like a fuzzy series of black-and-white photographs. Facts were presented in a linear fashion, filling in gaps in the memoir–answering some of the questions I had–in an entertaining (?) way, but falling very flat in style when compared to the memoir. Reading the McLain was an easy way to avoid a potentially dull biography, although I now have a biography sitting here for reference (and photos 
--not to say it is dull, but…it is long).
Welcome to our discussion of West with the Night and Circling the Sun! (And welcome to Ulumay–thanks for joining us!)
PlantMom’s comments are a great way to begin. I agree about the memoir being “a piece of gorgeous painted art.” For me, it was more like a series of paintings in a gallery. Each chapter stood alone, sometimes in a slightly different style than the one before.
To carry out the metaphor, I found the art of the memoir to be somewhat impressionistic – I was glad I read Circling the Sun first because I needed the linear and historical grounding of Paula McLain’s novel in order to better comprehend Markham’s work.
Here are some questions to peruse as we go along:
Seems like the title is a good place to for our discussion to “take off.” 
“Circling the Sun” suggests flight, and in Beryl’s case, the flight of a bird, as we know from the memoir that she pilots the “Avian.” More than once, the title of McLain’s book made me think of the mythical Icarus:
Son of Daedalus who dared to fly too near the sun on wings of feathers and wax. Daedalus had been imprisoned by King Minos of Crete within the walls of his own invention, the Labyrinth. But the great craftsman’s genius would not suffer captivity. He made two pairs of wings by adhering feathers to a wooden frame with wax. Giving one pair to his son, he cautioned him that flying too near the sun would cause the wax to melt. But Icarus became ecstatic with the ability to fly and forgot his father’s warning. The feathers came loose and Icarus plunged to his death in the sea.
http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/icarus.html
Obviously, it’s not a direct correlation, but Icarus’ downfall stems from being immature and headstrong, and I saw those traits in Paula McLain’s version of Beryl Markham. And somehow or other, her gifted father’s struggles with business and marriage seemed to fit the picture of a “great craftsman…imprisoned within the walls of his own captivity.”
“Circling the Sun” does suggest flight … except here the sun is Denys Finch Hatton circled by Markham and Blixen. It took me a bit to catch on to that but just it case I didn’t get it McLain spells it out. I think I would have done better reading this book first - perhaps less expectation/less disappointment.
I am still reading West With the Night. I enjoyed reading Circling the Sun, but find my self getting mad at some of the differences now that I am reading Markham’s memoirs. I wonder if I would have felt the same way if I had read the books in a different order.
What strikes me about Beryl in Circling the Sun is she is not as independent as one might first think. She has an independent spirit, but needs a man’s income to allow her to have the life she wants. She attaches herself to men with money. I realize this is partly due to the time and to the area. Still, I see an independent spirit, not an independent woman. I am curious how I will feel about her after I finish West With the Night.
To me, Africa itself represents the sun, with Beryl flying around above it in a small plane. (Of course the metaphor breaks down somewhat because one cannot land on the sun, but – as eloquently and unforgettably described in West With the Night – setting a plane down in the wilds of safari country, and then taking off again, could be unbelievably risky,)
As a girl, Beryl had had an intimate connection – “on the ground,” – so to speak, with Africa, and I think she always missed that fierce intimacy with the land after those days were gone.
Circling the Sun certainly gives that impression, but the real story of Beryl, Karen, and Denys is somewhat different.
I assumed Denys was the sun - don’t remember that McLain made it explicit somewhere, but it doesn’t surprise me. I could also see Africa as the sun. Is it significant that there’s a biography of Denys entitled: Too Close to the Sun: The Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton (2006) by Sara Wheeler? There was also a mini-series about Beryl called , Beryl Markham: A Shadow on the Sun.
I no longer have *Circling the Sun/i but McLain points to Denys as the sun with Markham and Blixen circling him. I had already figured it out (with an inward sigh) and shortly thereafter had it confirmed by the explicitly by the author.
I was looking for some discussion questions that dealt specifically with West With the Night and couldn’t find any. 
However, I did find the following interesting article:
When I think of an object circling the sun, I think of a mutual gravitational force of attraction (thank you, Seveneves ) keeping that orbiting body at a set distance. I think the relationship of Denys Finch Hatton with Karen Blixen fits that description. However with regard to her relationship with Finch Hatton, imo Beryl appears not so much as an orbiting body, but more of hunter circling in on her prey, Denys. I received and read through select portions of a second Beryl Markham biography from the library today, The Lives of Beryl Markham by Errol Trzebinski. Whoa. If Beryl Markham is circling a sun, I find it more likely that the sun is Africa, specifically the Africa of her childhood. She is forever marked by being abandoned by her mother, raised by and with men, having run freely with male youth of Africa.
That part amazed me. I know these farms were huge and isolated, but still! Hunting with the native boys? Even after you have a sort of step-mother/governess? I lived in Hargeisa, Somalia when I was in 4th and 5th grades. It was a small town and I would get on one of the horses that lived in our backyard and ride alone in the countryside. Sometimes the native kids would throw rocks at me. They certainly never offered to take me hunting! I’m more than a little jealous, though I’d take my family over hers any day.
I found the peak into pre-colonial Africa fascinating - many of the colonials did stay on after independence - they really knew no other life. They hung around the local club playing darts and drinking.