In the chapter “My Trail is North” in West With the Night, Beryl writes of making a clean break with the past: leaving her father’s farm at the time of his departure for Peru and riding off alone to become a horse trainer in Molo – at age 17!
When I read that (I read Beryl’s memoir before I read the biography or the McLain book), I thought, “What? Wow!”
It was an amazing, lyrical chapter, and it was quite moving – but not at all true. When Beryl was at Molo, she had already been married to Jock and was separated from him.
It kind of reminds me of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s autobiography which begins, “I have resolved on an enterprise which has no precedent and which, once complete, will have no imitator. My purpose is to display to my kind a portrait in every way true to nature, and the man I shall portray will be myself.” It is, of course, full of inaccuracies. Beryl’s choice to leave out all her marriages definitely casts events in a very different light. That said, leaving Jock to go off on her own, is not necessarily that different from doing it a year or two earlier.
It wasn’t exactly a year or two earlier. Beryl married Jock when she was 16 (officially, 17). She was 23 when she started working at Molo – seven years later.
Did Beryl’s mother really return to Africa? It was a strange storyline in Circling the Sun. She arrived, they had a few strained encounters, and then she disappeared from the story. Unless I missed it, Beryl did not mention her mother returning to Africa in West With the Night.
^ Yes, I think it’s historically accurate, but you’re right – it’s an awkward inclusion in the story. Maybe Paula McLain felt that Beryl seeing her mother again after 17 years was too significant an event to leave out.
I don’t remember Beryl mentioning her mother in West with the Night either, but that’s no surprise. She seems to have omitted from the memoir all her most troubling, hurtful relationships.
I understand D’s decision for society reasons, but he was supposed to be a person who loved and cared for Beryl. He should have supported her more. The marriage to Jock bothered me from beginning to end. Beryl was young. No one offered her real advice. They just congratulated her and sent her on her way. No, I don’t think it was fair she was judged so harshly. I think a lot of the people in British Colonial Kenya society lacked common sense.
It is true. Here’s a very short summary, a sad little story, of the few interactions of Clara and Beryl from the Trzebinski biography. Clara divorced Clutt, Beryl’s father, in November 1914. She married Harry Kirkpatrick the day after the divorce was final. Harry and Clara were separated often in their marriage because of the war. In March of 1918, Harry was wounded in action and died. Clara returned to Kenya in 1923, bringing her two sons by Harry. According to correspondence between Tania and her mother, Tania did agree to lease her manager’s house to Clara for about a year. The roof was so leaky that by May 21, 1923, Clara left for Molo where her first son, Dickie lived. Clara shows up in Beryl’s life again in 1926
[quote]
That year Beryl had been irked by her mother’s growing habit of ‘turning up at gymkhanas whenever Pegasus was entered’ and where ‘Mrs. KP sat propping up the bar as she sipped a pink gin…not saying much, observing Beryl from a distance’ which was found odd since, ‘They were never seen speaking to one another’. /quote. In 1927, Clara was present at Beryl’s wedding to Markham. In the wedding photo,
In 1936, the year of Beryl’s transatlantic flight, Clara
Clara Kirkpatrick seems to have been such an aimless soul. One of her sons, Beryl’s half-brother Alec, was rumored to have committed suicide. Clara had a drinking problem which increased (after the suicide and created) even more animosity between mother and daughter. Clara died in 1957
Just checking in. I am following the discussion but find I have little to add. I read West with the Night and Circling the Sun at the same time which made for an interesting experience. I loved West with the Night and grew increasingly disappointed with Circling the Sun. I like that Beryl omitted her marriages, affairs, etc., and instead told of Africa, horse racing, flying. It seems that all the rest only tarnishes the best of her and that makes me sad. I thought Circling the Sun told the worst of it but per the discussion obviously not.
For what it’s worth, I think the stories/memories found in West with the Night belong solely to Beryl but that she did not write the book. I would have thought that regardless of reading more of her life. She didn’t seem to have the education, desire for education, polish, or even the willingness to invest the time in the solitary pursuit of writing and rewriting. I am glad though that someone captured her stories and wrote them so beautifully.
I also want to add that I liked those who populated West with the Night but not those that came to life in Circling the Sun. Funny that they’re one and same people.
PlantMom, I am a little bit confused by the things that Trezebinski seems to have said about Clara. For one thing, I wonder why Trezebinski called her “Mrs KP.”
In addition, I am startled that Clara would have been working as a housekeeper. Lovell never mentions anything like that in her book, though admittedly she writes relatively little about Clara.
Your Trezebinski quote mentions Mrs KP’s “stout and comfortable figure” in the wedding photo. That photo is in the Lovell book. While it isn’t very clearly captioned, I must say that Clara does not look stout in it.
Also there is this, on p. 70 of the Lovell biography:
Lovell had much less to say about Clara than Trezebinski did. From the Lovell biography, one would never conclude that Clara was an aimless soul or that she had a drinking problem.
NJTM, I’m looking up the Trzebinski sources again. Where the “Mrs KP” came from is not clear–maybe from Tania’s correspondence? There are references here to the Lovell biography, “SOTM”, lol.
The wedding photo with Clara (Mrs. Kirkpatrick) is here too. I would agree that Clara does not look stout. I’d also say it’s hard to define someone being “on the verge of resignation” from one of these old photos The author notes here that this is the only photo of Clara and Beryl on record.
The “accelerated drinking problem” after Clara’s son’s possible suicide (p.279) is not referenced.
That Clara died alone in the nursing home is referenced as “Corresp. Dora Stevens, 15/8/1988; Doreen Norman to Jack Couldrey, 2/4/84.” I don’t know who Dora Stevens was, but Beryl lived in the guest house of Doreen Norman, her husband, and family on Mt. Kenya when Beryl was 50 years old (1952).
There is no lack of opinion from Trzebinski. It makes it all the more difficult to separate the fact from all the other…stuff.
Thanks, PlantMom. All this is interesting, but also a little distressing. Is Lovell too polite and restrained? Is Trzebinski too negative and gossipy? Maybe, but who really knows?
The author notes here that this is the only photo of Clara and Beryl on record.