It’s as though he’d gone half-native himself. I feel like he gave her for the most part the childhoood he would have liked to have. At least until evil governess entered the picture! It was a different time and place. I used to get my horse saddled up and ride for hours alone. Once I fell off and the horse came home without me. Luckily shortly after that I was able to make my way to the Hargeisa Club where I could phone my parents.
This is a difficult question. I don’t know if “good parent” would be the right way to describe Beryl’s father, but he seems to have made many “good efforts” to take care of her after the mother, Clara, left the picture. I do sympathize with this man (who was also left fatherless at a young age) and his sudden responsibility for little Beryl. (As much as I don’t want to think it’s true, I have to wonder if it’s possible that Clara did not take Beryl back to England with her brother Dickie because she was already a “difficult child”?) Charles Clutterbuck raised her so unconventionally–like a man who was used to roughing it and spending all of his time with animals–making sure she was tended to for basic needs, but in the process, he was certainly somewhat oblivious of her safety and a few of the social niceties that would have made it easier to be with other English settlers. It’s too hard to judge, though.
I read West With the Night as a young woman in my 20s. I loved it; it made a big impression on me. I have retained my copy all these years and hoped to get my daughters to read it. So far no go, but I have hopes my 18 yo will read it this year while she is on her gap year.
Of course, my perspective on Colonial Kenya has shifted over the years as I have learned more. I wonder if it would be as impactful if I read it now. The detention and oppression of the Mau Mau was many years after the action of the the memoir but reminds me of the reality of colonialism. http://www.radiolab.org/story/mau-mau/
Truthfully I never quite understood why Clara left without Beryl. Logically she should take the younger female child with her. She takes Dickie because he is frail … that I understand. But why leave Beryl? A matter of splitting the children between the two of them?
The incident that makes me question Beryl’s father’s parenting occurs when a leopard abducts Buller from the foot of Beryl’s bed as she sleeps. There’s a huge gap between allowing freedom to explore and grow and seemingly ignoring so much.
Maybe mathmom hits the nail on the head by thinking Clutterbuck has gone native. A newborn with birth defects set outside to see whether or not the gods allow it to survive? Some of Beryl’s “freedom” reminds me of such.
Given the extreme distortion of Beryl’s account of her supposed solitary trip to Mola when she was 17 (she was actually a married – and separated – woman of 23), I rather suspect that there may have been exaggerations in the part of the book where she told about her hunting with the African men.
Possibly she didn’t do it very many times. Possibly her father did not approve of it, or even know about it until after it happened.
Her father should have sent her to Molo rather than into Jock’s arms.
Maybe that’s why she wrote it that way.
Beryl’s father would never be father of the year, but he loved her, and that’s a lot more than she got from her mother.
In West with the Night Beryl was disappointed she didn’t make it all the way to New York in her plane. Do you think she was ever completely satisfied, or at least content, with what she accomplished?
^^^ I think Beryl always looks for the next challenge - be it horse, plane, or man. Notice that she heads for work that breaks barriers. Notice that she only wants the unattainable man. I don’t get a vibe of contentment or satisfaction … but rather one of constantly wanting (or escaping).
I tend to think so. I understand that in that time and place - despite allowing Beryl unprecedented freedom - that sending her to Molo may not have occurred to her father. Jock wanted her and marriage looked - on the surface - a good way to allow Beryl to stay in familiar territory that she loved. Different times. Beryl tweaks the timing and omits life experiences but gets to the important part (Molo). You know, I never considered West with the Night an autobiography so the details Beryl leaves out don’t bother me. It seems to me almost a collection of stories - such as she’d tell around a campfire at night. What would be a sin of omission in an autobiography would detract here anyway. No reason to mention Jock and the few years of unhappiness.
I didn’t know if I wanted to post this (it’s a bit Trzebinski-esque, though it’s from Lovell), but here goes:
@LeftofPisa, thanks for the Radiolab link. I listened to the story – very interesting and disturbing. I knew almost nothing about the Mau Mau rebellion.
It seems to me that both Circling the Sun and West with the Night ignore the “reality of colonialism.” There isn’t a hint in either book about brewing discontent among the native Kenyans–perhaps it was still too early to be felt. The relationship between Beryl and Arab Ruta is described in “warm and fuzzy” terms in both books, as if they are essentially equals, bound to each other in loyal friendship from birth through adulthood. In truth, the relationship has more of a master/servant dynamic, especially as they age. In an earlier pre-colonial time, Arab Ruta would have been a warrior, a leader of his tribe, wouldn’t he? But with the presence of the Europeans, he serves rather than leads, uprooting his family to follow Beryl from one occupation to the next.
Yes, she isn’t even Beru anymore, but Memsahib. According to Wikipedia, there were some grumblings even before the Mau Mau uprising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Uprising
Really? She said that? That’s not at all the Jock we get from McLain. Hmmm.
I was shocked when Beryl wrote matter-of-factly about Arab Ruta serving her at the table when she was an adult.
In my opinion, McClain emphasized Jock Purves’s bad qualities in order to make it more understandable that Beryl would want to leave him.
Back to Out of Africa. At the very end of the book Blixen is leaving her farm and worrying about what to do about the “squatters” on her farm, a large group of cattle owners who wanted to remain together, but natives were not allowed to buy land even if they had the means to do so. (!)
Anyways she has this to say:
^ I love Karen Blixen.
^^So well said. I am glad Paula McLean did NOT choose to write Circling the Sun with Karen Blixen as its central female character…
McLain seems to be specializing in historical novels about women characters now, since the Hadley Hemingway book and the Beryl Markham book have done so well. Wonder who her next…er…victim will be.
Has anyone read her own memoir? By all accounts she seems to have had a pretty horrific childhood.
From an interview on NPR’s “All Things Considered”:
No matter the quality of McLain’s writing or her portrayal of characters, I have to give her a nod of thanks for writing Circling the Sun, because without it, I would have remained in the dark re the life of Beryl Markham and would not have been exposed to West with the Night.
(I bet The Paris Wife in combination with Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast would also have been a good duet for discussion!)
I didn’t dislike McLain’s The Paris Wife too much. It tells some of the same story as Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises from a different point of view.
Hm, maybe Gertrude Bell would be a good subject for McLain. Bell is not as well known as she probably should be and she had a couple of interesting romances in her life.
I really liked the Bell biography Desert Queen by Janet Wallach and a friend of mine is reading it now and loving it.