Margitte's Reviews > Circling the Sun

Circling The Sun caught my eye with its beautiful cover, first and foremost. I had this book for so long now, never got to it. It was time.

Oh the chain of events. Or sometimes also called fate or destiny, right? I first read about Beryl Markham in Almost Famous Women : Stories by Megan Mayhew Bergman.

Beryl Markham piqued my interest then, especially when this remarkable women wrote an autobiography, West With The Night, which had Ernst Hemingway glowing from head to toe.

In 1925 Ernest Hemingway, in a letter to California restaurateur George Gutekunst, wrote:

"Did you read Beryl Markham's book, West with the Night? ...She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade bitch, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers ... it really is a bloody wonderful book."

After reading Circling The Sun a fictional biography of Beryl Markham(born Clutterbuck), I understood why Hemingway did this. This kind gentleman in part wanted to help a struggling independent woman to get on her feet. However, the book did not stir too many pots in the 1940s, but changed Markham's final years when it was republished in the 1980s and hailed as the masterpiece Hemingway thought it to be. She could enjoy the final years of her life in comfort.

And what a life she lived in Kenya.

"Softness and helplessness got you nothing in this place. Tears only emptied you out."

Abandoned by her mother as a young girl, growing up on a horse farm, getting married several times, and trying to make it on her own in a man's world, and in 1936, became the first woman to fly solo and nonstop from east to west across the Atlantic. Britain's Amelia Earhart. Although she was born a Brit, she was Kenyan in heart and soul.

“I learned to watch, to put my trust in other hands than mine. And I learned to wander. I learned what every dreaming child needs to know—that no horizon is so far that you cannot get above it or beyond it. These I learned at once. But most things came harder.” —BERYL MARKHAM, West with the Night

“We must leave our mark on life while we have it in our power.” —KAREN BLIXEN

Circling The Sun brought this unconventional woman's story alive in the most beautiful contemporary prose. The author borrowed characters from Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen, Karen Blixen, to populate Beryl's story and establish the connection between Karin Blixen and Beryl: Denys Finch Hatton, Lord Delamere, Berkeley Cole, Karin Blixen and her husband baron van Blixen, and a few more.

Not keen on a proper education, Beryl would ultimately be schooled by the men in her life instead.

First it was her father who taught her everything she would ever need about horse training. She would become the youngest licensed horse trainer, and first women in the world, at the age of eighteen.

Her childhood friend, Kibii, a child of the Kikuyu tribe, taught her how to hunt, to understand the rules of nature, and to survive in the African bush. He would remain her truest friend throughout her life.

Denys Finch Hatton and Berkely Cole inspired her to read, and become the Schezerehade of her own life story.

Before Kenya was Kenya, Green Hills was alive and my father loved me. I could jump as high as Kibii and walk through the forest without making a sound. I could bring a warthog out of its hole by crinkling paper. I could be eaten by a lion and live. I could do anything, for I was in heaven still.

Before Kenya was Kenya, I threw a spear and a rungu club. I loved a horse with wings. I never felt alone or small. I was Lakwet.

Their story evenings would result in her eloquent autbiography several years later.

Tom Campbell Black taught her everything about flying, airplanes, machines, reading maps. Denys Finch Hatton who was her lover, was also her mentor in conquering the skies.

The nostalgia of the tough but idyllic life on the African savannas are so vividly described in this book. A fine balance was established between background and story. A perfect balance to be exact.
The author portrayed the private Beryl. The person nobody really understood. The one who hid her pain and disappoinments. She captured the emotions and thoughts of a scared young girl, a gutsy young woman, and a pioneering survivor of a challenging life.

The book is written in the same spirit as Kuki Gallman's books: I Dreamed of Africa AND African Nights . Many authors captured this magic of the African landscape. Africa still has that allure, always will have it.

Circling The Sun also settles comfortably into the same nostalgia as Alexandra Fuller's Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness , AND Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight , although the two authors experienced two different periods in colonial history. However, the ambiance of the British settlers's often promiscuous lifestyle, with debauchery thrown into the social mix, and the almost vulgar exploitation of wildlife, mineral resources and African people, were (lightly) mimicked in this book. Very lightly, compared to Doris Lessing who did not mince words in destroying the settlers' delusional self-importance and grandeur. But in this book, the Brits's African lifestyle, away from England's rigid society, was still treated with understanding and even compassion. They were spared. :-)

(A different view, but a wonderful read is: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. There's no comparison between the two books, of course. It's just another excellent book which captures the soul of Africa very well.)

It was a tough life, demanding great sacrifice and creativity to survive.

Like your quinine for malaria,” Berkeley added. “A measure of good champagne helps, too. I don’t know what it is about Africa, but champagne is absolutely compulsory here.”

This was an excellent read. Now fate will take its course. I will have to read West With The Night by Beryl Markham herself.

Paula McClain says in her author's note:

From the moment I read even a few sentences, West with the Night took powerful hold of my imagination. Beryl’s descriptions of her African childhood, colonial Kenya in all its seasons, and her extraordinary adventures fairly leap off the page—but more striking to me is the spirit behind the words. She had so much nerve and pluck, plunging fearlessly into vast gaps between the sexes, and at a time when such feats were nearly unthinkable. I hadn’t ever encountered anyone quite like her—a woman who lived by her own code instead of society’s, though that cost her much. Who would have fit perfectly into Hemingway’s muscular fiction, but she actually lived!

Beryl was undoubtedly complicated—a riddle, a libertine, a maverick. A sphinx.

I rest my case. I love Africa. I love this book.