Tells us we will hear the story from the person who experienced it.Įstablishes the distance where we join her in remembering and from where she will draw us into her love affair with her beautiful and haunting Africa. It’s a master teacher, whether for writing memoir or fiction, so perfectly crafted that seeing the 13 words with comma again, years after finishing the book, catapults me into Dinesen’s feelings for the landscape, animals, people-even the air-as if I’d glimpsed the face of my own long-ago lover. The sentence gives just enough information and makes us want to read on. It has stayed in my mind since first reading it years ago-the gentle, sure voice, solid grounding, and ring “Ngong” that echos throughout the book. I could go on an on about this sentence and what we can learn from it for our own writing. The first sentence is a simple declaration that sets up her longing: “I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.” Reading her descriptive passages, I too fall head over heels with the Africa that exists in her memory. Out of Africa, a memoir by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) is a love story.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |