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Isak Dinesen

📚 My 2024 Readings 📚

Hello again! I hope that, between the more lewd content you can find on my blog, you can also enjoy some book reviews. This year, I plan to diversify my readings list and pick some more culturally significant books from time to time.

January

Alberti, Rafael. Poemas Esenciales (Selección). Editorial Salvat, 2022.

Storni, Alfonsina. Antología Poética (1968) Selección por Alfredo Veirave. Biblioteca Argentina Fundamental. Centro Editor de América Latina.

Gaiman, Neil (1996) Neverwhere. Roca Editorial de Libros, Barcelona.

Christie, Agatha (1950) Tres Ratones Ciegos. Selección Biblioteca de Oro, Editorial Molino. Barcelona, España.

February

Dinesen, Isak (1937) Memorias de África. Narrativa Actual. RBA Editorial.

Bécquer, Gustavo Adolfo. Poemas Esenciales (Selección) Editorial Salvat. 2022

Philip K. Dick (1987) The Collected Stories, Volume IV.

March

Darío, Ruben. Azul... Cuentos, y Poemas en Prosa. Colección Criol Literario. Editorial Aguilar. Séptima Edición, 1969.

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan (1887) Estudio en Escarlata. Editorial Salvat. Barcelona, España. 2022

April

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan (1890) El Signo de los Cuatro. Editorial Salvat. Barcelona, España. 2022

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan (1915) El Valle del Terror. Editorial Salvat. Barcelona, España. 2022

Darío, Rubén. Poemas Esenciales (Selección) Editorial Salvat. 2022

Christie, Agatha (1937) Muerte en el Nilo. Editorial Planeta de Agostini. Barcelona, España. 2022.

Mayo

Hernández, Miguel. Poemas Esenciales (Selección) Editorial Salvat. 2022

Quiroga, Horacio. La Gallina Degollada y otros cuentos. Biblioteca Fundamental Argentina. Editorial ... 19...

Junio

Cortázar, Julio. El Perseguidor y otros cuentos. Biblioteca Fundamental Argentina. Editorial... 19...

Echeverría, Esteban. La Cautiva, El Matadero y otros escritos. Biblioteca Fundamental Argentina. Editorial ... 19...

Christie, Agatha. Y no quedó ninguno (1939). Editorial Planeta de Agostini. Barcelona, España. 2022.

Julio

Jiménez, Juan Ramón. Poemas Esenciales (Selección) Editorial Salvat. 2022

Leroux, Gastón. El Misterio del Cuarto Amarillo (1907). Editorial Salvat. Barcelona, España. 2022.

Lorca, Federíco García. Poemas Esenciales (Selección). Editorial Salvat. 2022

Christie, Agatha (1934) Asesinato en el Expreso Oriental. Editorial Planeta de Agostini. Barcelona, España. 2022

Chesterton, Gilbert Keith (1910) El Candor del Padre Brown. Editorial Salvat. Barcelona, España. 2022

Martí, José. Poemas Esenciales (Selección). Editorial Salvat. 2022

Agosto

Varios autores. Los Poetas de Florida. Selección por Guillermo Ara. Biblioteca Fundamental Argentina. Centro Editor de América Latina. 1968

Varios autores. Los Escritores de Boedo. Selección por Carlos R. Giordano. Biblioteca Fundamental Argentina. Centro Editor de América Latina. 1968

Austen, Jane (1813) Orgullo y Prejuicio. Traducción de Alejandro Pareja Rodríguez. RBA Editorial. España, 2022

Milne, Alan Alexander (1924) When We Were Very Young

Mistral, Gabierla. Poemas Esenciales (Selección). Editorial Salvat. 2002

Septiembre

Christie, Agatha (1926) El Asesinato de Roger Ackroyd. Editorial Planeta de Agostini. Barcelona, España. 2022

Neruda, Pablo. Poemas Esenciales (Selección). Editorial Salvat. 2022

Poe, Edgar Allan (1841) Los Asesinatos de la Rue Morgue y otros cuentos. Editorial Salvat. Barcelona, España. 2022

Nervo, Amado. Poemas Esenciales (Selección). Editorial Salvat. 2022

Book Review: Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen

My Review in a Tweet:

I'm not drawn to Non-Fiction, but this autobiographic tale, while a bit slow, captivated me. The fourth part is jarring because it's a random collage of stories; the rest of the narration was great, coming back and forth in her memories until the moment she leaves the continent.

My Full Review:

Trying to diversify my readings, I picked up again this book I got as a Christmas present back in 2015 but never managed to finish. I'm not entirely sure this book qualifies as Non-Fiction, since it's still very poetic in the way the author describes her years in her coffee plantation at the foot of the Ngong Hills, but I describe it as NF because it is an autobiographic narration of a period of her life.

I still had to drag myself a little through some parts of the book, but that's not on Isak Dinesen (or more accurately, on Karen Blixen, her real name), it's on me and the genres I usually read being quite different from this. The book itself is structured into five parts, each of them separated into smaller chapters.

Even then, I enjoyed this book: Dinesen/Blixen has an artistic soul and a taste for the beauty in the world that makes her descriptions and tales really outstanding and marvelous, giving the reader a careful and joyful glimpse into the Africa of the early years of the 20th Century. The love she distills for her farm and the workers that come and go in her life, while sometimes might sound "problematic" from our modern set of values, makes you ache when tragedies and setbacks occur.

I wish the expression "abanico cultural" (cultural fan, as in the accesory for the hot days) existed in English, because that's what this book opens in front of you: a range of cultural and sometimes religious ways of being human, with just a tinge of the author's bias, and even when she's more openly judgemental of the ways of the masai and the other tribes, she still sees the beauty and wonder of their lifestyles.

The final part of the book, when she describes how all the problems of the farm start to pile up and she has to sell and leave Africa, really makes you feel sorry for her, hoping that fate will smile to her and turn the downtrend of her coffee productivity. When she finally leaves, it's like waking up from a pleasant dream of a sweet memory, and you are left with that bittersweet taste of longing.

7.5/10

My other 2024 readings.