Isak Dinesen first came to public
attention in 1934 with her book Seven Gothic Tales.
She was unable to find an
interested publisher in England or Denmark, and was first published by
Random House in the United States. From the beginning she was a
mysterious figure; most readers thought she was a man.
Her tales
were
convoluted, weird, enigmatic, and sometimes erotic. Almost every
sentence was
like a prose poem. Each tale--taking place in another era--involved a
complicated puzzle, a
violent event, a case of mistaken identity, and an unexpected ending.
The tales offered an existential flavor in archaic disguise. They
seized the
imagination of the American public, where the collection was issued by
the Book of the Month Club. The era loved short stories, which
appeared universally in popular magazines.
In 1938,
when a very different book, Out of Africa,
was published by
the same author, the reading public was tantalized to learn that Isak
Dinesen was a Danish baroness, whose real name was Karen Blixen.
Americans had long been fascinated with aristocracy, and wealthy young
Americans--Cornelia Vanderbilt and Nancy Astor, among others--often
married into titled European families.
The prose in Out
of Africa displayed an entirely different kind of
writing from Isak Dinesen's first book. Out of Africa
looked back with
nostalgia upon her life as a settler on a coffee plantation in Kenya.
It presented a lyrical depiction of life on a colonial farm, with
deaths,
drought, and disappointments--as well as great and tragic friendships.
Isak
Dinesen was among the first authors to describe Africans as
individuals rather than as stereotypes. She has been criticized for
participating in the colonial intrusion into Africa, and also for
making poetic comparisons of various personalities--both Kenyans and
white settlers--to birds and animals. She has often been labeled racist
for her frank depiction of the power differences between Whites and
Blacks in early twentieth century Africa.
Her memoir was arresting in many ways, especially in its oblique
references to the author's love story with the English hunter Denys
Finch Hatton. It left the reader tantalized by a series of enigmas:
Who
was the writer's husband, and what happened to him? Why didn't she and
Finch Hatton marry? Did she ever plan to return to Africa? What was her
life now?
The
answers to these questions remained private until after her death.
She had married a Swede named Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, her second
cousin, from whom she took the title Baroness. Bror was the twin of the
celebrated horseman, Hans von
Blixen-Finecke, the man Karen was in love with in her youth.
Bror himself wrote a book describing how he and his wife had set
out to run a pioneer farm in Kenya. They divorced after eleven
difficult years of marriage. She fought the divorce, and her Letters from Africa
suggest that she loved her husband. Bror married again twice, but
Karen did not remarry and never had children.
Her talent for hospitality in Kenya attracted a variety of
aristocratic and bohemian friends, including Berkeley Cole. She called
Denys Finch Hatton the love of her life, but the nature of their
relationship has never been clear. She appears to have suffered
two miscarriages during the eight or more years of the affair. However,
the writer Beryl
Markham, a friend of Karen Blixen and Denys Finch
Hatton, claimed to biographers that Finch Hatton was homosexual.
Due to the world wide economic
depression and miscalculations
in
pioneer
farming,
Karen
Blixen's
coffee
farm,
financed
by
her
family,
never
turned
a
profit.
She
was
homesick
much
of
her
time
in
Africa.
Although
she
had
her
farm
for
nearly
18
years,
she
spent
five
years
of
that
time
in
her
beloved
Denmark.
She
left
Kenya
in
1931
and
never
returned.
Karen Blixen's father Wilhelm
Dinesen, a retired soldier from a wealthy
family, had written books of essays on hunting. Her mother Ingeborg
Westenholz came from a family of ship-owners. Both parents grew up on
country estates on the Danish peninsula of Jutland. The Dinesens were
connected to the royal circle, although not titled. The crusading
Westenholzes often involved themselves in politics. Scholars have noted
the differences between the families, but have failed to note their
similarities: both families shared strong opinions on cultural
ethics, and both cared little for high society. Wilhelm Dinesen's
father A. W.
Dinesen wrote an article critical of the French wars in North
Africa. Ingeborg Westenholz's brother, Aage, and sister, Mary Bess,
were both subjects of newspaper scrutiny for their political activism,
as was Karen Blixen's sister Ea.
Ingeborg
Westenholz Dinesen became the first woman in Denmark elected
to a town council. Wilhelm Dinesen eventually won a seat in the Danish
parliament. He committed suicide in 1895 (Karen was 10 years
old)--reportedly because of syphilis, a disease he feared would lead to
madness.
Her mother's family were strong Unitarians, in a country where the
state religion was Lutheranism. No one, least of all Karen Blixen, has
given her upbringing the credit it is due for her innovative approach
to philosophy. She disapproved of any one-sided ideology. She appears
to have consolidated her own beliefs from a variety of great works of
literature, including the Old and New Testaments, but her
fascination with fate was most influenced by her Scandinavian heritage.
She and
her two sisters were educated at home, as was common for women of the
wealthy class, while her two brothers went to school. She had written
stories at an early age, the first of which were published when she was
22. She also studied art for a few years in Copenhagen, and her writing
was influenced by her interest in painting. She grew up on a rural
estate, where the differences between the peasant and upper classes
made a deep impression on her. As Out of Africa
reveals, she never lost her love for the peasants nor for the class
system that existed in her youth.
She went on to write more collections of
tales, a few essays, a novel, and another short memoir. Her stories
emphasize the power of "the mask"--the public persona that
reveals the hidden personality and draws attention to the talent of the
artist. "By thy mask I shall know thee" was her credo. She made
well-received readings on Danish radio, she was photographed wearing
elaborate
costumes, and she made a dramatic visit to the United States--home of
her most enthusiastic reading public--where she related to audiences,
in her deeply accented, sonorous voice,
stories she had learned by heart.
Privately,
the
author
suffered
much
of
her
life
from
a
variety
of
illnesses
that began when she lived in Africa. Her illnesses have been
the subject of speculation by uninformed writers, and a wide variety of
misinformation has been circulated about her.
Karen Blixen herself attributed her
symptoms to syphilis acquired from
her husband. However, her medical records do not support the
diagnosis of syphilis late in life. She was first diagnosed with
syphilis at the age of 29, a year after she married. She was
prescribed mercury and arsenic, which were the treatment for the
disease in her time. It is now believed that some of her
later symptoms were the result of heavy metal poisoning. Late in life
Karen Blixen suffered from a gastric ulcer, and a third of her stomach
was removed--the only treatment available at that time. Late
photographs show the malnutrition that resulted from the surgery. Some
have labeled her thinness "anorexia," but no documents support these
claims. Heavy smoking contributed to her ills.
When she
left Kenya at the age of 46, she returned to the country
manor called Rungstedlund, north of Copenhagen, where she was born, and
she lived there as a writer until the end of her life. As
in Africa, she was primarily dependent on her family for financial
support.
Her brother Thomas and sister Elle made it possible for her to keep
the
family home in Denmark, where the furniture had been bequeathed by
family and
friends. Karen Blixen's clothes were ordered from a tailor, and
she
had otherwise few possessions. Her writing helped pay for hired help. She employed a staff of workers that included
a live-in cook and secretary. Toward
the
end
of
her
life
Karen
Blixen
appealed
to
the
general
public
for
contributions
to
protect
her
house
and
land.
The
successful
campaign
led
to
the
creation
of
the
Rungstedlund
Foundation,
which
now
oversees
the
40-acre
(16
hectare)
property
as
a
museum
and
bird
reserve.
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