![]() ![]() ![]() “HOW IS IT POSSIBLE to bring order out of memory? I should like to begin at the beginning, patiently, like a weaver at his loom. I am prevented from that irresponsible reaction only by a stronger desire to take apart her writing and learn how she makes her life and characters so vivid to the reader. Markham’s writing is so artful - every sentence, every verb choice, every word so crisp and necessary, it feels as though nothing could be added or removed without altering some fundamental structure - that I am strongly tempted to toss all my writing in the trash in abject despair of ever writing that well. Instead, she trained race horses, became a free-lance pilot, and then proceeded to become the first person - man or woman - to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, east to west. I was immediately intrigued by the idea of a woman who, raised in Kenya during the early 1900s, refused to live the “normal” and expected life of most women of her time (of any time, really). Though this memoir is considered a classic, I had never heard of it or of Beryl Markham before a Writing Through Life survey respondent suggested it. FIRST IMPRESSIONS – * West With the Night, by Beryl Markham ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |