Beryl Markham was an amazing woman, raised in Africa by her father after her mother tired of bush life and bolted back to England with Beryl's brother. Without any womanly interference, Charles Clutterbuck was able to let his daughter get a proper education in the Kenyan bush, tearing around the countryside barefoot and toting a spear, hunting with the nearby Nandi people. Hers was the world of hunting and horses with the odd bit of bookwork thrown in. Beryl clearly worshipped her father, and this is quite clear in her book.

In fact, there is little mention of anything but men in the memoir. Our heroine loved the things that are dearest to men and pursued these interests while remaining strictly a woman. That is to say that she did not try to become a man; she was content with being able to do the things that men could do while retaining a trace of her femininity. Her life experiences include being mauled by a lion, spotting for hunters (and rescuing those hunters from flood shortly thereafter), flying mercy missions in sparsely populated regions armed with a map and a Luger, and training race horses for wealthy clients. Oh, and she survived a plane crash...her own plane...after she flew it across the Atlantic.

I don't recall reading any passages where Markham complained that she was oppressed or held back by men. Quite the reverse is true; men instructed her and helped her develop the skills she required to accomplish what she wanted to do. Some things are noticeable for their complete omission from the book, and I found myself going online to get more information. It turns out that Markham was quite the amorous lady, but this side of her is not covered in her memoir ....at all! Another glaring omission is that the book does not have a single photograph, map or sketch, an almost inexcusable oversight as there must be scads of photos extant.

I have to admit to being quite smitten by Markham. I will be looking for another title featuring my heroine, perhaps one that is somewhat less bashful about listing her amorous escapades!

P.S. - 8 May 2017 In reading Straight on Till Morning: A Biography of Beryl Markham I'm learning that Markham very likely was not the fine person she put herself forth as in this book! In fact, she quite likely didn't write the book at all! Regardless, I still maintain that the book is exceptionally well-written and deserving of 5 stars, I'm just not sure to whom they should be awarded!

Ernst Hemingway wrote that Beryl Markham could run rings around writers like him.I agree with that.There are some beautiful lines, e.g."I watched as an aeroplane invaded the stronghold of the stars."

Beryl Markham was one of the pioneers of aviation in Africa.She grew up in Kenya in the early 1900s and also had a career as a racehorse trainer.

Her most famous achievement was being the first person to fly the atlantic non stop from east to west.Such a journey required travelling against the Atlantic winds.

The book is a great account of her sense of wonder flying in those early aircraft,despite all the attendant hazards.She sometimes flew over unsurveyed land without radio guidance,not knowing what type of terrain she would find for landing.

She was her own employer,pilot and sometimes engineer as well.Her flying instructor and friend was killed in a collision with another plane.She also talks about the death of Hatton Finch (who appears in Isak Denison's Out of Africa) in an air crash.But despite all the risks,she continued to fly.

It is also about her life in the African bush and encounters with wildlife on the ground and views from the air over the Serengeti.

An entertaining adventure
3.5 stars

Just arrived from UK through BM.

Page 135:
"When you flight, you get a feeling of possession that you couldn't have if you owned all of Africa. You feel that everything you see belongs to you - all the pieces are put together, and the whole is yours; not that you want it, but because, when you're alone in a plane, there's no one to hare it. It's there and it's yours. It makes you feel bigger than you are - closer to being something you've sensed you might be capable of, but never had the courage to seriously imagine."

Page 163:
"I learned what every child needs to know - that no horizon is so far that you cannot get above it or beyond it."

Page 248:
"Being alone in an airplane for even a short a time as a night and a day, irrevocably alone, with nothing to observe but your instruments and your own hands in semi-darkness, nothing to wonder about but the beliefs, the faces, and the hopes rooted in your mind - such an experience can be as startling as the first awareness of a stranger walking by your side at night. You are the stranger."

I read Circling the Sun and thought Beryl sounded so remarkable and could not wait to find out more about her. Her prose in this book is 5 stars-no question. But I had several issues I could not get over.
1. She does not write about any of her relationships with people in any type of emotional terms. The closest we see is that of her childhood friend-but even that is so stilted compared to what was expressed in Circling the Sun. Denys was barely mentioned. Blix was who she went on an on about the most-and never mentioned at all either one of his wives or the context in which they all knew each other. She never mentions her mother, brother or her tumultuous relationship with her father. It's like she just removed all the social pieces of her life.
2. I don't get the order of events she included-it seemed skippy to me. I understand she decided to include events that showed her being brave, developing courage, etc. to show no limits-but it jumped around.
3. Maybe she didn't want to toot her own horn, but she really really downplays her achievements to the point where you don't understand how groundbreaking her achievements were-in horse training and aviation.

On the other hand, her description of Africa itself and her prose were second to none. But I read this really wanting to get to know more about her as a person and I walked away not learning anything-which really disappointed me. Not only that, it made me wonder how she may have been in real life if she was able to leave out her emotions for people so easily and yet had no trouble expressing them for the land.

This was very well written, but I recommend the audio because the narrator is THAT excellent

4.5 star and the first two/thirds was a 5. To me it only lost perfection in the continuity of the last quarter after she left Molo and the subsequent years until she returned to Scotland.

OUTSTANDING and perfectly worded to nuance, beauty, dichotomies, dirt to mountain top reality of her East Anglican Africa (now Kenya farmland /plain prime) of the 1910's, 1920's and early 1930's. Rarely, rarely do you read this depth for physical base fact tied sublimely to the artistic judgment supreme- and not only for the topics or word forms used either. She captures comparison to identity and purposes without the heavily influenced educational and media biases of "know better through theory" preachy narrations now so in mode. With young eyes of "want to be included at that, please" on top of it. Nothing is too sacred to notice or report for the young Beryl. Not any aspect of her interest and participation. African tribal characteristics and differences, African ritual, African hunter and gatherer lifestyle belief and daily practice, roles performed, placements for animals in their worldview. So much meat is in this. Oh so much to chew on!

What a free spirit and what choices she made! Very rare woman. And not in the least part was that the fact of knowing what she "owned" for use during these periods. And was still not anything but completely cognizant of when it was gone and never to be again. At least not for her. She knew that too.

Africa is difficult. Its geography is difficult. It's differences are vast. Age is not the only factor within its history of humanity either.

Her airplane stories were good, but the animal hunts, the escapes, the warthog/dog battle with her mentors! Those were magnificent. In the action and in the telling. Homo sapiens in the history of their existence, no less. And the horse loves and battles- so Beryl.

But what truly was magical, is how Beryl could detail so intrinsically and with such emotional and identity heart but did NOT relate her female role agenda. (Did she have one apart from one of pure example?) Or her own personal mating or motherhood considerations or any of that aspect of the personal female druthers. Which would most probably be the pivot if written in the modern version of the same life.

Nor did she ever whine or express the voice of a victim for neglect or any deemed "hardship". Despite the lack of a mother, most of what would be called supervision/ direction or any other reality to her non-access for a formal education or any other aspect of an entitled "right" for her nationality and generation. Instead she voiced her spirit of adventurous freedom, be it one which left many physical scars.

Beryl exposed Beryl without a single moan or undo negative. And they existed. Instead she dazzled with the words and the lights she saw from many thousands of feet above the fray.

”Being alone in an aeroplane for even a short a time as a night and a day, irrevocably alone, with nothing to observe but your instruments and your own hands in semi-darkness, nothing to contemplate but the size of your small courage, nothing to wonder about but the beliefs, the faces, and the hopes rooted in your mind---such an experience can be as startling as the first awareness of a stranger walking by your side at night. You are the stranger.”

n  n

Beryl Markham was the first person to fly solo over the Atlantic from England to North America. She was also the first woman to fly solo East to West. She made it to the coast of Nova Scotia by the skin of her teeth. Ice had clogged the air intake to her last fuel tank, greatly reducing the amount of fuel getting to the carburetor. The Vega Gull’s engine kept dying. She kept nursing it back to life until finally the coast appears. She crash landed without killing herself and put herself in the record books.

She grew up in Kenya and always wanted to do what the boys were doing. She had a native boy who was a close friend. This association allowed her to learn the ways of the tribe. She has to be one of the few white girls from that period of time or any period of time who was allowed to go on hunts with the men.

”So there are many Africas. There are as many Africas as there are books about Africa--and as many books about it as you could read in a leisurely lifetime. Whoever writes a new one can afford a certain complacency in the knowledge that his is a new picture agreeing with no one else’s, but likely to be haughtily disagreed with by all those who believe in some other Africa.”

There are a lot of factors in how people experience a place. As travellers, it might rain the whole time you are somewhere, or you might have one rude experience with a waiter (Paris and I should have knocked the bastard on his doughy fat ass), or you might be experiencing the final days of a doomed love affair. On the other hand, the weather might be sunny and breezy, or you might have an amazing hour with a knowledgeable art curator, or you might find new love. All of those factors can certainly color our perceptions of a place. When you live anywhere for an extended period of time, like Beryl did in Kenya, you have a better chance of experiencing a true Kenya.

But then there is a difference growing up an English privileged rose who has horses and all that her heart desires compared to say a young black Kenyan woman who might have a completely different experience growing up in Africa. Beryl made one generalization about a local tribe that smacked of the imperial colonial view of a local population.

"But physically the Kikuyu are the least impressive of all. It may be because they are primarily agriculturists and generations of looking to the earth for the livelihood have dulled what fire there might once have been in their eyes and what will to excel might have been in their hearts. They have lost inspiration for beauty. They are a hardworking people from the viewpoint of Empire, a docile and therefore a useful people. Their character is constant, even strong, but it is lustreless. "

I have a friend who happens to be a Kenyan from the Kikuyu tribe. I shared this quote with her, and she had a few opinions about the description

”The wench!! (that was my favorite) yet another ignorant white-privileged bourgeois colonial story which paints a pretty picture of the land but knows next to jack shit about the locals. Only what they saw in passing. I would gladly tell the dead colonial to stick to horses and planes. But really? We lost our spark because of the earth? We killed for that land. We shed blood and tears for it. Most of it white... And we continue to struggle for it. To buy our own to raise our children on. And what did she mean lost our spark? We don't have diamond eyes. Or wear contacts. Or have eyes that shine like the ocean blue eyes of a Victorian damsel who wouldn’t know dust if it drowned them... See? And my thoughts are a lot less polite.”n  Mwanamali Marin

Yes, I know I’m a pot stirrer. I probably missed my calling as a journalist. Of course, all of us know that, when we make a generalized statement about a culture or a people, we leave ourselves susceptible to criticism. The point is during this period of time, in the pre-world war two era especially, books are rife with irritatingly simplistic, condescending statements about native population. This was the only one I caught. Mwanamali, reading this book, might catch even more than the one that I did, but in her defense, Beryl did love many native Kenyans that she met and worked with over the decades of her life.

n  n

Her father experienced some financial difficulties due to a lack of rain...something, being the son of a farmer, that I’m very familiar with. Beryl, as a teenager, became a horse trainer and did well. It was a boy’s club, of course, so it took longer than it should for her to get the business she deserved, but then Beryl was not unfamiliar with being at a disadvantage from the moment she came out of the womb...a girl. There was this great moment in the book where a filly called Wise Child, that Beryl had resurrected from the dead, races against the top stallion in the racing world at the time. She did such a great job setting the scene and then describing the race that I felt like I was as invested in the outcome of that race as Beryl. I had tears in my eyes.

Markham is a lyrical writer whether she is describing horses, planes, landscape or even the process of writing. ”Silence is never so impenetrable as when the whisper of steel on paper strives to pierce it. I sit in a labyrinth of solitude jabbing at its bulwarks with the point of a pen--jabbing, jabbing.”

I did have a moment of real doubt when Beryl took a job flying big game hunters into the wilds of Kenya to shoot elephants. The money was really good, but there is something soulless about shooting elephants. She even said, ”It is absurd for a man to kill an elephant. It is not brutal, it is not heroic, and certainly it is not easy; it is just one of the preposterous things that men do.” You may not pull the trigger, but if you are helping these hunters find their prey via an airplane, you are as responsible for the death of the elephant as the men who fire the bullet. She had some wonderful, inspiring descriptions of how smart the elephants were and how many times they would fool the hunters. Those stories confirmed me in my belief that elephants are intelligent sacred animals and should be left in peace. So why do some people feel so driven to hunt these beautiful animals or put themselves in other death defying situations? One of the Kenyan guides remarked to Markham: ”White men pay for danger--we poor cannot afford it.”

It kind of makes it all sound fake. Men trying to prove themselves in manufactured situations.

I did have some issues with Beryl, but I also found her to be a groundbreaker and certainly a woman whom other women can look up to. She took on men toe to toe and proved she could compete with them whether it be on the horse track, in the air, or in the bedroom. She was friends with Karen Blixen, better known by her pen name of Isak Dinesen. She was such good friends with her that she even shared a man with her by the name of Denys Finch Hatton, an adventurer and hunter. The interesting thing about this book is that her love life has been carefully kept off screen. Markham was notorious for her marriages and her affairs. She was attractive to men, and she was attracted to men. Her love life fits with the way she lived her whole life as free as any man and more so than most.

n  n
Straight on till morning

”No map I have flown by has ever been lost or thrown away; I have a trunk containing continents.” The world was hers.

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I can't objectively review this. I read it when I was traveling in Africa and I found it inspiring. Don't know how I would review now.
But the woman was a force and her story is interesting. If you like memoirs of groundbreaking women, this book is for you.

I am sure that this book appealed to many readers, including the late Ernest Hemingway, but, alas, I am not in that number. I found that the writing, though descriptive, was disjointed and dated. I know Africa was a rough place in the 1930s, but surely there were some things she could have written about that did not involve hunting and killing and whipping horses to train them. I found it amazing that she knew in great detail exactly what her horse was thinking as he dealt with her as a young girl. I am more fascinated by what she left out than by what she put in. No mention was made of her mother. Did she have no place in the author’s life? At age 17, her father left for Peru and Beryl was on her own. But if there was any sorrow in their parting, the book did not show it. She says little about her relationship with him. In fact, except for her affection for her horses, her plane, and her dog, it seems the author has little feeling for anyone. She claimed her dog was dear to her, but she allowed it to hunt dangerous warthogs and other wild animals, often sustaining near-mortal injuries, as though that could not be helped. She reported on the injuries and death of people as though they were only statistics. While she did describe her surroundings in detail, I never connected to the people in her life. The series of stories were just that – stories in no particular order and seemingly chosen for no particular reason. I did not care to read in great detail about hunting wild boar on foot or elephants by plane. To me, the book was superficial, a travelogue. I never felt like I knew anything personal about the author. Indeed, it was more like she was a reporter detailing a few aspects of her life. If this book was indeed written by Beryl Markham and not by her third husband as some have claimed, then she wrote it in a most detached, unemotional manner.

An amazing book of courage and journey and flight which Hemingway, for one, loved. He considered her a superb writer and an essential author to read. I still have my print copy with the great cover of Beryl.

(Which is one of the problems with ebooks. You can’t have cool books with cool covers living their best life on your bookshelf when you walk into a room. Just looking over and seeing them there gives you a solid feeling and a happy spark.)

The following passage is an example of why I loved this book.

A messenger came from the farm with a story to tell. It was not a story that meant much as stories went in those days. It was about how the war progressed in German East Africa and about a tall young man who was killed in it.

I suppose he was no taller than most who were killed there and no better. It was an ordinary story, but Kibii and I, who knew him well, thought there was no story like it, or one as sad, and we think so now.

The young man tied his shuka on his shoulder one day and took his shield and his spear and went to war. He thought war was made of spears and shields and courage, and he brought them all.

But they gave him a gun, so he left the spear and the shield behind him and took the courage, and went where they sent him because they said this was his duty and he believed in duty. He believed in duty and in the kind of justice that he knew, and in all the things that were of the earth -- like the voice of the forest, the right of a lion to kill a buck, the right of a buck to eat greass, and the right of a man to fight. He believed in many wives, young as he was, and in the telling of stories by the shade of the singiri.

**********
There is more to the passage of course, but that is for you to read.

tBorn Beryl Clutterbuck in 1902, she moved from England to Kenya with her father when she was just a girl of five. She went on a hunt for warthogs when she was a young girl and her faithful dog Buller was gored by the hog but survived to live several more years. Beryl was rather fearless and the Kenyan natives called her “Beru” because it was easier to pronounce.
tAs a teen, she was fascinated with horses. Along with two native helpers, she delivered a colt from a pregnant mare. She named him Pegasus and her father told her the horse was now her own. Later, as a young woman, she became a trainer of horses. How does she become an aviatrix? She’s riding her horse one day and spots a man whose car has broken down. The man is Tom Campbell Black, an RAF captain during WWI, and she believes that he figures into her “Destiny” to become a pilot.
tIn a later chapter, when Beryl is on the Athi Plains next to Nairobi, an airplane lands at night and it’s Tom Black, bringing an injured man and the ashes of another man. She writes about the look in his eyes that was disturbing in its clarity: eyes that might have followed the trajectory of a dead cat through a chapel window with more amusement than horror but might at the same time have expressed sympathy for the cat’s fate. Tom tells Beryl that he’s had a vision—she must learn to fly. So she decides that she must learn to fly. Tom becomes both her flight instructor and lover, a relationship that will cover the span of many years.
tBecause of her position in society and membership in the local Muthaiga Club, Beryl has occasion to meet Karen Blixen (author of Out of Africa), Bror Von Blixen-Finecke (Karen’s husband also known as Blix), and Denys Finch Hatton (Karen’s lover first and later Beryl’s lover). Beryl was supposed to fly with Finch Hatton on the morning of May 13, 1931 but Tom Black, having had one of his frequent premonitions, advised her not to fly that day so she didn’t. Finch Hatton was killed the next day just after takeoff from the Voi airport, crashing to the ground when the plane burst into flames. Beryl has a one-plane business and is hired by Blix to scout elephant herds by air. While on the ground, they have a close encounter with a group of elephants and are almost trampled by a ferocious bull. Markham’s singular accomplishment, one for which she is famous, was flying west from England hoping to land in New York. She almost made it but crashed on an island in Nova Scotia because of ice in the plane’s fuel line. Curiously, her triumph merits only a single chapter and the book’s end.
tAbout Markham’s writing style; she says so much in so few words. The reader would be best advised to read her sentences slowly and enjoy them fully, pondering the detail offered and her beautiful use of the English language. I read only a chapter or two at a time; it’s like eating a gourmet meal and shouldn’t be rushed. Hemingway praised her writing ability and I think he was jealous of her work. Her writing is similar to Papa’s but she doesn’t seem as narcissistic or self-centered as him.
tThis book is not a complete memoir. She omits mentioning any of her three husbands and her son. Her last name, Markham, comes from one of the husbands. Nor is there any mention of the numerous affairs she had in her life, one of which was with a member of the British royal family. Nevertheless, it’s a splendid read and one of the best books I’ve read in quite a long time.