Books & Java

Circling the Sun

by Paula McLain  

 

Synopsis: 

Paula McLain, author of the phenomenal bestseller The Paris Wife, now returns with her keenly anticipated new novel, transporting readers to colonial Kenya in the 1920s. Circling the Sun brings to life a fearless and captivating woman—Beryl Markham, a record-setting aviator caught up in a passionate love triangle with safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen, who as Isak Dinesen wrote the classic memoir Out of Africa.

Brought to Kenya from England as a child and then abandoned by her mother, Beryl is raised by both her father and the native Kipsigis tribe who share his estate. Her unconventional upbringing transforms Beryl into a bold young woman with a fierce love of all things wild and an inherent understanding of nature’s delicate balance. But even the wild child must grow up, and when everything Beryl knows and trusts dissolves, she is catapulted into a string of disastrous relationships.

Beryl forges her own path as a horse trainer, and her uncommon style attracts the eye of the Happy Valley set, a decadent, bohemian community of European expats who also live and love by their own set of rules. But it’s the ruggedly charismatic Denys Finch Hatton who ultimately helps Beryl navigate the uncharted territory of her own heart. The intensity of their love reveals Beryl’s truest self and her fate: to fly.

Set against the majestic landscape of early-twentieth-century Africa, McLain’s powerful tale reveals the extraordinary adventures of a woman before her time, the exhilaration of freedom and its cost, and the tenacity of the human spirit.

My Review:

Paula McLain is a brilliant writer. I read the Paris Wife a few years ago and it was the book that fueled my love for reading historical fiction. When I found out she had written Circling the Sun, although I knew nothing about Beryl Markham, I couldn't imagine a better story-teller to educate me about the amazing life of such a strong and admirable woman. In the 1920s and 1920s, Beryl Markham re-defined everyone's idea of what a woman can accomplish. She wore slacks, didn't wear makeup nor jewelry and didn't need the adornments women of society used to announce her social status or define herself as a woman. She was a strong, driven, confident person who happened to be a woman. Her gender did not limit her expectations of herself and that is something that even now, almost 30 years after her death, many women still struggle with. Although this book is promoted as the story of her most famous accomplishment, the first woman to make a solo transatlantic flight from Europe to the U.S., the book is more about her life in Kenya and her struggles to prove herself as an equally qualified and certified horse trainer (the first female to achieve this very difficult test of skill and aptitude). She, unfortunately, rejected education as she did not want to be molded into the "perfect" package of the good English girl. After 2 years in boarding school in Nairobi, all attempts to "tame" her stopped and she returned to her father's farm to hone her skills as a horse trainer and farmer. Also, the story puts a spotlight on her love affair with Denys Finch Hatton who was also the Karen Blixen's (a.k.a. Isak Dinesen - writer of the famous memoir Out of Africa)lover. Markham's life was tragic and full of adventure but in reading McLain's account, you can only deduct that regardless of tragedy and consequence, Beryl Markham lived an amazing life.

Excellent read for anyone but particularly for those who are interested in historical fiction that is intelligent and not overly dramatized.