Shadows on the Grass by Isak Dinesen
"Shadows on the Grass" is the final book by the renowned author Isak Dinesen, published shortly before her death. This work serves as a reflective companion to her earlier memoir "Out of Africa," providing insights into the lives of her friends and servants in Kenya, particularly focusing on Farah, her Somali-born chief of staff, whose loyalty and tragic death leave a profound impact on the narrative. The book portrays other significant figures, including Kamante, who experiences blindness, old Juma, who passes away, and Abdullahi, Farah's son, who finds success. Dinesen's writing in "Shadows on the Grass" is characterized by a blend of factual detail and rich emotional depth, allowing her to explore themes of loyalty, cultural change, and the human condition. Unlike her previous works, this book emphasizes human values over the exotic allure of the African landscape, reflecting Dinesen's complex relationship with the cultures and people she encountered. Her candid self-reflection reveals how her experiences in Africa shaped her identity and literary career, while also acknowledging the cultural dislocation faced by the Masai and Kikuyu peoples during a time of rapid change. Overall, "Shadows on the Grass" serves as both a tribute to her companions and a meditation on her life's journey.
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Shadows on the Grass by Isak Dinesen
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published:Skygger paa Grœsset, 1960
Type of work: Memoir
The Work
Shadows on the Grass is the last book Dinesen wrote, and it is the briefest and most factual, filled with dates, names, and references to other books and writers. She was dead within a year of its publication.
Shadows on the Grass serves as a coda or giant footnote to Out of Africa, filling the reader in on what happened to Dinesen’s servants and friends. The primary focus is on Farah, the Somali-born servant who acted as her chief of staff. He is depicted as fiercely arrogant and utterly loyal, and his death is one of the most moving and tragic moments in all of Dinesen’s writing. In fact, the film characterization of Farah depends more on this short text than on the book Out of Africa. Other characters who figure prominently include Kamante, who goes blind, old Juma, who dies, and Abdullahi, Farah’s son, who ultimately prospers. What strikes the informed reader of Dinesen’s work in reading these portraits is how similar they seem to the imaginary ones in Seven Gothic Tales and Winter’s Tales. Clearly, Dinesen idealized all who touched her deeply, transforming them in her imagination into the same kind of romantic, contradictory, and willful types that one encounters in her great tales.
Dinesen is unusually reflective and self-analytical in Shadows on the Grass, freely admitting that the African experiences changed her life and made her writing career possible. She also shows a new consciousness of how the Masai and Kikuyu experienced a painful culture shock after the introduction of Western technology and culture, all of which made them listless and turned their old lives into boredom. Her frustrations with these people, especially when they would not heed her medical advice, and her unconditional affection for them come through on nearly every page. In Shadows on the Grass there is less of an emphasis on the exotic landscape and its aesthetic delights and more of a premium placed on human values and spiritual appreciation. One senses that Dinesen anticipated her own death and that she wanted to acknowledge her huge debt of gratitude to all her deceased friends.
Bibliography
Brantly, Susan. Understanding Isak Dinesen. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002.
Dinnage, Rosemary. Alone! Alone! Lives of Some Outsider Women. New York: New York Review Books, 2004.
Hansen, Frantz Leander. The Aristocratic Universe of Karen Blixen: Destiny and the Denial of Fate. Translated by Gaye Kunoch. Portland, Oreg.: Sussex Press, 2003.
Johannesson, Eric. The World of Isak Dinesen. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1961.
Langbaum, Robert. Isak Dinesen’s Art: The Gayety of Vision. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
Mullins, Marie. “The Gift of Grace: Isak Dinesen’s ’Babette’s Feast.’” In The Gift of Story: Narrating Hope in a Postmodern World, edited by Emily Griesinger and Mark Eaton. Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2006.
Simmons, Diane. The Narcissism of Empire: Loss, Rage, and Revenge in Thomas De Quincey, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, and Isak Dinesen. Portland, Oreg.: Sussex Academic Press, 2007.
Thurman, Judith. Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982.
Trzebinski, Errol. Silence Will Speak: A Study of the Life of Denys Finch Hatton and His Relationship with Karen Blixen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.