Winter's Tales (1942)

While I absolutely loved Isak Dineson's (or Karen Blixen in real life) autobiographical tale "Out of Africa," her novel "Winter's Tales" really paled in the comparison. I found these stories -- mostly with a simplistic moral message to be extremely hard to read. It really came off like high school poetry -- an effort to be pretentious and deep that years later just reads as silly. Definitely avoid this book and read "Out of Africa" instead. ( )

When I first met you I was on my way to Africa, to see my younger sister and her children; she is a falcon too, when she chooses.

Eleven short stories written in Denmark during the 1930s and the German occupation. The title of the book seems to refer to the nostalgic mood of the stories rather than their settings, as they seem to be full of regret. The protagonists of most of the stories had a defeatist attitude toward life, which didn't appeal to me at all. Too much doom and gloom.

I did enjoy "The Heroine", and "The Sailor-Boy's Tale", which was partially set in Bodo, a coastal town in Norway which I visited when I went on the Norwegian Coastal Voyage. However, I don’t think that I met any shape-changing Lapps while I was there! ( )

This was a collection of short stories, some with fantasy elements, some with a bit of romance, but all having the same sort of wistful feel to them. All the characters seem to be dissatisfied with life. Some of the stories are resolved, some are not.

I had a hard time reading these stories. They didn't seem to have a definite theme, and even the plots were hard to describe. My favorite story was "The Heroine." ( )

Perhaps I can be forgiven for thinking Isak Dinesen was a 19th century writer. The opening passage from her short story "Sorrow-acre" quote above certainly sounds like 19th century writing to me, not something a mid-20th century author admired by Ernest Hemingway would produce. Isak Dinesen's writing seems world's away from the writing in "A Clean Well-Lighted Place," in fact, it seems a century away. Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) did not become a writer until mid-life. Born in Denmark in 1885, she married, divorced and ran a coffee plantation in Kenya until the early 1930's when the depression brought it to an end. This experience was the basis for her memoir Out of Africa. She returned to Denmark where she lived until her death in 1962. While she is a 20th century writer, she is also a writer in love with the past. The stories in Winter's Tale are set in the previous century which suits her formal, elegant writing style.

"Sorrow-acre" is set in the Danish countryside during the closing days of the manor system. A young man, Adam, has returned to his family estate to visit his uncle, the lord of the manor, and his uncle's new, much younger wife. Adam's cousin has recently died, making Adam the next-in-line to inherit the estate unless the new wife can bear his uncle a son. Much is at stake for the current lord of the manor. Should Adam decide to remain in Denmark the situation could become very difficult.

"Sorrow-acre" takes place over a single day. In the early morning one of the local peasants, an old woman, comes to the lord of the manor to plead for her son who has been sentenced to ten years in prison for a crime she says he did not commit. The woman insists that this will be the death of her as she has no one but her son to take care of her in her old age. The lord agrees that he will pardon her son if she can harvest the grain on the plot of land in front of them. The woman agrees without hesitation, though everyone knows the plot is too big for a single person, let alone and old woman, to harvest in one day. The lord of the manor insists that no one help the woman and stations his men around the field to ensure that no one does. The woman works steadily throughout the morning without stopping and soon it becomes clear that she may actually complete the task before nightfall. Everyone from the surrounding area abandons their work to watch the old woman. Adam and his uncle watch as well. Once, Adam understands that while the old woman may earn her son's freedom, she is clearly working herself to death, he abandons his uncle and Denmark and heads back to his new home in England.

Dinesen creates a different kind of heroic female in "The Heroine." The main character in "The Heroine" is Frederick, an Englishman who is studying in Berlin in the 1870's. When the Franco-Prussian War breaks out he is forced to join a group of refugees fleeing for France. He is arrested by the Germans in a border town and faces execution for espionage along with the priest, two nuns, a commercial travelers and the beautiful young woman, Heloise, who shared the hotel he was staying in. A German officer offers them all their freedom if Heloise will come to his rooms in the nude. She replies:

"Why do you ask me? ....Ask those who are with me. These are poor people, hard-working, and used to hardships. Here is a French priest," she went on very slowly, "the consoler of many poor souls; here are two French sisters, who have nursed the sick and dying. The two others have children in France, who will fare ill without them. Their salvation is, to each one of them, more important than mine. Let them decide for themselves if they will buy it at your price. You will be answered by them in French."

None of her party agree to the German officer's demands so they are all taken into the courtyard to be shot. At the last minute, the officer relents and gives them all a pass to return to France. Years later, Frederick meets Heloise again when he finds her performing on stage and in the nude. His conversation with her after the show sheds a new light on everything that happened with the German officer. Like the last few lines in a Henry James story, the ending forces the reader to see that nothing was as it first seemed.

Now, tell me, honestly, does this sound like the work of a 20th century author to you?

Beautiful stories (in the way that a man can be beautiful). Even including the famed "Sorrow-Acre," they are neither happy nor sad; they just are. They are all easily understood, at least overtly; but there is a great deal of depth to characters and plots that does not yield easily to comprehension. These are stories to be read more than once over a lifetime. ( )