Book Review, West With the Night, by Beryl Markham

Beryl Markham became the first woman to fly from Britain to North America, This book, Markham's memoir written in 1942, contains stories from her life, most taking place in Africa . An Amazon reviewer wrote "it is the elegance and depth of the writing that sets this book apart".
I found it to be one of those rare books where I underlined passage after passage. The simple fluidity of its narrative is oft times more like poetry than prose. "Throughout the book, we are treated to some of the most vivid descriptions of an Africa that is long gone". In my used copy I found a yellowed newspaper clipping of Markham's Obituary. She died at the age of 83. I enjoy the surprise that sometimes comes with a used book...

I can't help but copy a few quotes from the book:

"There are all kinds of silences and each of them means a different thing. There is the silence that comes with morning in a forest, and this is different from the silence of a sleeping city. There is silence after a rainstorm, and before a rainstorm, and these are not the same. There is the silence of emptiness, the silence of fear, the silence of doubt. There is a certain silence that can emanate from a lifeless object as from a chair lately used, or from a piano with old dust upon its keys, or from anything that has answered to the need of a man, for pleasure or for work. This kind of silence can speak. Its voice may be melancholy, but it is not always so; for the chair may have been left by a laughing child or the last notes of the piano may have been raucous and gay. Whatever the mood or the circumstance, the essence of its quality may linger in the silence that follows. It is a soundless echo."

"there's an old adage' he said, 'translated from the ancient Coptic, that contains all the wisdom of the ages -- "Life is life and fun is fun, but it's all so quiet when the goldfish die."

"But, for a little while, this is the place for us -- a good place too--a place of good omen, a place of beginning things--and of ending things I never thought would end."

"God Makes fat birds and small birds, trees that are wide and trees that are thin, He makes big kernels and little kernels. I am a big kernel. one does not argue with God."

“If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work.”

"In Africa people learn to serve each other. They live on credit balance of little favors that they give and may, one day, ask to have returned"

"I never realized how quickly men deteriorate without razors and clean shirts. Thay are like potted plants that go to weed unless they are pruned and tended daily."

"Names are keys that open corridors no longer fresh in the mind, but nonetheless familiar in the heart."