Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller [Paperback]

I love the movie as well, bought it on video about a year ago and have watched it many times. Yes, Redford is not a Dennis F.Hatton type but he's perfect. (In '86 I thought he was utterly miscast, despite being already then a huge Redford fan!)

Thurman took seven years to write this bio, and even learned Danish in the process. She truly cares about her subject and thankfully takes her time. Dinesen comes fully alive in this book, a rare accomplishment for biographers.

If you go to Copenhagen, take the train north along the coast (20 min. from the Central Station), get off at the beautiful, small, old Rungsted Station and walk down to Rungstedlund (about a mile). It was there that Karen Dinesen, later Blixen, was born and raised. She returned in 1931 from her farm in Africa, and began writing her first collection of tales, Seven Gothic Tales, published in 1934 in English and in Danish (in her own translation) a year later. She "only" wrote seven books for the next thirty years, but oh, what books. It is indeed quality, not quantity that counts with art.

In 1991 Blixen's house was opened as lovely museum with a small tasteful book store with books by and about Blixen (she is always referred to as Karen Blixen in Denmark), and a very nice and quiet small cafe. Upstairs is a wonderful exibit about her life, including seperate rooms with many books from her private collection.

The rest of the museum consists of her beautiful living rooms and study which all look as if she were still living there.

Behind the house is a parklike garden which is open 24 hours a day all year round. Here are the flower beds from where she gathered the cut flowers for her beautiful arrangements, the meadows with cows and sheep, wood benches placed along the paths, and the enormous tree under which she was buried in 1962. It is a magical garden, which she herself made sure would be preserved so that the public may enjoy as she once did.

Thurman's biography and the film "Out of Africa" generated so much interest in Blixen that it became possible to fund the museum, thus enabling us to travel back in time and walk with Karen Blixen in her garden and her house 40 years later. After you read the biography, you'll want to book your ticket to Copenhagen!

A bit of bragging: My parents live a mile from Rungstedlund, and I return to Blixens home every time I visit Denmark on my vacations. Rungsted anno 2002 is one of the most sought after addresses in the Copenhagen area, and it is easy to see why: Right on the coast, with meadows and woods still unharmed by suburban development, the scenery makes me sigh with longing just writing of it!

Note: The museum has a web site.

Plenty IS rotten in the State of Denmark, but Rungstedlund is pure bliss, and represents everything that is good and beautiful about Denmark.