Out of Aaaaafrica

"If I know a song of Africa - of the giraffe, and the African new moon lying on her back; of the plows in the fields, and the sweaty facesof the coffee pickers...does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on? Or will the children invent a game in which my name is? Or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me? Or will the eagles of the Ngong Hillslook out for me?"

I just wanted to share these words from Out of Africa, partly because leaving somewhere you love does make you feel a lot that way, but mostly because the cadence of the phrases and the way Ms Streep lets them roll out are the most beautiful things. Everything about that film is - the landscape, the words, the actors. But particularly those lines - obviously, taken from the book (which I have read and recommend) Mind you, did Isak Dinsen a.k.a. Karen Blixen write in her native Danish? In which case, there's a translator somewhere to which I also owe some thanks. As it happens, she was remembered - a district in Africa is still called Karen. Or is it a town?


P.S. Hobbit. Going ahead. With Guillermo del Toro. Quite frankly, I'm not sure it could be better if they tried...