Last summer I attended an author event and heard Paula McLain present some about this latest fictional recreation of an impressive woman's life. Circling the Sun tells us about the background of the famous woman aviator Beryl Markham, and I think I was expecting more of the actual aviation history, which would have thrilled me, but then again, since long long ago I read Beryl's autobiography West With the Sun, I should have anticipated that this would not be a fictional repeat. Her life is fascinating, heartbreaking, confusing and yet inspiring to a modern woman. Abandoned in Africa by her mother when she was quite young (and she doesn't really understand why until a grown woman and mother returns), Beryl grows up with her father, left to her own devices and spending years with the local tribesmen who taught her survival and hunting and loving the land of Kenya. From her father she learned all about horses, which he raised and trained. Much of the book, in fact, centers around her groundbreaking and successful career as the first woman horse trainer in the region. I think, in spite of the good stories and good writing, there was too much detail about the horses for me who has so little knowledge of them. But what a survivor this woman is.... of an attack by a lion, of many times being dangerously thrown from the saddle, of an imminent cobra attack... not to mention too lightly her difficult encounters with the various men in her life. She is self-sufficient and yet needy, she recovers from so many blows and yet remains somewhat bewildered and reckless. Knowing how flying gave her back her literal and spiritual wings made the story veer towards the positive for me.
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leaving on the bench outside....