Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Boulder Librarian

Author:   Paula McLain

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Foreign

366 pages, published July 28, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Circling the Sun tells the compelling story of Beryl Markham, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.  While this feat is remarkable in itself, there is a lot more to Beryl’s life.  Raised in Kenya, she was abandoned by her mother at a young age.  Her father raised her to be an expert horsewoman and she made a living training champion thoroughbreds.  She also had an ill-fated affair with Denys Finch Hatton (who introduced her to flying) and was friends with Karen Blixen (who was seriously involved with Denys), author of Out of Africa.

Quotes 

“We’re all of us afraid of many things, but if you make yourself smaller or let your fear confine you, then you really aren’t your own person at all—are you? The real question is whether or not you will risk what it takes to be happy.”

 

“Denys understood how nothing ever holds still for us, or should. The trick is learning to take things as they come and fully, too, with no resistance or fear, not trying to grip them too tightly or make them bend.”

 

“Sometimes when you’re hurting, it helps to throw yourself at something that will take your weight.”

 

“I’ve sometimes thought that being loved a little less than others can actually make a person, rather than ruin them.”

 

“I’ve never travelled,” I told her. “Oh, you absolutely should,” she insisted, “if only so that you can come home and really see it for what it is. That’s my favourite part.”

 

“Things come that we never would have predicted for ourselves or even guessed at. And yet they change us forever.”

 

“Proper learning isn’t just useful in society, Beryl. It can be wonderfully yours, a thing to have and keep just for you.”

 

“People interest me so much. They’re such wonderful puzzles. Think of it. Half the time we’ve no idea what we’re doing, but we live anyway.”

 

“We can only go to the limits of ourselves. Anything more and we give too much away. Then we’re not good for anyone.”

 

“For most of a day we walked through alkali flats, the white crust like a frosted layer of salt that rose in a powder when your boots punched through. We wore the chalk on us everywhere—up to our knees, in the creases of our fingers clenching the rifle strap, down in the cavity between my breasts, and in my mouth, too. I couldn’t keep it out and stopped trying. I couldn’t keep anything out, I realized, and that was something I loved about Africa. The way it got at you from the outside in and never let up, and never let you go.”

 

“what I’d really like to know is how it feels to be on my own. Not someone’s daughter or wife, I mean…but my own person.” “Oh.” It seemed I’d surprised him. “There isn’t a lot of that kind of thinking around here.” “Of course there is,” I told him, trying to draw a smile. “It’s just usually a man who’s doing it.” —”

 

“Searching out something important and going astray look exactly the same for a while, in fact.”

 

“Miwanzo is the word in Swahili for “beginnings.” But sometimes everything has to end first and the bottom drop out and every light fizzle and die before a proper beginning can come along.”

 

“Have you ever seen stars like this? You can’t have. They don’t make them like this anywhere in the world.” Above our heads, the sky was a brimming treasure box. Some of the stars seemed to want to pull free and leap down onto my shoulders—and though these were the only ones I had ever known, I believed Denys when he said they were the finest. I thought I might believe anything he said, in fact, even though we had just met. He had that in him.” 

My Take

Paula McLain, the talented author of Circling the Sun also wrote The Paris Wife, a book about Ernest Hemingway’s first wife that I read a few years ago.  Both books are historical fiction biographies based on strong women protagonists.  I preferred Circling the Sun because of the unique character of Beryl Markham, a woman before her time and an aviation pioneer.  Although she was a bit prone to self absorption and often made foolish, impulsive decisions, she was an amazing woman.