Rating: 
Summary: A view of Kenya from a pink-tinged cloud
Review: Distant stars, golden shadows, exotic animals, champagne, legs growing weak, crazy butterflies trapped in stomachs - one cannot cry over this novel, only weep at the author's excited banality and her lack of intimate connection to the rich texture of Kenyan life. What a contrast with Isak Dinesen's powerful understatement! One can hardly believe that a person can go through such immense tragedy with this ever present beat of drums in the background. Despite the positivist tone of Gallmann's vaguely poetic brew one senses that her writing project is just an attempt to fill the void that suddenly materialized after the death of her loved ones. She strikes one as a fairly tradition-bound woman, for whom writing is a pastime among others, not a passionately pursued endevor. Her style lacks freshness and is a mere agglomeration of battered old cliches which she recombines according to her own permutations - and here they stand, in their cold Lego beauty. There are no lonely, miserable musings of which Dinesen's book is full, no acceptance of failure and solitude, no attempt to rise above the immediacy of the experience, no touching, unassertive wisdom. I thought the recent screen version of her novel was maudlin - but now I have to admit that Kim Bassinger wails as loudly as Kuki thinks a passionate, creative artist would.
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Summary: Typical Whites in Kenya
Review: Most white settlers, both old and new, have the means to live large.Thus, when she talks about the the glorious life and merry-making with her friends, I am not surprised. I have seen this first hand. So, where is Ms Gallmann's 'meaty' part in this lifestyle?Why this book deserves 1 star: For one, Ms Gallmann paints the local people as brainless, simpleheads... she's very patronizing in every sense. Two, if she cares so much about the country she lives in, and for her own credibility, she should have either left out the Swahili words/sentences or got herself a translater to do the needful. The Swahili deserves an F. Third, her treatment of the so-called loved ones is rather lacking, if not disrespectful. She should have just written a book recounting her son's life and his untimely death. Period. Ms Gallmann is certainly NOT Karen Blixen! One star for the descriptive scenery and the effort of writing a book.
Rating:
Summary: Fragmented Slow Pager Turner
Review: Our book club chose this book on the basis of an outstanding review in the Washington Post. While poetically written, Ms. Gallmann is a name dropper and egocentric. She apparently has a trust fund to buy her farm and a second house without any means of financial support but this is never mentioned. Instead we get to hear all about the many "oh so wonderful" people who came into her life. She spends one or two paragraphs on these countless friends and never mentions them again. Of course, we are privileged to know how these people are famous as well as hearing about her many manservants. Her tales are sad but told with complete and unbelievable surrealism. Her marriage is not just a good marriage, it's a "supernatural marriage". Her daughter is not Sveva, she is the recreation of Paolo. I never felt like I really knew any of her characters, especially the Africans. Too bad I coundn't opt for 0 stars. Of the 8 women in our club, seven of us painfully trudged through the book. Do yourself a favor, click the delete and move on.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Book
Review: This was a very interesting book. It was very hard to put it down. I wasn't expecting her tales to be that interesting, but it was hard to believe that this is actually a true story and that someone's life could change so drastically. If you you're thinking about reading it, do.
Rating: 
Summary: Vanishing Africa
Review: An evocation of East Africa--the wildlife, the landscape, the tribal people. Reminiscent of Out of Africa and West with the Night. Like them, it's about a European woman living a dangerous and thrilling life in the African bush. It's a woman's story of great love and loss, sensitively written. Possibly too sensitive for some.
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Summary: I dreamed of burning this book
Review: I understand that Kuki had a lot of hardships, and I appreciate that she felt confident enough to write about her losses to people she didn't know. However, this book was one of the worst books I have ever read. I went to Kenya over the summer and stayed in villages around the coast. When I got home and saw this book that according to the New York Times Book Review "captures perfectly the magic of Kenya," I couldn't wait to read it. Kuki actually says very little about Kenya. She lives in some huge estate outside Nairobi with servants. She spends her days entertaining rich, white aristocrats like herself. Consequently, she has little time to say anything about the people of Kenya that constitute the magic of Kenya. The book was just a collection of adjectives describing animals and random men. She goes off with guys and leaves her children in the care of servants all the time, and plays down the fact that she has an adulterous relationship. And what was all that stuff about the reincarnation of her husband in her daughter? I made myself finish the book because I thought I might miss something if I didn't. I wouldn't have.
Rating: 
Summary: I Dreamed and Forgot to Wake Up
Review: When I first began this book, I could not put it down. However, I had to continually refer back to try to figure out what had made Paulo & Kuki go to Africa in the first place - namely what was their occupation. I also was confused to where they lived. Was it Nairobi or Ol Ari Nyiro? From what I ascertained, their lives were very privileged. The number of white friends with airplanes, and obviously nothing better to do than "tea," was amazing. I also got weary of Kuki's ramblings of "Emanuele being like Paulo in this, that, this, that way...." We got the point! What was truly amazing was the fact that she did not forsee Emanuele's death even though he had a snake factory in their home. Not just a hobby of interesting snakes, but deadly ones. I know that each of us wants to allow our close ones to attain their dreams, etc., this one is totally unnecessary in an unsupervised or occupational atmosphere. When she related that she became two people in dealing with Paulo and Emanuele's death, I felt like she used that as an excuse. She had a role to play with her "close" friends, and she succeeded. I think most wierd is that she details two loves of her life after Paulo, but they just disappear in the monologues. What split them up? Also disappointing is the end not knowing what has happened to either Kuki or Sveva, just a note at the end about her beginning her diary, etc. What began as something I could not put down became something that I could not wait until it ended and it was only 311 pages.
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Summary: this book has (homo sapiens) legs
Review: there are two types of popular books about east africa: thosemacho male memoirs aping the hemingway big bwana mystique, andfeminized memoirs penned by intuitive, thoughtful, grounded women whose affinity to the land and its wildness brings to mind concepts like gaia or 'earth mothers". this book obviously belongs to the second camp--it's powerful in its lyrical and poetic evocation of the life, with her second husband and son, that she created on a huge ranch in a region teeming with black rhino, lions, and elephants. yet impending tragedy hovers over almost every page--her husband dies in a car accident, her son dies from a puff adder snake bite--and though you know beforehand that these deaths will occur, you still can't help but shed a sympathetic tear. she is a survivor, who won't let africa beat her down; her support system includes a large staff of ranchhands, servants, anti-poaching security team, and a tight coterie of well-heeled neighbors who own large ranches and drop by in their airplanes. ms. gallmann has recently created a wildlife conservation reserve on her ranch, and one feels that her efforts to protect the vanishing wildlife and local culture is quite admirable.but there is a question that is never answered--how does a young family from italy come to kenya, and buy a ranch the size of san francisco. with what or whose money? there is definitely a whiff of colonialism here, as if to say, it is up to the european landed gentry, newcomers to a foreign land, to teach the locals proper respect for the region by ironically relying on the locals' time-honored modes of adaptation. ms. gellmann is certainly not a snob, and she does learn swahili and many local customs, and she treats her staff like an extended family, but think about it--wouldn't it be great if one of us can have the ability and means to buy a small country in which to live. out here, in san francisco, it's hard enough to rent a two-bedroom flat.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Took this book to the beach after reading a glowing review in The Washington Post. I became so absorbed in the book that I didn't go out in the sun until I had finished it. The descriptions of the people, animals and plants of Africa is intriguing, but the story of love, life and loss is mezmerizing. Kuki Gallmann is a gifted writer and one who brings the reader right inside her world. I wept at each of her losses and cheered each of her triumphs -- and I am not usually that kind of empathetic reader. This is a book you will want to have on your shelf to re-read for years to come.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Amazing Thing I've Ever Read
Review: The title of my review is the simple truth. Mrs. Gallmann's story has touched me in so many ways...well, I have few words that can help me describe the ways in which it has touched me. To put it rather simply, I was in awe from the first page of her harrowing story. As I progressed, I found myself stopping and actually shedding tears - something no book has ever caused me to do - at some points. THAT is what clinched the deal for me. This account is so relatable that you can taste Mrs. Gallmann's pain and her triumph as if they were your own. And the way in which she was able to find a quote for the beginning of each chapter truly astonished me because each of the quotes more or less summarized the overall discussion of the chapter in question. As an aside, I recently emailed Mrs. Gallmann and was pleasantly surprised to have gotten a response. She is just as courteous and genuine as you would expect and I hope I am able to keep a line of communication going with this incredible woman. I can't show enough praise for her or for her book. Thanks to the woman named Kuki Gallmann, I too dream of Africa.
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