Circling the Sun

Circling the Sun

Author: Paula McLain

Genre: Real Life People

Grade: A

I was going back and forth tonight. Do I write about a book that I didn’t like that stopped me cold but what part of the reading challenge I’m doing? Do I take a chance and do the daily prompt that was the Blogging 101 assignment?

I’m not feeling brave enough and besides I wanted to answer like ten of the prompts.

So I decided instead to write about a book I loved. Circling the Sun is about Beryl Markham. Markham was raised in Africa by her father and the local tribe who “adopted” her from the time she was four in the early 1900’s. She was a record breaking pilot, a female horse trainer, at a time and place where there were literally none (and never had been) and she was very good at both those things. She had two disastrous marriages and a love affair triangle with Denys Finch Hatton who was involved with Karen Blixen at the time.

And that was what pulled me in because from the time I was a child I loved Out of Africa. This book really manages to capture what the movie did a time and a place in which the people were outrageously large and troubled and epic. A wild place of incredible beauty that (just like Out of Africa) you could understand how it infected people and why they never wanted to leave it.

Though the book is a little slow at times I liked Beryl Markham and I thought McLain does a great job of writing her. I could relate to this character even as big as she was and for all her mistakes. I could admire her fearlessness. The desperation to stay in a place she loved that was part of her. Her love for Finch Hatton even though she knew she would never “own” him. Her admiration and friendship with Karen Blixen despite everything. Mostly that she  wasn’t fearless and she made mistakes but she faced all her obstacles and never surrendered. Despite it’s slow moments it was so big to me that it was an easy read. I so easily saw this as a movie in my head I even fan cast Margot Robbie in the main role.

Make it happen Hollywood.

Recommend: Yes. As you may be able to tell I really enjoyed this one.