Many of these memories came rushing back to me as I read "The Flame Trees of Thika," Elspeth Huxley's 1957 memoir of her life as a young girl growing up in what was then British East Africa, and is Kenya today.
Huxley's parents brought her from Britain to East Africa in 1913 as they sought, like many young Britons of the time, to seek their fortune farming in "unspoiled" lands. They were told the land was fertile and growing coffee would be easy.
In fact, no part of the experience was easy -- a fact that helps make "The Flame Trees of Thika" so fascinating.
Much of the book deals with the relations between the white settlers and African tribes people who were often hired as laborers. There are some cringy parts in the way the white adults look down on the Africans. But Huxley isn't here to defend colonialism, just to describe the world as it was to a 6- to 9-year-old discovering life in a harsh land.
There are tales of dangerous leopards, snakes and one notable wounded buffalo. There is a murder investigation. There is the angst of a fellow settler caught in a love triangle. There is a boisterous New Year's Eve party that gets a little out of hand.
In all, it is an affectionate and gentle memoir, and an enjoyable read. Huxley does well drawing out the individual personalities of both black and white characters.
For me, the descriptions of the rolling grasslands, gnarled trees, rutted roads and the diverse wildlife of Kenya brought back mental images of our 2013 visit. I was surprised how even minor details evoked memories.
For instance, at one point the author mentions how thrilled one of the black laborers was when Huxley's father gave him a watch as a gift. That reminded me -- I had forgotten -- that during our visit two or three Kenyans had separately offered to trade goods for my watch. Later, Huxley mentioned sleeping under a mosquito net, and I was brought back to the two nights in a safari camp we'd spent sleeping under them (and how awkward it was to get in and out to go to the bathroom).
Speaking of mosquitoes, I was taken back to a night in Kenya where a mosquito buzzed in my ear as I tried to sleep after I read this line from Huxley: "No sound concentrates so much spitefulness and malice into a very small volume as the pinging of mosquitoes, as if needles tipped with poison were vibrating in a persistent tattoo."
Note the use of a simile in that line. In "The Flame Trees of Thika," Huxley is the master of all things simile, metaphor and analogy. Aspiring writers should pay attention.
Here are some that grabbed me:
- Kupanya emerged from a hut as reluctantly as a very tight cork drawn from the neck of a bottle.
- Their voices slid like a stream over smooth rocks, and gurgled into little pools.
- It was the time of day when heat presses down upon the earth and squeezes out the energy, when men idle in the shade like trout lying nose-to-current on the bed of a stream, when even doves can barely muster the desire to coo.
- A cold wind shook the trees like a vicious cavalcade of ghostly horsemen riding the air.
- When he spoke they greeted him politely but with a wary, almost shifty look, behaving a little like wildebeeste that smell a lion about; they do not panic and gallop off, but tend rather to huddle together, stop grazing and stand ready for action, although uncertain what to do.
- I picked up the bracelet feeling dazed, as perhaps a beetle feels when, all but scorched against burning lamp-glass, he tumbles out of range and lies there, half stunned to recover.
mosquito net, , mosquito buzzingN
