I had such difficulty deciding on a rating for this. The difficulty lay in the fact that the writing itself is beautiful and evocative, really exceptionally so... but I cannot make myself like the author. I know, different times, blah de blah blah, but there does seem to be an enormous lack of self-awareness here. For someone who goes on and on about the wonder and loveliness of the African environment, she seems to take great pleasure in shooting half the living things she comes across. (When Dinesen/Blixen comments that when she first came to Africa it was her ambition to kill one of every animal I wanted to reach through the pages and slap her.) Not to mention all the groaning about how terrible it is for her to leave her land, with little recognition that the Africans who also have to leave (despite having been there generations longer) might be feeling just a little worse about it. It's hard not to read this and side-eye a lot of the old colonialist attitudes that come shining through.

In the end I plumped for three stars instead of four. Honestly, the writing itself deserves four stars - for all Blixen's failings as a person she's an incredible writer - but one too many scenes in which she happily kills things also killed my enjoyment, or at least materially limited it. Worth reading for the gorgeous prose, but it is a product of its time and no mistake.