Queer Places:
Rungstedlund
Rungsted, Hørsholm Kommune, Hovedstaden, Denmark
Karen Blixen Museum, Karen Rd, Nairobi, Kenya
Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke (born Dinesen;
17 April 1885 – 7 September 1962) was a Danish author who wrote works in
Danish and English. Blixen is perhaps the greatest modern Danish literary
figure associated with homosexuality. Most likely she was not a lesbian
herself, however, her magnificent first book, Seven Gothic Tales (1935),
written under her male pseudonym Isak Dinesen, is a perverse and cache
celebration of every kind of sexuality except conventional, marriage-based
heterosexuality. Male homosexuality is often portrayed as a norm in her work.
This fact, although seldom acknowledged, has secured her writings a devoted
gay male and lesbian readership. She is, for example, among
Truman Capote's favorite authors.
Influenced by the Gothic and decadent traditions, Seven Gothic Tales
differs considerably from Dinesen’s next book, the autobiographical Out of
Africa (1937). Glenway Wescott
wrote, “Out of Africa is ravishingly written; it is like a love potion,
strengthening us in our enthusiasm about our life, whoever we are, whenever or
wherever it may be.” When accepting the Nobel Prize in 1954,
Ernest Hemingway is said to
have stated that it should have gone instead to “that beautiful Danish writer
Isak Dinesen.”
Carl Van Vechten’s
response was equally strong. On September 9, 1955, he wrote to George George,
“I have never enjoyed anything more than Out of Africa.
. . . I’ll never get over it & I am already very different!” Van Vechten then
sent a letter to Dinesen herself, writing, “Why I have waited so long to read
you, I’ll never know, but from the very first words in Out of Africa, I understood that I had found an important friend & ally. Never
before have I been made to feel so deeply the personal power of the written
word.”
During a 1959 visit to New York, Dinesen sat for several famous
photographers, including Richard Avedon,
Cecil Beaton, and Carl Van Vechten.
by Carl Van Vechten
Blixen and Van Vechten, Photographed by Saul Mauriber on November 20, 1958
Interest in Dinesen later surged with the appearance of the films Out of
Africa (1985) and Babette’s Feast (1987), based on her work.
Critics have alternately praised Dinesen as a feminist and criticized her as a
supporter of colonialism. However, the beauty of her writing and her lasting
influence have endured. After her death, Van Vechten wrote, “The impression
she made was so deeply indelible that something of her spirit will always
endure, even to eternity. This is a belief that I will never lose.”
My published books:
BBACK TO HOME PAGE
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Blixen
- Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage
Claude J. Summers
Routledge, Feb 25, 2014
-
http://brbl-archive.library.yale.edu/exhibitions/cvvpw/gallery/dinesen2.html