Anecdotes of Destiny by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixon): book review

Anecdotes of Destiny (1958, this edition 2001) is a collection of five short stories set in different locations, written by the author of Out of Africa, Baroness Karen Blixen. These were her last stories before she died in 1962.

Born Karen Dinesen in 1885 in Denmark, she married Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke, although she wrote under the name of Isak Dinesen.

Like Out of Africa (1937) which was made into a film in 1985, one of the short stories, Babette’s Feast, was a 1987 movie. It remains a favourite in the collection.

Babette is a 19th century Parisian political refugee who arrives at the home of elderly spinster sisters, Philippa and Martine, as their cook, on the advice of friend. It is set in an austere Norwegian coastal town. Babette holds a secret that is only revealed after a long quiet period of duty and service.

The story, The Diver, explores what it takes to be a creative person. It takes hope and longing and the courage to take a risk – “without hope one cannot dance” … “without hope you cannot fly” … without hope there is no story. A cowfish maintains that happiness is achieved through the equilibrium obtained by giving up the idea of hope and risk: “We have no hands, so cannot construct anything at all, and are never tempted by vain ambition to alter anything whatever in the universe of the Lord.”

In The Immortal Story there is a story within a story, with fateful consequences, and a rationalist person, Mr Clay, who will have nothing to do with stories, with fiction. He can only accept reality.

All of the stories, although separate, have the same themes of fate and destiny, as well as the relationships between artist, creativity, and daily life.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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