Well, I’ve finished it. And I’m quite thoroughly confused.
This husband, who was apparently so horrible to her, she divorced him and then when he asked her to, and not very nicely either, she remarried him. What? Then they got divorced again. Also, none of her three children seem to speak to her. What? How did we get there? I really can’t figure this lady’s personal life out. Suffice to say, it is wild. Almost as wild as the wildlife.
But the parts about the African landscape are very interesting, as are her attempts to set up a game reserve. She reads like an old colonial, but her reserve was apparently incredibly forward thinking – not just for its time, but for our time too, as it involved the local community; see here
After the acrimoious divorce, she keeps bleating about wanting to go back home to England. Bizarre, as this was a place that by my calculations she’d maybe spent 6 months in her whole life in. I guess as all the cultural life came from there, she felt that – despite it having nothing to do with her actual real life – that was home. Interesting that culture is actually a stronger predictor of ‘home’ than mere circumstance. ANYWAY. I just want to say, she moved to Norwich. This is a woman who used to chew up and spit up ground up doves for her orphan civet cat. Whole doves. With their feathers on. Yup. Her pet lion once mauled her son and she cheerily pumped him with the vet’s antibiotics. NORWICH.