“A Coffee-Plantation is a Thing that Gets Hold of You and Does Not Let You Go”: Plant-Writing in Karen Blixen’s Out of Africa

Abstract

One of the powerful but mostly overlooked productive forces in and behind Karen Blixen’s Out of Africa (1937) is Coffea arabica, the coffee bush of Arabia. In this article, I first discuss the dominant anti-pastoral tendency in recent Blixen-criticism, which has classified Out of Africa as a neo-colonial text and reduced Blixen’s interest in more-than-human nature to an expression of conservative ideology. I introduce two alternative concepts – “arabesque” and “phytographia” – that help me reposition Out of Africa and reconsider the significance of the text’s many plant-references. Blixen’s writing, in my understanding, holds a more timely interest and performs a more culturally productive function than is often assumed, especially insofar as it fore-grounds the life of many different plants and asks us to consider their powerful impact upon humanity. Read at a time when we are beginning to understand the disastrous implications of Western culture’s deep-rooted “plant blindness”, Blixen’s text helps question the insignificance of plants and problematise the powerful conviction that humans and plants lead separate and unrelated lives.

Opsomming

Coffea arabica, die koffiebos van Arabië, is een van die invloedryke kragte wat Karen Blixen se Out of Africa (1937) onderlê (hoewel dit meestal misgekyk word). In hierdie artikel bespreek ek eerstens die dominante anti-herderlike tendens in onlangse Blixen-kritiek, wat Out of Africa geklassifiseer het as 'n neo-koloniale teks, en wat Blixen se belangstelling in meer-as-menslike natuur reduseer tot 'n uitdrukking van konserwatiewe ideologie. Ek stel twee alternatiewe begrippe bekend – “arabesk” en “fitografie” – wat my help om Out of Africa te herposisioneer en die betekenis van die teks se vele verwysings na plante te heroorweeg. Blixen se skryfwerk, soos ek dit verstaan, is meer van aktuele belang en vervul 'n funksie wat meer kultureel produktief is as wat dikwels aanvaar word – veral in die rol daarvan om die lewe van baie verskillende plante na die voorgrond te bring en om ons te vra om oor hul kragtige invloed op die mensdom te besin. Gelees in 'n tyd wanneer ons die rampspoedige gevolge van die Westerse kultuur se diepgewortelde “plantblindheid” begin verstaan, help Blixen se teks ons om die onbeduidendheid van plante te bevraagteken en die kragtige oortuiging dat mense en plante afsonderlike en onverwante lewers lei, te problematiseer.