Too Close to the Sun: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton

by Sara Wheeler

Denys Finch Hatton was adored by women and idolized by men. A champion of Africa, legendary for his good looks, his charm, and his prowess as a soldier, lover, and hunter, Finch Hatton inspired Karen Blixen to write the unforgettable stories in Out of Africa. Now esteemed British biographer Sara Wheeler tells the truth about this extraordinarily charismatic adventurer.Born to an old aristocratic family that had gambled away most of its fortune, Finch Hatton grew up in a world of effortless elegance and boundless power. Tall and graceful, with the soul of a poet and an athlete’s relaxed masculinity, he became a hero without trying at Eton and Oxford. In 1910, searching for novelty and danger, Finch Hatton arrived in British East Africa and fell in love–with a continent, with a landscape, with a way of life that was about to change forever.Wheeler brilliantly conjures the mystical beauty of Kenya at a time when teeming herds of wild animals roamed unmolested across pristine savannah. No one was more deeply attuned to this beauty than Finch Hatton–and no one more bitterly mourned its passing when the outbreak of World War I engulfed the region in a protracted, bloody guerrilla conflict. Finch Hatton was serving as a captain in the Allied forces when he met Karen Blixen in Nairobi and embarked on one of the great love affairs of the twentieth century.With delicacy and grace, Wheeler teases out truth from fiction in the liaison that Blixen herself immortalized in Out of Africa. Intellectual equals, bound by their love for the continent and their inimitable sense of style, Finch Hatton and Blixen were genuine pioneers in a land that was quickly being transformed by violence, greed, and bigotry.Ever restless, Finch Hatton wandered into a career as a big-game hunter and became an expert bush pilot; his passion that led to his affair with the notoriously unconventional aviatrix Beryl Markham. But Markham was no more able to hold him than Blixen had been. Mesmerized all his life by the allure of freedom and danger, Finch Hatton was, writes Wheeler, “the open road made flesh.”In painting a portrait of an irresistible man, Sara Wheeler has beautifully captured the heady glamour of the vanished paradise of colonial East Africa. In Too Close to the Sun she has crafted a book that is as ravishing as its subject.

Genres: Biography, Africa, Nonfiction, History, Travel, Kenya, Biography Memoir

427 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 2, 2006

About the author

Sara Wheeler was brought up in Bristol and studied Classics and Modern Languages at Brasenose College, University of Oxford. After writing about her travels on the Greek island of Euboea and in Chile, she was accepted by the US National Science Foundation as their first female writer-in-residence at the South Pole, and spent seven months in Antarctica.

In her resultant book Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, she mentioned sleeping in the captain’s bunk in Scott's Hut. Whilst in Antarctica she read The Worst Journey in the World, an account of the Terra Nova Expedition, and she later wrote a biography of its author Apsley Cherry-Garrard.

In 1999 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. From 2005 to 2009 she served as Trustee of the London Library.

She was frequently abroad for two years, travelled to Russia, Alaska, Greenland, Canada and North Norway to write her book The Magnetic North: Travels in the Arctic. A journalist at the Daily Telegraph in the UK called it a "snowstorm of historical, geographical and anthropological facts".

In a 2012 BBC Radio 4 series: To Strive and Seek, she told the personal stories of five various members of the Terra Nova Expedition.

O My America!: Second Acts in a New World records the lives of women who travelled to America in the first half of the 19th Century: Fanny Trollope, Fanny Kemble, Harriet Martineau, Rebecca Burlend, Isabella Bird, and Catherine Hubback, and the author's travels in pursuit of them.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Denys Finch Hatton is best-known in the U.S. as Karen Blixen's lover in the movie "Out of Africa". Some know him too as Beryl Markham's lover from the autobiography of the aviatrix, "West With the Night". I'd put off reading Wheeler's book for a couple of years thinking, "What depth can there be to a book about an aristocratic hunter-playboy?"

But Sara Wheeler does a fine job of putting his life in context with colonial development in East Africa; the decline of the landed aristocracry in England; the pressures on young upper class people in the beginning of the 20th Century; and the toll of World War I on English society. Finch Hatton was certainly well-connected, leading two safaris with the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII); befriending Kermit Roosevelt (Teddy Roosevelt's son) and likely hunting with Ernest Hemingway as well. He was also more involved in English society than the movie portrays him, leading a calvary troop in East Africa during World War I; serving as an aide to Lt. Gen. Reginald Hoskins; then receiving formal flight training with the British Air Force in Cairo.

Wheeler is able to assemble the history despite leaving no diaries and only a few letters. Even those who knew Finch Hatton, who died in 1931, were all deceased by the time she started to assemble the book. Though the author was cool towards Isak Dinesen, she learns to appreciate the Danish writer, perhaps because it is Dinesen's own accounts that provide so much detail about Denys' life after World War I.

This account is highly recommended for those wishing to understand the history of the period, particularly of colonial policies.

[Linda Lipko · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you liked the movie Out of Africa staring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, then I think you will cherish this book. While the book focuses on the relationship of Denys Finch Hatton and Isak Disenstan, mainly, it paints a loving panorama of the beauty of East Africa. This was the time of big game hunting. Safari's were a great way to see, and slaughter as many animals as possible. Finch Hatton came to realize that shoting from a camera and capturing the stunning beauty of the animal, was much better than the sheer killing for trophy.

If you know if the British subjugation of India, then you will relate to the same behaviors in Africa. Taking over the land that was not theirs to parcel out and collect tax, making the natives unable to pay, all too quickly they took a continent of those who had been there first and made it as though they would not be there to last.

Excellent Book

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed bag. The author's big challenge is that there is very little historical record on Denys Finch Hatton, making it difficult to write a compelling biography. What succeeds well are the descriptions and background information on England and British East Africa / Kenya during Denys's time. Understandably not quite as successful are the descriptions of Denys himself. The writing is also occasionally disjointed. Particularly some of the footnotes, the author's own experiences, do not seem relevant to the story: while it is, perhaps, interesting that she "went off the map" in Antarctica, would argue that it does not fit the narrative - even when describing the contemporary aerial maps of Kenya with their uncharted territories. The abrupt ending, although probably intended to mirror the abrupt end of Denys's life, was a bit jarring. All told, it is an interesting read about both the time and the man - but there are also better versions of both.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this at the same time as reading 'Isak Dinesen, the Life of a Storyteller' by Judith Thurman, and 'West With the Night' by Beryl Markham for a wonderful 'Out of Africa' experience. The Felicity character in the film 'Out of Africa' was intended by the screenwriting team to represent some of the independent characteristics of Beryl Markham.

[Amerynth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would get along with Sara Wheeler just fine.... first she wrote a great book about her experiences in Antarctica and then she became obsessed enough with a Victorian-esque aristocratic, hunter playboy who had two extremely interesting women as his lovers to write a book about him. Denys Finch Hatton is probably most known for his longer term affair with Karen Blixen (who wrote Out of Africa.... Robert Redford played the Denys stand-in in the movie.) But he was also the lover of Beryl Markham, author of one of my all-time favorite books "West with the Night" -- who grew up in the African bush and like Denys, became a pilot there.

Wheeler does a great job immersing the reader in Finch Hatton's world -- where aristocratic houses were on the decline, but still wealthy enough to send their young men off with little to do but pursue their interests overseas in things like planes, cars and cattle (as well as fighting in a smattering of conflicts.) She made the story compelling and had plenty of juicy bits about the relationships between Finch Hatton, Blixen and Markham. This was a fun and very fast read.

[Sharlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

“This is an ordinary story of big guns and small planes, princes from England and sultans from Zanzibar, roulette, a famous divorce case, a Welsh castle and a Gilbertine priority, marauding lions, syphilis, bankruptcy, self-destruction, and the tragedy of the human heart.”

Ok so the reason for reading this book?

Sara Wheeler.

I’ve been wanting to read something by Sara Wheeler again (and have probably waited too long to do so!), since I read – and loved - Terra Incognita.

So I went about this in a roundabout way, after reading Beryl Markham’s fantastic West with the Night (some thoughts on this later), and deciding to see what else there was to read about that era of colonial Africa. She does mention Denys Finch Hatton in the book.

So this Denys Finch Hatton. Who was he? Besides being played by Robert Redford in the film version that is.

He was immortalised in Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa (a book I read too long ago to remember – time for a library loot!), he was a loyal Etonian (such that years after he graduated, he took a date there), a game hunter, an aviator, an aristocrat, a charmer and lover of many women. And there has apparently been quite the fascination about him:

“His mysterious otherness caught my attention: he appeared as the eternal wanderer. I quickly discovered that he left few traces, and that I was at the end of a long line of women searching for the real Denys. But the real Denys had escaped into legend.”

Despite the fact that he never quite made it – in terms of what we measure as success and achievements, that is:

“Chief among these was the gap between character and accomplishment, being and doing. Almost everyone who knew Denys spoke of his greatness, yet he did little. I wondered if we are tyrannised by the need for achievement.”

Karen Blixen/Tania/Isak Dinesen loved Denys with all her heart, and wrote to her brother:

“that such a person as Denys does exist, something I have indeed guessed at before, but hardly dared to believe, and that I have been lucky enough to meet him in this life and been so close to him – even though there have been long periods of missing him in between – compensates for everything else in the world, and other things cease to have any significance.”

Unfortunately, while DFH obviously cared for her and he often stayed with her and had such wonderful times together, he doesn’t quite love her as she does him, as he isn’t the sort of man to be tied down to one woman. Sadly he later shacks up for a while with Karen’s good friend, Beryl Markham.

One of the most interesting aspects of this book for me was the insights into Markham’s character. It showed me how much can be omitted, twisted in a book, it made me realise how unreliable some narrators can be, even if it is supposedly their own life story (there are questions about just who wrote Markham’s West with the Night). In Too Close to the Sun, she is so different from what I had read about her in her own book, where she talked about her love for horses, flying, and Africa. And not at all about her men, and there were plenty, for she was “nearly six feet tall, slim-hipped and long-fingered, although she was not classically beautiful – she had a strong chin and toothy jaw – she was handsome; her Nordic looks have often been described as Garboesque. She gave the impression that she cared little for anything on two legs, and men found her nonchalance attractive”. And there you have it, perhaps she really didn’t care much for anything on two legs, which is why she didn’t write much about them in her own book.

Anyway, Too Close to the Sun was a great read, and I had expected nothing less from Sara Wheeler. I suppose one could argue that DFH’s life itself was great fodder, true, but the amount of research it took, her way of piecing together the puzzle, and the way she brings him, and East Africa, to life in her writing, is what makes this a great read. I mean, I never expected to be interested in reading about the war in East Africa, but it was so different from the European front:

“It wasn’t the troglodyte world of the trenches, but it was another kind of hell. The war in East Africa – virtually unknown to the outside world – was, in its safari through purgatory, a negative metaphor for the Kenyan paradise of the epoch handed down in literature and myth.”

This book was a fascinating insight into this man, the woman who devoted herself to him, and what is perhaps his true love – East Africa.



This review was first posted on my blog Olduvai Reads

[Cherie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was everything I ever wanted to know about Denys Finch Hatton - let's just say that. It was a MUCH more complete picture of the man than was sketched out in "Out of Africa" and MORE. More British History, more British Africa Infomation than I ever would have wanted, more characters than Ms. Diesen wrote about and More about her. It was slow going and hard to get into at first, but the depth of information was overwhelming at times. I was forced more than once to look up words, so I have to admit that it was not 'easy' reading, but I learned a lot! There is a lot more out there to read about the people and times and the author's bibliography is quite a jumping off point. So many of the people wrote their own books and I will probably look into most of them sometime in the future, if they are still available. It was an amazing time period and an amazing place to be and is worth reading about. I thought the author's own notes added to the story and really painted a picture of the characters and the country.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. I'd read Out of Africa years ago and have seen the film a couple of times, but knew Denys Finch Hatton solely through them. It was nice to get a more complete picture of him. He was certainly well-loved by his friends and acquaintances. He was a person who seemed destined to die fairly young--in many ways, he never really grew up.

[Carl Rollyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Denys Finch Hatton (1887-1931) may evoke for millions the visage of Robert Redford, who plays this quintessential British adventurer with an American accent in "Out of Africa." Finch Hatton, the original, had sherry-colored hair and "topsoil brown eyes," Sara Wheeler reports in "Too Close to the Sun: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton" (Random House, 320 pages, $27.95). His aristocratic ancestors gambled their money away, and Denys was confronted with two choices: become a decadent nobleman in the manner of a Henry James protagonist in search of a rich American heiress, or restore the family fortunes by seeking new worlds to conquer in virgin territories such as Africa, where European powers were slicing apart the continent and setting up their own preserves like so many casinos on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

Finch Hatton decided to pursue the family franchise; that is, he continued his forebears' gamble with existence, ultimately crashing an airplane in Kenya on his way to Nairobi. He believed that to live fully and well meant travel, or as Ms. Wheeler puts it, "movement between opposing environments."

That phrase occurs early on in "Too Close to the Sun," when Finch Hatton becomes aware of his family's need to sell off thousands of acres while hunting and otherwise frolicking on the remainder, collecting rents, and inheriting new properties at a time when Britannia ruled one-quarter of the world's land mass. The Eton-bound Finch Hatton peregrinated from Surrey to London to that most exotic of places for an Englishman: the peaty hills of Wales, another family property.

A captain in the Allied forces in East Africa during World War I, where Finch Hatton witnessed a grim and protracted guerrilla war — a portent of things to come — he became a big-game hunter, renowned bush pilot, and, of course, the devastating lover of Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) and Beryl Markham, the aviatrix author of the autobiography "West With the Night."

Finch Hatton has mainly served biographers as a foil to Blixen and Markham. I wondered how Ms. Wheeler would fare with a much-told story. Here is a sample of her Blixen, known to African English settlers as Tania: At 33, she had "deep-set dark eyes, a beak nose, and abundant chestnut hair, and her face was sometimes beautiful and at other times all wrong." Markham is best summed up in one word: "patherine."

Markham and Blixen knew each other, and though Beryl was a man stealer, Tania was tolerant. Exactly why, Ms. Wheeler does not say, but Tania may have recognized that Beryl and Denys were two of a kind, happiest when they were in motion — in this case often riding together on their beloved horses. Ms. Wheeler observes that "Tania was wafty and incorporeal, whereas there was something earthy and physical about Beryl." These opposites attracted: "Beryl was a man's woman (actually, she liked men and horses equally) with few close female friends, and she grasped the hand Tania held out to her." That last phrase is meant to be taken literally and metaphorically, and it demonstrates how deftly Ms. Wheeler negotiates the terrain between fact and figuration.

But what of Ms. Wheeler's main character? Denys Finch Hatton charmed so many women and men that Markham alleged he was bisexual. Ms. Wheeler finds no evidence of that, but she explains his appeal by quoting one of Tania's letters: "I have always felt that he has so much of the element of air in his makeup … and was a kind of Ariel." Then Ms. Wheeler gives Beryl her due, quoting a Markham passage about Finch Hatton's flying skills: "The competence which he applied so casually to everything was as evident in the air as it was on one of his safaris or in the recitations of Walt Whitman he performed during his more somber or perhaps during his lighter moments."

People just liked to watch Finch Hatton walk. He was evidently one of the most poised men to ever grace the earth, the spirit made flesh — or so this stylish biography would have us believe.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

just picked this up from the library!

**********
10/01/07

A fascinating portrait of a man who became famous despite not accomplishing much of anything. A portrait in how charisma and charm can create a legend.

I think what disturbed me most about this book is the obvioius bias the author has against Karen Blixen, otherwise known as Isak Dinesen. In the introduction, the author refers to her as a "monster", yet little, at least in what is presented, seems to back this up. Whether this is due to the author's attempt to present a fair story is debatable. The words used to describe her are often negative. In fact, descriptions of Beryl Markham, another amazing woman, who had less of a moral center than many seem gentler.

It is obvious that the author had a great affection for her subject. Perhaps she even fell in love with him a bit. All in all, a biography of a man who, in all likelihood, could not exist today, and a picture of a time that has passed from us.

[Tia Gonzales · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dennis Finch Hatten was an interesting man but he was not that exceptional in his time....he did what privileged white men with too much money did in those days, looked for a piece of the Empire to call his own....by far the most interesting parts of his life story are his relationships with Karen Blixen and Beryl Markham and being a fan of both, this is why I read the book. They were truly extraordinary, albeit also privileged, loved their Kenya and their Dennis and led spectacular lives....I went to see the obelisk marked spot where he is buried, with the view of both Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro and recalled Karen's words about the lions who made themselves at home on top of his grave...

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The was the life story of Denys Finch Hatton, of Out of Africa fame. I wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did, but the writing was excellent and extremely evocative. Denys was the typical English nobleman who ended up living quite a non-conventional life. The fact that he really didn't get a focus/occupation until his late 30's/early 40's was a comforting one. The descriptions of Africa reminded me of my Dad's stories, and the white hunter that took him on his first trip in 1957 knew Denys and Karen Blixen and was mentioned in this well-researched and engrossing book.

[Trudy Jaskela · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading Markham's West with the Night and twice visiting Kenya, I became very interested in early 1900's Kenya. Both Markham and Blixen were smitten with Finch Hatton. Had the read the book. It was interesting because it painted a fairly detailed story of Finch Hatton's travels and endeavor's, not just his relationships.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great biography of Denys Finch-Hatton, quite different from the fictionalized one seen in Out of Africa.

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book.

[Terry Grigg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sara Wheeler was a tutor on a writing course I attended at Moniack Mhor in Scotland. Finding out that she had written this book on the life of Denys Finch Hatton, the love interest of Karen Blixen, writer of ‘Out of Africa,’ intrigued me. I am writing a book on Africa myself and this book has provided a lot of background information. The very detailed treatise on his life and loves from his schooldays to his death in a plane crash must have required a great deal of research. From Brasenose Dining Club in Oxford throwing crockery down the stairs to shooting lions, elephant and anything else he could find seems to be the sum of his dissolute existence. Denys appears as the Hemingway of Kenya (although Ewart Grogan would also have been a contender), a quite repugnant character, but typical of his time, class and colonial peers. A last minute ‘conversion’ from shooting with a gun to shooting with a camera was hardly enough to forgive him for past misdemeanours. Sara describes his extensive womanising, his false charms, his love of flying that was to be his downfall, the love triangle he had with the Blixen’s, but also of the colonial arena in which such affairs took place. She tells of the Maasai expelled from their grazing land, of tsetse flies killing mules and ponies, of a lion that ate 13 men, of rations green and full of weevils and maggots and of using razors to extract burrowing grubs. She tells of Baron Blixen infecting his wife with syphilis, caught from a Maasai woman, and the many affairs, miscarriages, abortions, nightmares and locusts. It all ends with Denys’s death of course and the touching detail of three burnt oranges coming out of the plane fuselage. The book could have been entitled ‘For the Love of Three Oranges.’ A fascinating read and will assist me greatly in my writing endeavours.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

For years "Out of Africa" has been my favorite movie. I read the book years ago. This book, however, tells a much larger story of Denys Finch Hatton than the movie did. I had not realized that WWI was also fought in Africa. Denys fought for British East Africa against German East Africa, lost friends there, and suffered from hunger and intolerable conditions due to a lack of roads, water, and food. He lost even more friends to the war in Europe where English soldiers suffered in trenches and cold rainy, miserable weather on the continent. After the war, British East Africa recognized the country of Kenya. It became a destination for people hoping to start a new life. Wealthy and aristocratic families from England, like Denys', could afford to follow. Hunting, always popular in Europe and England, drew adventurers, including Denys Finch Hatton. He pursued businesses and led others to invest in Africa. Karen Blixen became one of his good friends and one of his loves. He always helped her, enjoyed her company, and spent many hours and days with her.
It's odd, but I think the author of this book disliked Karen Blixen. Instead of using her Danish nickname "Tana", the author changed it to an American name "Tania." (That bothered me...) Most notable was the final statement about Denys' death. The last sentence of the book reads, "Tania buried him in the indifferent soil of the Ngong Hills under the grass where he once lay looking at eagles." This was a heartless ending after the emotional scenes in the movie, where Tana read a poem by A. E. Houseman, at Denys gravesite, "To an Athlete Dying Young." I wonder which version is truer.

The book is about colonialists, spoiled, rich, risk-takers, their activities, their toys, their friends and lovers. And about their selfishness.

[Albert Gidari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read and loved Beryll Markhan' s West with the Night, I expected much the same with this book. Denys Hatton is one of the central characters in the story of east Africa. Larger than life, but merely mortal in the end and in so many ways. But the book is weighed down by the prose, the unnecessary detail, and the organization of it all. Here is one example of the kind of phrase that slows the book down and keeps it from recovering:

"The low elephant grief of a ship’s horn rose above the din of Kiswahili banter and, at dusk, when the sun set far off below the plains, on the walls of the Mombasa Club the cobalt hues of agama lizards died with the light."

It happens too often in the book. It is too bad that Hatton left very little in terms of written record because Wheeler has to rely on the memory of others to paint a portrait. At times, the result is that Hatton becomes a character in the lives of the likes of Tania Blixen (Out of Africa). While an important part of Hatton's life in Africa, the book again is weighed down by Blixen's dependency on Hatton and her psychological and financial problems. True, Hatton's diffidence towards Blixen's needs is part of the story of his character, but less may have been more in the telling of that narrative.

It also is a shame that more time isn't spent on Hatton's turn to photography instead of hunting - shooting with a camera - and his environmental evolution towards protection of large areas of east Africa from hunting and despoliation.

Still well worth a read about an amazing time and a man who epitomizes that era of British exploration and colonization.

[Charles Inglin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One thing comes through very quickly in reading this book: the author really, really likes Denys Finch Hatton. This seems to be a central fact of Finch Hatton's life. Nearly everyone who meet him seems to have become infatuated to some degree. Born near the height of Victorian England he was the second son of the earl of Winchilsea, tall, reasonably good looking, a natural athlete, intelligent and well educated, possessed of the easy grace and charm of someone born to the aristocracy. As the second son, his brother inherited the title and the duties while Denys was adequately provided for which gave him considerable freedom to do what he wanted, and British East Africa, later Kenya, provided yet more freedom. While pursuing various ventures, he seems to have been something of a dabbler, not really driven, until as he approached his forties the career of white hunter, guiding safaris, and at the same time advocating for conservation became the main focus of his life. Freedom seems to have been the main leitmotif of his life. From the depiction in the book I would also say that a less admirable characteristic of Finch Hatton is that he was probably rather egocentric, which shows up in his relationship with Karen Blixen. While this is a biography of Denys Finch Hatton it necessarily also serves as a biography of Karen. While the movie "Out of Africa" gets the general theme of their relationship it really doesn't do justice to the complexity of two strong personalities that didn't always coexist happily. An interesting read.

[Helena Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who enjoyed the film "Out of Africa", or indeed, anyone who has a love for Kenya, this is a must-read. On a personal level, I loved the film, but as a past resident of Kenya (1968-70) I simply adored the stories of Kenya as it was.....the sexual abandonment of the "Happy Valley set" -it was still talked about when I lived there; the hardships endured by early settlers; the prolific presence of game; the description of the wonderful country that is Kenya. The author takes us back -but also records the changes that occur over time -the rifle being displaced by the camera; the arduous treks being replaced by the speed of flight. Unlike the film, where Robert Redford makes us think of Denys Finch Hatton as a handsome, debonair man, in the book we see him as both an aristocrat and a rebel, an explorer and a wonderful lover, a man who, like the wild animals, refuses to be tamed. Unlike Robert Redford we learn the truth -he is bald, and consequently is constantly wearing a hat. His relationship with the sensuous, but deeply caring Tania, is simultaneously wonderful but cruel.....she tries to tame a man who is untameable. Their love affair is one of beauty and passion and my heart went out to her when he died.
In addition to all this, the book gives us a reminder that the first world war was not only in Europe -as many people seem to think, but it involved countries of the then commonwealth, such as Kenya and what is today, Tanzania.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the commonwealth, life in Africa and the life of the British Aristocracy.

[Gail Richmond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wheeler is an amazing researcher. Given that she had to scour primary sources, particularly letters and others' journals and private writings for information on Denys Finch Hatton, this is a voluminous amount of detailed text. I was interested in reading this because I had recently read Paula McLean's fictional text on Beryl Markham, Circling the Sun. In the past I had read West With the Night, Markham's memoir, and then I happened to watch the film Out of Africa. All conspired to more than prepare me for Too Close to the Sun. But, the weight of the text made it slow going. I wanted more adventure from the beginning; instead, I got a whole history of the Finch Hatton family, the ins-and-outs of their financial near-ruin, and everything about every family member. Many may not be bothered by the rambling, but I was.

Once past that heavy family history and out of England (and Scotland and Wales) to Kenya, the narrative improves considerably. Wheeler is a good writer, and her use of language and description is quite good. If you are in the mood for this sort of biography, give this one a try.

My rating: 3.5

[Glenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read in the last few years several books regarding this time period in Kenya, most especially, I just finished Out of Africa. So, I was looking forward to reading this book. I was disappointed, however. I love history and regularly read history books. This book is not sure whether it is a history book, a biography or a novel, and it switches between forms regularly. I had a difficult time reading this book and it was almost a chore to finish it. The writing is regularly pretentious with convoluted syntax and an overuse of new vocabulary that I was constantly having to long press to look up just in order to understand the intent. Also, a million unnecessary anecdotes about nearly everyone else alive at the time of Denys is included, to the extent that it is overkill. Now, I did learn a lot about the times of the people and place in Kenya at this time, and that part I did like. But it shouldn't be so hard to wade through a book to get to the meat. I did get a lot to think about in regards to the legendary Denys. He was no angel. He was closer to a noncommitting bounder that used Karen plenty before he died tragically. And his restless, unambitious to and fro among continents isn't quite as romantic and laudable as Out of Africa depicts. If that is the point of this book, I got it.

[Saxon Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite biography of Denys Finch-Hatton, not only for the vibrancy with which she told his story but also for her lyrical style of writing. She proclaims his was “an ordinary story of big guns and small planes” but her narrative is far from mundane, as it paints an extraordinary picture that moves “from the smoky orange lights of the Café Royal to the geometry of the desert hills in the Northern Frontier District.” She adds, “[His story] is infused alternately with the whiff of cordite, of elephant spoor, and of a bucket of eau de cologne tipped over onto the linoleum of an Eton schoolroom.” Reading about Denys’s background as an aristocrat helped me see how he developed as a man of style, and why he was able to create safari camps that were oases of luxury. To read more about his adventurous life, I've excerpted my essay from the book here: https://bit.ly/2VGsdjH

[Elsbeth Kwant]

'This is a story about the redemptive power of landscape. The deep joy with which Denys responded to nature took him close to the mystery of it all, and gave him a gratifying awareness of the human need to reach out to the transcendental'. Besides landscape the book sets you thinking - his lover Beryl Markham said of him that people would say that he was a great man, who never achieved greatness ('and that would be trite'). But it is true, that his personality captivated his contemporaries, though his actions don't count for that much in the Who's Who. A time in transition, a scion of the aristocracy making a life of new times: as a flyer and a man who in the space that Africa provided carved out a life.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Denys Finch Hatton. Charming like no other. Accomplished? Not really. A wealthy background until his family lost their wealth. Looking for what in East Africa in the 1900's? Denys, a rebel and happiest when on-the-go. Most interesting were his relationships with Karen Blixen and Beryl Markham. He and Beryl were much alike but Karen Blixen was his acknowledged love. Denys died as abruptly as all the books on this trio, end. Of all the books on Denys, Karen and Beryl, I still enjoyed Too Close to the Sun the most followed by West With the Night. Out of Africa and Too Close to the Sun, not so much.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was excited to read a book about the man who was a love of author of out of Africa. However after reading in about half way I found myself wading thru facts about everything and everyone surrounding him. It appears he was an elusive man leaving little to be written about him. When the book dove into the war and all that was occurring I lost interest. The book club I was in concurred. So I jumped out halfway through hearing that it never got more personal and informative. It’s a good history read just not much about the man.

[Cherop · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's difficult to write a biography of a subject long deceased and friends and acquaintances no longer around. Sara Wheeler does a fine job of piecing together the context of Denys Finch Hatton's life and gives him more substance than we've read in Beryl Markham or Karen Blixen (Isak Dineson) books. Ms. Wheeler's book also gives an excellent account of the history of the Kenyan colony that Denys and Karen were such a huge part of during the developmental days of Nairobi and Kenya.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I WANTED to like this, as I really enjoy this historic character. The author did her homework, for sure, but there was no clear through-line to the story. She mixed in so much personal history of the main character that you often got lost about who she was describing.
I had to stop reading about 25% of the way in (which is difficult for me to do - I usually stick it out to the end no matter what). It just never grabbed me - and this character should have been riveting.

[Morag Ranford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am glad I persevered with this book as I was tempted not too as some of the ‘war tales’ I found tedious. But. This author can write beautifully and her descriptions make you feel you can smell, taste and hear everything that Africa had to offer.

It also gives a real insight into the colonial politics of life at that time and the lives of the most privileged against the poverty of the native Africans. A sobering read in this regard.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've really enjoyed Sara Wheelers other books but this one did nothing for me. Did we really need another story of a privileged entitled white coloniser? The section on WW1 in Africa was interesting as it a piece of history I've never encountered. I've been lucky enough to spend some time in Kenya so for a while tracing DFHs travels kept me interested but it wasn't enough to make me want to finish the book.