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Long ago I read Out of Africa and loved it. This is nothing like that. Which is not to say that it doesn't have enjoyable moments. Dinesen can make beautiful images with her words. She has and uses insight into human nature to draw compelling characters, then she discards them without a look back. She can write moments of philosophy that go straight to the heart. What she doesn't do in most of these stories is worry about the story having a discernable plot. Most of the stories left me saying, "WTF?"

Finally, after five tales (yes, her writing is so good that I kept reading) I realized, stop looking for a beginning, middle and end or reason. That's not what she is doing here. We are to enjoy each moment along the way, wake up when we finish a tale and settle into the next one, appreciating the scenery, the characters and the emotions along the way. ( )

These tales are like nothing I have read before. Isak Dinessen’s – nom de plume of Karen Blixen – narration feels like a walk through a labyrinth, where the unfolding story thread makes sharp turns, leads us into dead ends and dark corners, until finally we emerge on the other side a bit unsure of the place we have been. Like in a dream, one story merges into another, taking us along into deeper realms. And, with hypnotic powers, the narrator’s voice enchants and enslaves us.

I absolutely loved this book – or the reading experience of it. There is something primal in Blixen’s story telling that transports the reader back to the shaman beside the fire, or the medieval jongleur in a country fair, or yet the bedtime fairy tales we were read as children.

Beautiful and riveting, I feel intoxicated by it right now, and crave more and more of it.
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A mixture of gothic themes with 1930s style. The supernatural is present but doesn't often strongly feature. Dinesen is artful and playing at subterfuge, demanding an effort to interpret. A common theme across these stories is bravely facing impending death. Masks, disguises and mistaken identities abound. Stories within the stories result in many more tales than seven.

The Deluge at Norderney - this first story directly addresses the gothic in its opening page. The characters themselves are fans of gothic sensibility, finding the romantic in the ocean's power and thus making them susceptible to its darker side, in both a physical and notional sense.

The Old Chevalier - It is strange that a story ostensibly about the value of making moral choices at the expense of one's pleasures should feature a character who appears to make no choices at all. But then, that is also a kind of choice.

The Monkey - I was deeply engaged by this, but a little thrown off by its ending when the supernatural element suddenly intrudes. Dinesen is playing with gothic conventions here, and it takes some familiarity to appreciate it.

The Roads Round Pisa - I didn't grasp all the plot of this one without help; the secret is in the nested stories. I was also stumped by Augustus' decision at the end, but I suppose he'd learned something about secrets being part of one's identity.

The Supper at Elsinore - Two sisters deny themselves all intimate relationships, keeping everyone at arms' length. Their consolation in later years, when regret threatens, is that they have one another. Then one discovers that the other has something more.

The Dreamers - Several elements from earlier stories (disguises, nested stories, etc.) get a remix here, with a central mystery that is generously unravelled.

The Poet - A man's sense of order is influenced by his love of poetry. Some fantastic metaphors here. This and the previous story bring out the theme of losing one's sense of pleasure, and compensating with artificial stimulation through others' envy. ( )