Karen Blixen

Pierre Dumayet

"Babette's Feast", by Madam Karen Blixen, who is a great Danish author. This collection of short stories is named after one of those stories, Babette's Feast. I will not, Madam, ask you to tell me the story but simply to give me an idea, please.

Karen Blixen

Yes, I can do that. The idea of Babette's Feast, is the mentality and the destiny of the artist who finds himself different from those around him but who knows that if he [inaudible] his God, then he will serve God. Babette is a great cook from Paris who has to flee during the Commune times and ends up in Norway, in the home of two daughters of a priest who are very pious and very devout, but don't know anything about cooking. And Babette does her best for them for 15 years. But, towards the end, when she wins 10,000 francs in the French lottery, she asks them for forgiveness... permission to make, once again in her life, a truly grand dinner, a dinner like in the English café where she was formerly a cook. She does it naturally and no one understands, they eat, they don't know what they're eating but she's glad, she's happy. She feels like she has served God and that the angels are pleased of this dinner that she made, [inaudible] gains lots of sympathy from those around her. Another story, The Storm, it's the same idea. It's the desolation of an artist in an upper class environment. But here, though, it's more tragic. It's the isolation [inaudible] difficult by the heroine, a young actress that dies from her isolation from the world that's around her even towards her fiancé who loves her and that she also loves very much. She can't live with him, she can't live without him. She therefore dies from this conflict.

Pierre Dumayet

I would like for us to get back to Babette's Feast. Babette is therefore an excellent cook, a great chef and do you think that when she makes this dinner that will cost her the 10,000 francs that she won in the lottery, she does a work of art, doesn't she?

Karen Blixen

Yes. She feels it.

Pierre Dumayet

She feels it. Is it because it will make the people happy that she does a work of art?

Karen Blixen

No, we can't say that. Because they don't understand. They might have been just as happy with a Norwegian dinner that is completely...

Pierre Dumayet

Commonplace?

Karen Blixen

Commonplace, yes. But she knows what she's doing, she has the satisfaction of doing something marvelous. She also gains great pleasure in doing this that she... that she had to do it, formerly, in Paris with people that understood very well and that appreciated.

Pierre Dumayet

Do you personally appreciate fine cuisine as much?

Karen Blixen

Not at that level, I don't think so, but I appreciate it enough. I think that it is an art. But everything, in life, is an art. It's that...

Pierre Dumayet

Everything that we do?

Karen Blixen

Everything that we do, is an art. And for the artist, it can be a very big satisfaction, even if the audience doesn't give her much "applause".

Pierre Dumayet

We could say... people have said, I think, about all of your stories, all of your tales, that they were fantastic, didn't they?

Karen Blixen

Yes.

Pierre Dumayet

But you, do you think that life is much more fantastic?

Karen Blixen

Yes. Yes, I think, life is more fantastic. I find that life... I find that God is much more fantastic than myself.

Pierre Dumayet

You think, for example, that nothing can be more beautiful than a lion, correct?

Karen Blixen

Yes.

Pierre Dumayet

And you don't think that you could invent something...

Karen Blixen

I wouldn't have been able to invent a lion. I killed lions, in Africa, when I lived there, and every time I saw a lion, it occured to me that it's something incredible, incredibly beautiful and strong and noble.

Pierre Dumayet

You haven't exactly led the life of a woman of letters or an author?

Karen Blixen

No. No, because I lived nearly 20 years in Africa like a farmer of a café farm.

Pierre Dumayet

You ran a farm.

Karen Blixen

And it was only once I came back from Africa that I began to write.

Pierre Dumayet

You wrote, at that time, The African Farm, which the French audience knows, which was published in France.

Karen Blixen

Yes. It's a book of memoirs. It's totally reality. It's not fantastic. Only fantastic like that so that maybe, I see things from a different angle than others. But it's a book of memoirs, and the truth.

Pierre Dumayet

You arrived in Kenya in 1914.

Karen Blixen

No, in 1913, before the war.

Pierre Dumayet

You have kept excellent memories from that time.

Karen Blixen

Yes, excellent memories. It was a world... first of all, it's a very very beautiful country with a very nice climate. What I liked most of all, was the natives. I found that by showing the relationship of the natives and [inaudible] of life, I'm very sad that it has changed so much.

Pierre Dumayet

You told me, earlier, that what characterises an artist, is to not experience fear.

Karen Blixen

Yes.

Pierre Dumayet

You've never been afraid in you life?

Karen Blixen

Oh yes, naturally, I've been afraid, but maybe not as much as the people that I've known. I think that it's something very important to be scared.

Pierre Dumayet

To not be scared.

Karen Blixen

Yes, to not be scared. Nothing is as horrible as being afraid of something, fear ahead of time.

Pierre Dumayet

Did you during your entire lifetime, when you recall your first tales, you published three tales, I think, right, you were quite a young girl.

Karen Blixen

Yes, I wrote three tales when I was a young girl. I was only 19 and they were published in the Danish magazines. And people encouraged me to keep writing, but I didn't want to. That's not what I wanted, would like to do in life. I would answer: "No, I like travelling, seeing the world, go horseback riding, dancing, making music. I don't want to be a printed paper".

Pierre Dumayet

I think that it's great that today, however, this book of tales is released which is much more recent but that, at the same time, reminds us of those first three tales from your youth and which are all fantastic books. Thank you.

Karen Blixen

Yes.