Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Ernest Hemingway

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Patterson_%28author%29

I know, Wikipedia, but factual. Read down to game warden and Blyth. Quite the scandal. Even John Hunter alludes to the incident, briefly in his book "Hunter".

I was wrong about you being a prick because that's a part on a man. You are something smaller and less masculine.

Bart, add GFY and you'll sound just like Ole Ernest!

"I did not mind killing anything, any animal, if I killed it cleanly, they all had to die and my interference with the nightly and the seasonal killing that went on all the time was very minute and I had no guilty feeling at all. We ate the meat and kept the hides and horns." —Green Hills of Africa -

GHoA is a great read.

Hard to finish The Sun Also Rises without feeling your life has been changed.

Was that because you didn't have time to finish it or because you couldn't dig your way through it? WP has been translated many times and each one is different. A good translation makes all the difference. The big problem is Russian names. A Russian will have a half dozen names or more. Which is used depends on who is talking to him. It gets completely confused for a non-Russian speaker. A good translation will use the same name for the person all the way through and it makes the reading far less confusing and much more enjoyable.

Very true! I have a first edition "For Whom The Bell Tolls" in my library. A friend once described it to me as "as a young guy I learned everything about love reading that book."

Hemingway is the Remington 870 of writers, his writings are for just about anyone capable of reading the written word.For whom the bell tolls is a good enough read to make any one a fan.

Now is you want to step up to the fine doubles of writers, look at Ruark, "Something of value" is top shelf, his words make you want believe that you are there, where as Hemingway's writing tells you what it would of been like, had you been there.

Both were great writers who's styles are far from the same.

It is well worth your read, and it is especially valuable to read it before you read Ruark's Horn of the Hunter.

Hemingway set up the safari with Phillip Percival, who is arguably the Dean of the East African professional hunters. He was Harry Selby's mentor and passed his native staff on to Selby when he retired. Some of these same staff members were on Ruark's first safari some 20 years later.

Percival, given the nickname POP had to deal with EH's hyper competitiveness and moodiness. "Momma" was EH's 2nd wife Pauline Pfiffer. Charles Thompson (Karl) was Hemingway's companion, and close friend from Key West. Thompson owned the cannery there.

Hemingway always weaves the themes of bravery, cowardice, jealously, etc., into his stuff, and there is plenty of it here. He got a good lecture from Percival when he started to brood and steam about the fact that Thompson was getting the better trophies.

The story is more or less very factual with little made up. It is a DEFINITE read for all those into Africa and safari. I'd tell anyone to read this as the first and Horn of the Hunter next. After that, you'll book your own safari. I did!

Thanks abunch Mr.H... That's what I was looking for.
I grudgingly put it down last night right in the middle of chapter 5. I have work to do this morning and it's all I can do not to pick it up.

Told U hatari was THE man on Hemingway...

I honestly enjoy reading Ruark more than Hemingway, and enjoy reading about EH.

He was near sighted and had confidence issues for which he compensated with a hyper macho persona. That's what all the hard drinking, womanizing, let's box behavior was all about.

He was great to be around, certainly never a dull moment. A long time White House staffer said that in 40 years of receiving Heads of State, diplomats, Royalty, etc, that the only personality that could command a room more than Hemingway was Winston Churchill. Strong company for that title.

I liked it but For Whom The Bell Toils is a better read.

The one the really like reading is Michael McIntosh. This man really knew shotguns.

I'd agree. Ruark is fun and exciting. EH can be a bit melancholy in general.

Having read both, and I believe all of both book wise, I enjoyed Hem much more. I believe to some degree, Ruark was attempting to duplicate Hems experience, right down to the follow up book. No knock on Ruark, as I remember enjoying his work, but quite frankly that is all I remember. Hem influenced the next 100 years of writers and left a lasting memory of his work.

Hatari, my take on EH and Green Hills of Africa is much the same as yours. I loved the book when I first read it, oh, about 1976, and I've re-read is several times since. His account of the eland hunt was/is one that has stuck in my mind over the years, and is probably one of the reasons I have set eland as a high priority for my hunt in Zimbabwe this coming August.

Hemingway was incredibly popular/famous during his lifetime, the leading light among American novelists for many years. The feminist movement in literature in the 70's and 80's really slammed him hard, though, and his work is still much-derided even today... but there are still a surprising number of scholars who really enjoy Hem. My elder daughter, who graduated magna cum laude in English Literature, read Hemingway for the first time when I gave her a copy of The Sun Also Rises in her junior year. She loved it, and went on to write her senior seminar on Hemingway, successfully defending his work fiercely against the feminazi's who populated her college's English department.

I quite enjoyed Baker's biography of EH, and recently finished Mellow's 1992 biography. His life story was larger than many fictional characters!

Ruark's Horn of the Hunter may have been inspired by GHoA, but I think Ruark took the concept above and beyond Hemingway's effort. Ruark's account was much more personal and personable. Not many people were inspired by Hemingway to go on safari; a LOT of people were inspired by Ruark. I think Hemingway was more descriptive of the game and the country, whereas Ruark seemed to capture the excitement of the personal experience.

Just my dos centavos.

Certainly agree with you on Baker. IMO on of the few of Hem's biographers not tinted in professional jealousy. I also believe your comment correct in that RR helped launch Shelby's career, whereas Hem's account was met with some distaste; more professional jealousy imo. Funny, I can't remember any of Hemingway's critics of now or the period, but live with Hemingway's accounts.

Doc,

Based on what you say, get this book:

With Hemingway: A Year in Key West and Cuba
Samuelson, Arnold

http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/isbn/0394539834/

I promise you will enjoy every page. The best snapshot of life with EH during the 1930's by a college kid who went to meet him and got invited to spend a year with him.

A recent publication, I think it's called "The Guns of Ernest Hemingway," is worth a look. The authors don't know as much about guns as they think they do, but it's an interesting read about Papa and his firearms.