Thanks for the update BRYMoore. I really appreciate everyone that contributes to a Hemingway thread.
Did you look up the passage?
No. I thought you edited your post to reflect sourcing it. In any event your word on it is good enough for me. I really appreciate having such a fine group willing to discuss a topic of interest.
Be Polite , Be Professional , but have a plan to kill everybody you meet -General James Mattis United States Marine Corps
He enjoyed building a big fire when in Africa and he'd sit with his choice whiskey and when the hyena showed their glaring eyes....he'd shoot them in the gut and get a big laugh out of hearing the pack eat the wounded beast!
Chapter and verse?
"With ducks thick in neighboring creeks and canals, and out on Tom Gooding's ranch pheasants fat with grain, Hemingway could not have been happier. Hunting frequently with Gary Cooper, who was more a Montana cowboy than a Hollywood movie star, Ernest posed for countless pictures, holding the day's bag. Cooper, he found, was a better rifle shot; Ernest was best wing-shooting with his over-and-under shotgun. Both men had come of age in an America so abundant with game that bag limits seemed onerous, and predators were to be eliminated. On his 1933-34 African safari, Hemingway had amused himself shooting hyenas; Cooper did the same with hawks on telephone poles and coyotes in the field. The two were both artists and outdoorsmen, fitting comfortably together in the field and at supper. Hemingway complained that Martha was so impressed with Cooper that she wanted Ernest to dress better, but nothing, he said, was going to make his face any better. Both men knew and admired each other's work: Cooper had portrayed Frederic Henry in the 1932 film version of A Farewell to Arms. Already there was talk between them that Cooper might become Robert Jordan for the movie version of For Whom the Bell Tolls."
NOTE:
Another info source I can't recall went into the 'firelight shooting' but it's been 50 years since I read that info and I can't recall the source!
I remember reading someone's account the Hemingway would deliberately gut shoot hyenas to watch them eat their own intestines. Not much of a stretch to think the other hyenas would eat them as well.
Be Polite , Be Professional , but have a plan to kill everybody you meet -General James Mattis United States Marine Corps
He enjoyed building a big fire when in Africa and he'd sit with his choice whiskey and when the hyena showed their glaring eyes....he'd shoot them in the gut and get a big laugh out of hearing the pack eat the wounded beast!
Chapter and verse?
"With ducks thick in neighboring creeks and canals, and out on Tom Gooding's ranch pheasants fat with grain, Hemingway could not have been happier. Hunting frequently with Gary Cooper, who was more a Montana cowboy than a Hollywood movie star, Ernest posed for countless pictures, holding the day's bag. Cooper, he found, was a better rifle shot; Ernest was best wing-shooting with his over-and-under shotgun. Both men had come of age in an America so abundant with game that bag limits seemed onerous, and predators were to be eliminated. On his 1933-34 African safari, Hemingway had amused himself shooting hyenas; Cooper did the same with hawks on telephone poles and coyotes in the field. The two were both artists and outdoorsmen, fitting comfortably together in the field and at supper. Hemingway complained that Martha was so impressed with Cooper that she wanted Ernest to dress better, but nothing, he said, was going to make his face any better. Both men knew and admired each other's work: Cooper had portrayed Frederic Henry in the 1932 film version of A Farewell to Arms. Already there was talk between them that Cooper might become Robert Jordan for the movie version of For Whom the Bell Tolls."
NOTE:
Another info source I can't recall went into the 'firelight shooting' but it's been 50 years since I read that info and I can't recall the source!
Close, but no cigar. Thanks for responding however. The bonfire story sounds a bit like part of the "legend," not the fact. But I wasn't there so I could be wrong.
"Be sure you're right. Then go ahead." Fess Parker as Davy Crockett
I try to be very cautious about dealing with EH the legend. For every story about him being brave and fearless, another story pops up about him being a drunken wife beater.
Always, I carry with me something that Greg Boyington once said on the subject: "Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum."
Boyington might not have been 100% right about that, but like EH, he was an alcoholic, and he knew something about alcoholics.
Tom, most if not all of Hemingway's biographers are pretty frank about his heavy drinking, and the devastating effect his alcoholism had on his health and his career. And yes, he was not above striking his spouse, as evidenced by writings by Mary Hemingway, and letters from/to Pauline Hemingway.
I remember reading Hemingway's introduction to "The First Forty-Nine Stories", and being saddened that although he promised many more, hardly any were written. He was in his late 40's at the time of that writing. Boozing pretty much finished him over the next decade or so.
"I'm gonna have to science the schit out of this." Mark Watney, Sol 59, Mars
With my favorite writers, I try to concentrate on the best of their work, and not dwell too much on their private lives.
EH wrote some great stories about Africa, among other things. Because I have that, I don't feel like I have to convince myself that if I had ever been introduced to him, he would have lived up to his own fiction.
Yeah, I tend not to get too much into authors' bio's. EH is one of my exceptions because English Literature was one of my minors in college, and EH was the author I did the most research on. It's sort of stuck with me since then.
My favorite living author is Mark Helprin, who I know next to nothing about other than he was an Israeli infantryman and fighter pilot back in the day.
"I'm gonna have to science the schit out of this." Mark Watney, Sol 59, Mars
My favorite living author is Mark Helprin, who I know next to nothing about other than he was an Israeli infantryman and fighter pilot back in the day.
I just did a quickie Google search on Mark Helprin. I didn't find anything that said exactly what he did in the Israeli army and air force. Only that the served with them.
It's on the dust jacket of one or two of his books. In one of his earlier short stories he describes the experiences of a fictional Israeli soldier-turned-fighterjock that was apparently based on his own real life experience.
"I'm gonna have to science the schit out of this." Mark Watney, Sol 59, Mars
He enjoyed building a big fire when in Africa and he'd sit with his choice whiskey and when the hyena showed their glaring eyes....he'd shoot them in the gut and get a big laugh out of hearing the pack eat the wounded beast!
Chapter and verse?
"With ducks thick in neighboring creeks and canals, and out on Tom Gooding's ranch pheasants fat with grain, Hemingway could not have been happier. Hunting frequently with Gary Cooper, who was more a Montana cowboy than a Hollywood movie star, Ernest posed for countless pictures, holding the day's bag. Cooper, he found, was a better rifle shot; Ernest was best wing-shooting with his over-and-under shotgun. Both men had come of age in an America so abundant with game that bag limits seemed onerous, and predators were to be eliminated. On his 1933-34 African safari, Hemingway had amused himself shooting hyenas; Cooper did the same with hawks on telephone poles and coyotes in the field. The two were both artists and outdoorsmen, fitting comfortably together in the field and at supper. Hemingway complained that Martha was so impressed with Cooper that she wanted Ernest to dress better, but nothing, he said, was going to make his face any better. Both men knew and admired each other's work: Cooper had portrayed Frederic Henry in the 1932 film version of A Farewell to Arms. Already there was talk between them that Cooper might become Robert Jordan for the movie version of For Whom the Bell Tolls."
NOTE:
Another info source I can't recall went into the 'firelight shooting' but it's been 50 years since I read that info and I can't recall the source!
Close, but no cigar. Thanks for responding however. The bonfire story sounds a bit like part of the "legend," not the fact. But I wasn't there so I could be wrong.
If he really did that he was nothing more than a drunken idiot. To hunt and strive to kill cleanly is fine but to NEEDLESSLY cause pain and suffering to any animal just for some sense of pleasure is the height of cruelty and certainly not a trait to be admired. That is not the behavior of a hunter but one of a cruel heartless individual Anyone that would do that is a moronic idiot !
