“’What’ll it be? Dr. Ruark’s nutritious, delicious, character-molding martini, or one of those gin-and-nonsense things that children drink?” Gin-and-nonsense was Gordon’s elixir of life mixed with Rose’s lime juice or tonic. Harry and Virginia usually drank gin-and-nonsense. I am a martini man myself. Over six weeks we used up forty-six bottles of gin and a little less than half a bottle of vermouth. I like martinis dry.
Forty six bottles of gin... that's 34.5 liters (better than 9 gallons!), to a "little less than 1/2 a bottle of vermouth", so let's call that 350 ml. Basically a 100:1 ratio. Yeah, he liked them dry.
I tend to disregard the vermouth tally. As a dry martini man myself for many years, I've known a bottle of Noilly Pratt to last close to a decade before it required replenishment. The tale here is the gin. Forty-six bottles of gin consumed by 3 people in 42 days (which doesn't include whisky, or the beer they quaffed at lunchtimes) is, by even my bleary-eyed standards, fair heavy drinking!!
Nonetheless, if I could use my time machine to wrangle a tag-along invite on either Ruark's safari or Hemingway's, I'd probably choose Ruark's.
Ruark may have been a drunk, but by all accounts he was a convivial companion, so I think he'd have been good company at the dinner table and sipping drinks at the campfire after sundown. That characteristic alone would make Bob my choice over Wemedge. Ruark was well-educated in a rough sort of way, had "seen the elephant, and was making a good living as a writer in the years leading up to the HOTH safari, all of which speaks of a man who's BTDT. Yet he was an honest man by all accounts, not overly egotistical, not inclined to inflate claims about himself or make himself to be something he wasn't. He may have been a fledgling rifleman and big game hunter on his safari, but he was a lifelong bird hunter and wingshot, something I can identify with; most of the real bird hunters I know are damn fine company and true hunters. Ruark acknowledged his greenhorn status, and chose to learn from arguably one of the best PH's that ever was. All of which speaks to the concept that Ruark was a good man and a good, honest hunter.
If I'd joined ol' Bob and Harry (and Virginia, of course) on that trip I think I'd enjoy it enormously. I'd drink too much, I'd laugh immoderately, sleep in more than I should, and probably not collect the quality or quantity of trophies I could get hunting with Selby on my own because of socializing, but in the end I'd come home wonderfully relaxed & rested, and I'd have happy memories to warm my heart for the rest of my life.
The Big Three of 20th century American pre-war writers, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway, were all fairly hard drinkers themselves. I believe Hemingway was a terribly hard drinker, in no small part because he was self-medicating his lifelong struggle with the disease that eventually took his life: major depression.
I've read just about everything Hemingway ever wrote, both of the big biographies and multiple smaller ones, and it all paints a consistent picture of the man that isn't pretty. He was a vain and insecure man who put other people down to make himself look bigger, who belittled his friends and vilified anyone who criticized him. He could be hugely, malignantly competitive (as his tales from GHOA illustrate). Yet if he liked you, he could be kind, generous, affectionate, and a wonderfully engaging companion. If he admired you for something you could do that he wanted to take advantage of, he could be an incredible suck-up. But he was also a keen observer of life in general and humanity in particular, and hugely intelligent.
So I think that the Hemingway safari would be hugely different from the Ruark safari. Conversation around Hem's campfire would not be convivial or humorous: it would be erudite, challenging, illuminating. But there would be a lot of silence, and a good chance that there would be some sharp criticism of one's words, thoughts, or conduct if it crossed any of Ernie's "rules". In short, I think you'd find yourself walking on eggshells much of the time. Add to that the fact you'd have to put up with Pauline, who by all accounts had the temperament of a dyspeptic she-badger, and I'd have to guess that the Hemingway safari would be a miserable excuse for a vacation.
In contrast to my homecoming from the Ruark safari, I anticipate that if I could tough out the whole month with Ernest, Pauline, and Percival, I'd be bone-weary and emotionally frazzled by the end of it. I'd probably write a book about my month with Hemingway, which would be panned by the critics due to the enormous popularity of His Hemingwayness, and would die a bitter old man, alone, in the rain.
)
