Picked up a book last weekend titled, "Alaskan Adventures The Early Years" It's a collection from Sports Afield articles...I had never heard of this guy but a gun store owner in Atlanta recommended it..

I would highly recommend it if anybody hasn't read the articles...Some of you fellows may remember the originals<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Mike

Russell Annabel, a neighbor when I lived in Alaska, was a facile, skillful writer of "pure" fiction. His "adventures" were creations of a fertile imagination fed by others' experiences.

.

Ken, I was going to say the same. He was the Peter Capstick of Alaska.

His writing tempo had a way of riviting you to the edge of your chair when reading his stuff. When I start reading anything he wrote, I can't put it down till I finished reading it. He was an excellent writer, with a unique way of enrolling you into his story.
Don

I remember his writing from when I was about 13 years old- which would make him about 120 by now. He got off on a series of articles about the "onza" - a special crypto-breed of wompus kitty supposedly coming over from mexico. People wrote letters in about the illusive Onza and how it's coloration differed from a puma and how it was much more man-eating.
Annabel was just having fun with old felix onca- the common puma and everybody who ever taut dey tah a puddy tat.

Sorry to hear about the fictional nature of Annabel's writings. I've always liked 'em.


mec:

The Puma/Mountain Lion/Cougar is Felis concolor.

The Jaguar is Panthera onca.

RSY

Rusty was an incredible writer. Fiction or truth, he could portray Alaska and the adventures Alaska can provide better than any writer before or since. All of his books have been reprinted time and again, and I believe all are currently offered by Safari Press. http://www.safaripress.com/northamericanbiggame.html

The guys who do Wile E Coyote and the roadrunner, like those who do Star Wars, are skillful, too � but they make no bones about their stuff being mere fantasy. He who presents his fantasies as fact, however skillfully he weaves 'em, is a contemptible liar, not to be respected or admired for his skill at deceiving those who trust him. Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Margaret Mitchell, Louis Lamour, Tom Clancy, and their ilk deserve credit for their skill. So too would Russell Annabel and Peter Capstick deserve the same credit for their skill if they'd presented their stories as the created fantasies that they are.

.

Well said, Ken - although too many armchair hunters dreaming of Africa don't believe this.
RD

PS: One day I found C.'s "Death in the Long Grass" in the toilet of a Zim hunting lodge.

"What a place for a nice book like this," I said.

Very polite our Zim PH partner answered: "Yes, the right place for nice books like this!"

I remember reading Annabel's stuff when I was a kid, too. I remember one story he wrote about this vicious jaguarundi that lived in Mexico. When I grew older, moved to the Rio Grande Valley area of Texas, and saw a real jaguarundi (which is the size of a housecat!) I began to question the man's veracity.

Good storyteller, though.

Reminds me of a "Guts & Gore" type of men's cheap pulp magazine back in the 1950s that had a swarm of pangolins on the cover, with their fangs sloshing blood as they ripped at a bleeding muscle man who was protecting a barely clad shapely woman.

Fangs?

Blood?

Pangolins are scale-covered African or Asian critters with sticky tongues � they eat ants � but no teeth, let alone fangs, as far as I know. Didn't buy the magazine. Maybe I missed another good Russell Annabel yarn. I don't think that he limited the scope of his blood-curdling fantasies to Alaska.

At that time, Peter Capstick was probably hiding such magazines inside his geography book so Teacher wouldn't see what he was reading.

.

Roe_deer , Death in the Long Drop. Sounds like another good Capstick title.

I agree :-)

RD

458Win,

I haven't read Annabel, but comparing him to Peter Capstick says plenty. I'm glad that I read most of Capstick's books before I learned of his "inspirations". I don't read much fiction on purpose, but I did truly enjoy "Death In The Long Grass", "Death in Far Away Places", etc... A friend of mine was friends with Mr. Capstick and affectionately called him Peter "Crapstick". He said that Mr. Capstick was rather candid about borrowing stories and embellishing them, if not flat out making them up. My friend who hunted Africa quite a bit, years ago; said that many African guides and outfitters appreciated the hunting business that Peter Capstick generated through his stories. Maybe Mr. Annabel helped create a larger customer base for Alaskan guides through his stories of adventure. Just a thought <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />
[bleep]

I hate to hear about his fictional foundation, however I enjoy the stories very much and it is great reading..

I like his style of writing as well, reads pretty easily and very descriptive..

Mike

"The Puma/Mountain Lion/Cougar is Felis concolor.

The Jaguar is Panthera onca"

Well, Suffferrin' Suucccotash!. Anyway, I think we could kind of tell R.Annabel was writing fiction even then. I don't recall if we took it as transparent fiction or a pack of great big fibs but a lot of those old magazine articles were written for effect. There was one guy, might have been Ed Wallach or something similar that wrote an article about Pistol shooting. Said that it was as easy as pointing your finger and he would prove it by shooting a match against one of the other writers. He would use a .38 snub and beat the guy with a target pistol.

Letters started hitting the magazine ( It was either Argosy or one of the big hook and bullet 'zines like Outdoor Life or Field and Stream.) about what an idiot the guy was and how the letter writer hated him.

Dean Grennell might have been inspired by Anabell when he wrote about the " Illusive Nauga," ''The Veiled Illusion", and "The Crashing Boar."

I really enjoyed Annabel's stuff myself, its very disappointing to hear that he was never an acquaintance of the truth.

I'd better not ask about Richard Starnes, I may be devastated.

He could spin a good tale and I've always found it easy to sink into his stories for a bit. Not sure what more you could ask of a writer.

What's the difference if they were true or not? Capstick's yarns either, for that matter.

Some of us don't condone lying, admire liars or phonies, or like being lied to.

Otherwise, no difference.

.

Geez, Dr. Howell. With all due respect--

There's truth and there's lies, of course. But there's also mythology. No mythology worth its perusal ever came with a "Disclaimer Notice."

I love Annabel's stuff and did when I read it in Sports Afield as a kid. It was obvious to me, as a 7 year old, that Annabel would have had to be about 120 years old to have had all those adventures over all that space and time. And I didn't care.

As Winston Churchill is supposed to have said about the Arthurian Legends, "If they're not true, then they ought to be, and more besides."

I could write my own true hunting experiences, with emphasis on sleeplessness, bug bites, nettle burns, the constant itching of the three-day shadow, and seeing the game just out of range and going further. Absolute truth, but who'd read it or be inspired?

Been lurking around here for a long time and find these conversations by you and the other writers fascinating. I especially liked your Writing class notes, and appreciate the effort. I subscribed to the Rifle and Handloader in the glory days and your expert touch is very evident.

Jack O'Connor mentioned in his Last Book that Annabel hugely overused the "Epic Beginning" in his stories and got most of them by diligent note-taking in the bars in Anchorage. I for one am glad he did. In one of his stories, he has his client say, "I don't want this to be a normal hunting trip; you know, 'There he is.' Bang. 'You got him.'" None of Annabel's stories were "normal" hunting stories, and good for him.

I see....professional jealousy...

My deepest sympathies, Dave � but no envy! Even a coprophage with a fondness for lies must find that oral diarrhea leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Right?

.

Were that the case, I would be highly suprised. Ken is a man of science, whereas Annabel was apparently a man of the spun yarn.

RSY

I'll have to take your word for it, on that one....does Efferdent get the corn out?

All right, then, excuse Annabel and Capstick of these offenses against ethics and honesty, if their lying doesn't bother you (I'm posting the American Heritage Dictionary's definitions, not my own language). No ethical writer condones either of these practices, even in journalism. No reader who respects ethical writers should condone either of these practices:

pla�gia�rism (pl��j�-r�z��m) n. 1. The act of plagiarizing. 2. Something plagiarized. [From plagiary.] --pla�gia�rist n. --pla�gia�ris�tic adj.
pla�gia�rize (pl��j�-r�z�) v. pla�gia�rized, pla�gia�riz�ing, pla�gia�riz�es. --tr. 1. To use and pass off as one's own (the ideas or writings of another). 2. To appropriate for use as one's own passages or ideas from (another). --intr. To put forth as original to oneself the ideas or words of anothe. --pla�gia�riz�er n.

piracy pi�ra�cy (p��r�-s�) n., pl. pi�ra�cies. 1.a. Robbery committed at sea. b. A similar act of robbery, as the hijacking of an airplane. 2. The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material. 3. The operation of an unlicensed, illegal radio or television station. [Medieval Latin p�r�tia, from Late Greek peirateia, from Greek peirat�s, pirate.

(emphasis added)

As both a reader and a writer, I demand ethical behavior of myself and expect it of others. In my profession�, both plagiarism and piracy are considered unforgivable.


� in academia and in "the working world"

.

Ken,

I see your point but I think it is a stretch - a big stretch - to call Annabel a plagiarist. He passed off the embellished experiences of others as his own - not their ideas or their writings. Many well known "non-fiction" writers take liberties with the truth: combining characters into one, changing timelines, combining trips, creating characters, other embellishments, all in the name of a good story.

A lot of what Russell Annabel wrote was targeted toward younger readers and I'm sure it inspired generations of hunters and fishermen. His stuff sure was and is exciting.
Lighten up and give the man some credit, he was a great story teller.

Aldeer

As I said at the beginning of this thread Annabel was the Alaskan Capstick. African PH's, as a rule, don't think much of Capstick's tall tales but most all of them give him credit for boosting the sale of safaris. Alaskan guides, as a rule, feel the same about Rusty. Both men were gifted story tellers.

Well I've read both but mostly Capstick and even my non-hunting wife was enthralled by "The Last Ivory Hunter".

I agree in concept that if it wasn't true it should have been named fiction by both of 'em.

In Capstick's series of videos the last of which I believe was just before his surgery and death there seemed to be a deep meloncholy about him; I suppose he wasn't feeling well by that time as I think he had heart problems.

George

Aldeer--I second the motion.

Even in these parlous times of lying liars and the lies they lie about, the first question the tort lawyer asks is, "Yeah, but how were you hurt?"

Neither Annabel nor Capstick ever gave me a bad handload recipe, nor did either offer me directions to a nonexistent gold or diamond mine for a fee. Capstick gave credit to his sources, by mention if not by footnote, even if he did contrive to dramatize their stories for the modern Technicolor/Sensurround taste. Having thus dragged me away from Version 10.10 Graphics videogames and piqued my interest, he also reprinted and offered me the original books he got the stories from so I could read the real versions, and contrast the often rather stuffy, stiff-upper-lip narration of many of the original authors to his own more Spielbergesque treatments of the same events.

Neither man gave me any less than full entertainment value for my money. Nor did either one of them try to sell me a gun, a cartridge, an outfitter, a hunting knife, a pair of binoculars or an off-road vehicle by giving rave reviews of them and subtly hinting that I might as well be running around blindfolded in the game woods with a donkey's tail on a pin as to actually think of making a successful hunt under Today's Conditions without having all this great stuff on hand first. Which appears to be a not infrequent characteristic of the "True Hunting Tale" of today.

As I recall, many people thought Tom Sawyer was a real boy, too. My copy doesn't have "This is a work of fiction. The persons, events, etc..." in the front of it. Ah, perfidy! Guess I'll have to light my lamp and keep looking. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

It's all true, or it ought to be...and more and better, besides...

It might not have been true. But, I wasn't aware of that. What I did do was to make it a reality, and I thoroughly enjoyed the excitement he generated. And still do..
Don

The subject of Annabel and Capstick come up from time to time in these forums and, quite obviously everyone has a right to read whatever seems to entertain them. It's sad though, when someone speaking objectively to clarify a point of information, is seen as jealously attacking the dead.

Personally, I lost interest in Annabel early on when I was still in High School in Alaska, but Capstick came a bit later and I logged a few reading miles with him as I welcomed anyone writing about African hunting.

He surely wrote for entertainment, but he clearly treat's himself seriously as the hero of his tales and as a direct witness if not participant. It's interesting how many professionals in Africa look at him as a joke, though generally acknowledging that his dumbing down of the books and experiences of his betters and his mass market appeal surely revived the safari trade. That, too, has its down side as "safaris" have been equally mass marketed and dumbed down to week long shooting excursions...some of which are pretty sadly conducted in very limited areas...in comparison to those 30-90 day hunts before McMillan's "winds of change" did their damndest to destroy what is most beautiful in Africa.

I was fortunate to spend 10 years in Africa in the 80's and 90's and in my AO was able to hunt on my own and often took my wife along since, who though not a hunter, enjoyed the walk, the country, and the game. I bought several Capstick books with the intended purpose of their being (1) easy & quick reads to get a feel for what we were doing, and (2) to emphasize that there was an aspect of danger in what we were doing and that she needed to be alert and respond to directions. My wife dutifully read the books, but I fear the desired effect was less than optimal since she thought them more like comic books than useful reading. That certainly impressed me about her insights.

During that same time the AMERICAN RIFLEMAN featured an article mentioned on it's cover by Capstick about Warthogs...without reading the article, I commented to my deputy that it would feature the warthog as dangerous game. Sure enough, there it was filled with the derring do to match the "men's magazines" of the 50's.

In any event, I think my wife's cmt was pretty accurate and it seems to me that most folks who enjoy Capstick have not read the wonderful sources which he has bowlderized, lifted from without credit, and often made himself the hero of another man's story.

THAT is vastly different, as Mule Deer and 458 Win have pointed out, from writing a work of pure fiction that purports only to be fiction. Hard to compare Twain and Capstick on any viable level.

Classic example of the egocentric approach to writing is the purported biography of COL Meinertzhagen, published posthumously and presumably edited by his wife for publication. Couldn't stop myself from buying the book since, so far as I know, it's one of two on the subject, but Capstick's Meinertzhagen bio is fully as much about Capstick and what he thinks about Meinertzhagen as 'tis about the man himself.

While I do own all of the Capstick books and have read them, it has been a while since I've read them, but there is a fair bit of misinfo in them such as carrying one's weapon in the field with a round in the chamber and the bolt decocked over the live round. His comments about performance of the Winchester SilverTips of the time as being reliable is not good info, nor is his pulling the tips of 375 SilverTips to make them better leopard loads when shooting over bait. I think one could fill a book pretty easily with misinformation from the Capstick Coda and certainly document fairly easily the plagiarism.

Personally, I'm pleased to see well known writers in the field trying to set the record straight. It may drive a few folks to read the better and older Africana rather than assuming Capstick to be the end all of African hunting writing. There surely is better material out there for one who wants to enjoy the African experience through the insights of men who truly did what they speak of and generally speak modestly of their accomplishments.

Cheers...

Well, I can certainly see your point, 256 MS. There is, of course, some objective level of truth in all its detail, that can be striven for as a goal. Still, does anyone entirely face the truth? The PH's in Alaska and Africa who sneer at Annabel's and Capstick's literary efforts while being entirely OK with the money that comes to them partly through the images the writers put in their clients' minds--are they really being that insistent on the absolute truth?

I have not read the Meinertzhagen bio, just a few of the "Death in..." series, "Maneaters," "The African Adventurers" and "A Man Called Lion." In the latter bio, I can't recall that Capstick inserted himself at all. In the others, it seemed to me that if an experience happened to somebody else, for instance, Patterson or Ionides, Capstick referred to them, rather than himself, as the protagonists. He did dramatize the situations for all they were worth, but perhaps that was because he knew the audience he was trying to reach.

It may well be the fault is as much in the audience as the storyteller. "Gonzo Journalism" has certainly gone to the fore in the last thirty years, where the writer throws himself and his interpretations into the main body of the story. People are used to that sort of presentation now. Whether they have to believe every word of it, or whether they take up the responsibility to check the sources and derive their own conclusions, is, I think, their responsibility, as it always was.

It seems to me that the term "a lie" in popular, as opposed to scientific literature or journalism, means more than a deviation from strict objective fact. It has to, since facts are frequently the subject of interpretation, more or less. "Lying" to me implies untruth motivated by some sort of intentional malice, unenlightened self-interest or the desire for an unfair advantage on the "liar's" part. I simply don't sense that in either Annabel's or Capstick's writings. They weren't trying to "convince" me of anything. I never read the part about removing the silver tips from bullets; I do remember the SSG Buckshot Capstick said he used for following up wounded leopards. Maybe when Annabel was buying drinks for the local sourdoughs and taking notes, they were flattered that a young kid was that interested in their tales. You have to admit they would be lost to us without Annabel's efforts. Capstick's efforts in reprinting the out-of-print books he got his stuff out of in the Capstick Library certainly represents a level of "documentation" that goes beyond the scholarly footnote or literature reference that saves the average quote or abstraction from the charge of "plagiarism." He didn't put his name on these books, nor did he change the wording in them, even for political correctness.

You're right � even liars sometimes tell the truth.

.

In many of Capsticks writings he simple stole from Robert Rourke's earlier work and inserted himself. I lost all respect for Capstick's writing after I read Rourk"s books. To bad that I read Capstick first as I believed him until I realized that he simple stole another mans work.

I don't know of any guide or PH who sneers at either Annabel or Capstick's literary efforts. That was, and is , their appeal. It's the content displayed as facts that disturb us.

Bent Ramrod:

I won't deal with lies, since it seems counterproductive to discuss the essence of lying, especially in our time when morality seems so widely considered to be relative, but the issue seems simpler to me.

I don't think anyone has ever suggested that the collection of reprints of older Africana by St Martin's Press represented plagiarism. Nothing atall wrong with doing contemporary intro's for re-printed older works. And it certainly WAS a service to the reading part of the hunting community to bring back some of these works in cheap editions using a marketable name to sell them. I surely made use of them since one could buy them for little more than paperbounds and I carried some of them overseas rather than more valuable original editions. For some it made it possible to own works that presumably couldn't otherwise be afforded or gave access to works that previously were difficult to find.

Hate to beat a dead horse, but perhaps the reason that A MAN CALLED LION is different from the Meinertzhagen bio is that BRIAN MARSH (who is only credited briefly in the intro for his contribution and not on the cover or title page) provided the basic manuscript for Pondoro's biography.

You're certainly right about the prominence of in-your-face and what-it-means-to-me-is-the-important-thing styles of writing. Still, that's a different from using your pen to cast yourself as an authority when the substance of the experience was someone elses. That's not referring to Capstick referring to Ionides or anyone else doing X, but the many episodes in which the author stars when his involvement and actual experience upon which his expertise is supposedly based was limited to listening whilst serving drinks. I think that's what the issue is--or at least to me, it is.

Somewhat off the point, but another minor point about the Pondoro biography that is unfortunately all too typical of our modern world is the collection of Taylor's magazine articles included in the limited edition version. They were edited by the publisher for political correctness and much of Taylor's original words specifically in referring to blacks was altered or dropped along with who knows what else. One can't know without going back to the original source and meticulously comparing.

The primary reasons I bought the volume was knowing that Marsh's manuscript was the base and for the original Taylor articles. I objected strenuously to the publisher--who gratuitously ignored the complaint since it was evident that the editing was a family matter (and not Capstick's fault, by the way). Still, to me, it's another form of intellectual dishonesty in the name of some DimLib's PC values imposed on those read the material and I object to seeing it done.

Nothing wrong with somone enjoying a good read that entertains one. Surely is worth knowing the value of that read if it is not quite as purported to be and it's really a loss if that precludes one from reading the earlier sources which are authorotative and well written, albeit as befits a more literate time, perhaps somewhat more difficult to read for many.

i found this old thread, and though likely it's "dead", i do remember his work very well, as i had subscriptions to sports afield back in the 60's, and there was usually an article in each edition--usually illustrated by bill griffith (and later on by jack dumas).

i spent hours and hours as a kid reading his stuff--powerful, descriptive writing. yeah, anyone reading his work can surmise--or know--that he was likely "a writer given to hyperbole", but i've got a hard time thinking that a guy could drum up this powerful writing/imagery from just thin air alone--there was some adventure going on...

he will always be my favorite outdoor writer. i believe i once read--or heard--someone say something to this effect--that ernest hemingway said, that russell was the geatest writer of the outdoors that ever lived.

i'll say that he wrote some mighty fine stories that could vividly fire up the mind's eye--and inspire young men to want to go out and hunt...

Somewhere, early along the way of reading Annabel a little nagging voice between my ears kept insisting this guy is full of B.S., no way he did all of that.

But, I still kept reading him. Still do some today when running across some of his stories .

Must have had something to do with youth, and the way he presented his romantic adventures in words and illustrations.

I liked the old stories of yesteryear, a good portion of stories in my old dog eared magazines from that era are written vicariously by many famous authors. Those stories allowed me to live many an imaginative adventure as a young boy. They were the inspiration for me to become the kid who got off the school bus to go on my own adventures in the woods, rivers and streams while the other kids rode their bikes, played baseball or watched saturday morning cartoons. They did serve a purpose at least for me at the time, didn't matter a whit to me that they were fiction.

I often think of Rusty's way with words..."a williwaw on the Tanana".....[Tanana is an interior Ak river pronounced 'tan-ah-gnaw'] makes me chuckle a bit.....especially since we just experienced a williwaw last week.

Rusty was a war correspondent in the WWII Aleutian Campaign and he is frequently quoted in Jim Rearden's recent book [a good read] on those battles.

very true--the man really understood how to arrange words. while not exactly word for word, he might write something like:

i watched the clouds comb themselves to tatters on the high sierra... or;

this drama began on a wild rose september morning in alaska's ice ribbed knik river valley... or;

after they killed the blue wolf, as they headed to the kill, he wrote something like; the wind howled a lonely wilderness requiem... or;

by the time we finished skinning the animal, venus hung like a lantern on a peak in the evening sky...

i had read that he was a war correspondent during ww2, and also at some point worked as a smoke jumper as well.


no matter what a person's take on his writing is, for me it was real simple;

i liked hunting and shooting from the time i was about 5 years old, and as i grew and began to read, his stories re-enforced those desires, and whetted my appetite between outings--as a teenager and not yet able to drive, i passed hundreds of hours in the field, walking the hills, ledges, and rimrocks, looking for any suitable game to hunt--for me that was paradise, and the more difficult the weather was, the more i enjoyed it. (that carried over into my construction work--to this day i have always loved working outside in below zero weather--my work colleagues don't understand it, nor do they feel the same way--but to me its just another way to "feel" the beauty of lonely winter hunting walks...)

jim rearden--now that's a name i haven't heard in awhile. it recall several articles by him for outdoor life i believe, about around the mid 70's, and a typically focused on alaska...

Rearden is getting up in age but still writes from his home in Homer, AK. He wrote extensively for Alaska magazine and his most popular book was probably Alaska's Wolf Man [great read]....

Rusty Annabel also hung out in LaPaz, BCS, Mexico and I have stayed at his favorite hotel and fished the same waters....I think I read some where that he had a duplicate family in that area.

I agree both men were gifted story tellers and I enjoyed reading them both years ago.

interesting to learn this--i remember some stories about the tigre and ocelot hunting from mexico.

thank you for the tip on the rearden book--sounds like it will be a really nice read...!