Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Green Hills of Africa.

Anyone read it?
I am really enjoying it.
Hemingway 1935.

Great read.
I have read it several times.

As good as it gets.

RS

One of my favorite Hemingways.

About the only thing I like better are the Nick Adams stories

Classic Hemingway. Been a while, I should read it again.....but it'll just make me want to go hunt Africa and unfortunately that isn't happening anytime soon. But then, Hemingway is the next best thing to being there.

Very true.
I can about see every shot.
Though the section on reading Tolstoy etc is not late nite material.
Had to pause until I had sufficient attention to tackle that bit..

When men were men.

My favorite Hemingway book.

I'll be the dissenting vote here. I've always found his writing style hard to follow.

I've read it more than once. It's a great book. I'm a fan of Hemingway the character more than Hemingway the writer.

Hemingway spends a considerable amount of the book interjecting two of his favorite themes - competition and jealously. His competition with "Karl" (who was his Key West buddy Charles Thompson) I'm sure was real. His dressing down for his petty jealously by Phillip Percival was equally as real.

All this really does give the reader a sense of what it would have been like to go on safari with EH. You would have lectures on novelists, drinks in the evening, you would have been subjected to Eh's competitiveness, which would have been on everything from the quality of trophies, to backgammon to flirting with the girls on the ship cruising to and from NY. That was Hemingway. Charles Thompson was exposed to Hemingway's fits of moodiness when his trophies weren't the tops in camp, and I'm sure that soured more than a couple of evenings around the fire.

I wish Hemingway spent more time talking about Percival, considered the "dean" of the East African PH's, as well as more time telling the reader which part of Tanzania (Tanganyika in those days) he was in. I wish he had written it as Hemingway the newspaperman rather than Hemingway the novelist, but I still love the book, but...

Is it heresy to say that I enjoyed Ruark more?

Hatari: I'm with you 100% on Ruark. Like you, I am much more of a fan of the persona than his writings, especially given my family's connection to him. I wish I could have met him.

They are good reading though I’ve found Ruark’s slightly more compelling, and Capstick, whether myth or reality, whether four martini’s-deep or not, more compelling yet. Perhaps it says more for my talent for recognizing good writing.

I doubt EH would have gotten the renown he did if he hadn’t also cut a then fashionable, wide swath in the French cafes, driving an ambulance during WWI, and gotten caught up in the Spanish Civil War and be able to translate those colorful experiences to the page. Not to mention Cuba, his deep sea fishing, and associating with the Hollywood elites.

Ruark and particularly PC had a much narrower focus. In the end, they all seemed to have their demons, particularly EH, who seemed to filled his life in dissipations of one sort of another.

Green Hills of Africa is about Hemingway, not safari hunting. His racist outlook takes a lot away from the story, for me.
That said, I have enjoyed my copy many times, mostly because I identify with the kudu as holy grail.

Racist? GMAFB..

Love Ruarks writing. Capstick is the only person I ever wrote a fan letter to. Can't find much better for pure entertainment value. They all had their way with words.

I agree. I enjoyed The Green Hills, but Horn of the Hunter draws me back again and again. The best safari book I've found so far.

Hemingway had a way to create pictures with words that for me is unmatched by any other writer I have read. Not sure if I would have been able to tolerate him personally but who knows? He died a long time ago. Judging historical figures that lived in the past by modern standards is not a productive use of time for me. I'll leave that to CNN commentators. I love the Green Hills of Africa for what it is--warts and all.

Tanganyika just sounds so much more exotic than does Tanzania; I hear Tanganyika and I see what Africa must be like even though I've never been. They should have stuck with that name.

Of EH I'm really only a fan of the Nick Adams stories. Perhaps it's the connection "that could be me".

On Africa I enjoy Ruark more but perhaps that's just because my Grandfather gave me an Outdoor life book club copy of "Use enough gun" when I was pretty young and it biased me against the EH I had to read in school. If you're interested in Ruark at a more personal level I highly recommend Ruark as I knew him . If you're like me at the end you'll both admire him and his life and detest him for throwing it away by drinking himself to death. What a waste.

I like "The Green Hills of Africa" more than "A Farewell to Arms", but less than "The Sun Also Rises". Never much cared for any of Hemingway's other novels. Many of his short stories are good, though.