Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Green Hills of Africa.

One of my favorites.

Ruark is the standard by which I measure, Capstick is very entertaining. I mostly read EW because it seemed that I was supposed to do so.

I like Ruark too, John.

The title quote to Something of Value is very relevant today. Reputed to be an African proverb.

If a man does away with his traditional way of living and throws away his good customs, he had better first make certain that he has something of value to replace them.

Paul

Read it a bunch of times; one of the classics for sure.

Green Hills is a great book, but one of my favorite parts is actually Appendix I written by Pauline. She chronicles the kills as well as the food and drink. What is interesting is the amount of animals they actually missed or wounded. Hate to say it but there was some sloppy shooting going on. Nevertheless, great book. But if you haven't read the appendices, give them a look.

Jorge, you're not the lone dissenter, and I echo hatari's view of enjoying the character of Hemingway over his writing.

I've found that if a truck breaks down on the way to the hunting grounds, EH would spend 4 chapters describing the hardship, while to Ruark it would be a sidenote. Hemingway uses the situation to define the man, but Ruark uses the man to define the situation.

Perhaps we should discuss outdoor writers that didn’t win the Nobel Prize for literature.

I have read many from this lot. Some a chapter, some a book or two. The one I return to year after year is Corbett, and The Temple Tiger is in my backpack as I type.

Excellent post, sir.

Yes, I also like Corbett. Anderson is another "Corbett-like" author that wrote about India.

Great read.. Just found a book on his years in Wyoming writing , hunting and fly fishing...

Corbett's writing (which I enjoy) is almost comical in the sense that he's so dismissive of what would seem to be a major occurrence.

"So anyway, I killed that guy, and then finished the channel to our new harbor. But back to that Gemsbok...."

Classic British penchant for understatement... Love it

[

Sacrilege





No question that "The Sun Also Rises" is his best work. It made me travel to Pamplona to run with the bulls, and heavily drink at the festival.




Or some very heavy drinking around the campfire the night before.

No doubt..

I like your post!

As far as tough as nails and completely fearless Jim Corbett was a man's man, he thought nothing, of taking off and walking a hundred miles to sit in the rain all night long with no light no food , poor clothing and worse water , waiting for an all but silent, man eating cat, to stalk his hide !

And with no more todo than finishing the back nine, he would walk back home again !

Lol I appreciate this discussion, having just started reading Green Hills a short while ago. I'm only about 20% in but feel myself losing interest due to the long discussions about broken down trucks, why there are no longer any good American writers, but also due to the strange dialog that is sometimes hard to follow. I can't help but feel most of the writing is both pedantic and inconsequential.

I'm not as patient with books as I used to be and am trying to be disciplined enough to finish it but now feel tempted to seek out some Ruark, as I was mostly interested in the actual hunting theme.

I re-read Roark's works every year. One and done with Green Hills.

Just being helpful for those interested - the title of that book is Ruark Remembered - By The Man Who Knew Him Best by Alan Richie, who was Ruark's personal secretary.

Another great book about Ruark is A View From A Tall Hill by Terry Wieland.

These are both excellent, excellent books and anyone interested in Ruark should definitely acquire them.

Corbett definitely had a way of understating situations that would make mere mortals collapse. Many times in disbelief I've had to re-read the passage just to make sure he said what he said. Absolutely fearless guy.

Surprised J.A. Hunter hasn't been mentioned. Less fiction, but I really enjoyed reading history from his perspective and those he interviewed.

They got that name because they merged Tanganyika with Zanzibar. Dumb idea because the ethnic races in the two countries were different. The first thing that happened is that the Negroes murdered all the Arabs in Zanzibar.