�A view from a tall hill� by Terry Wieland purports to be a biography of Robert Ruark in Africa. It is, rather, a decently written, poorly edited, summation of the white hunting experience in Africa, concentrating on East Africa.
I say it is poorly edited, but if you do much writing, especially of longer stuff, the poor editing gives the reader an insight into how Wieland writes. Any lengthy manuscript isn�t written at a single sitting. Instead of sitting for innumerable hours and days and weeks of churning out text, Wieland writes a chapter, or a significant piece of a chapter in between doing other things (whether those other things are mowing the lawn, writing articles, going hunting, or what, the reader is given no clue). As a result, he provides parenthetical material at each sitting [such as writing, �Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)] in each chapter with the intent of editing, or having it edited later, out the repeats. Once he�s got the various chunks all arranged in the order he wants them, then the first time the parenthetical material appears it stays, and is deleted from all subsequent appearances. Unfortunately, this editing wasn�t done and it is irritating. I could only wonder how many times I had to be told that BEA was British East Africa, Tanganyika was now Tanzania, Northern Rhodesia is now Zambia, and so on before I wouldn�t need that information supplied at each reference. That irritating repetition detracted from my enjoyment � I could only wonder if Wieland thought I suffered from severe short-term memory loss.
Wieland provides background to his vignettes of Ruark�s experiences but those vignettes are so extensive, repetitive, and long that they form the majority of the book. If the reader isn�t familiar at all with the history of white folk�s hunting in sub-Saharan Africa, then these background excursions might be valuable. If the reader has read much at all of the Africana, though, it is nothing but an overdose of things s/he already knows. For example, in Horn of the Hunter Ruark makes reference to his time on naval escort ships on the transatlantic convoy runs during WWII. Wieland can�t be satisfied with just outlining what such convoys entailed. He gives a description of wolf pack tactics and the supply convoys that stretches on for two dozen pages. By the time the dozenth page rolls around, I was beginning to wonder if I�d accidentally picked up a history of American and Canadian supply convoys and a history of the individual ships that conducted them. And such overkill pervades the book. Rather than briefly providing an entry to the safari business circa 1950 to allow us to enter Ruark�s world, Wieland starts off with the Percivals (and tells us parenthetically that Blayney P was a game ranger several times) in the early 1900s and details the entire safari business for the first half of that century.
In short, if you are new to Africana, the detailed history Wieland provides might be interesting, but if you�ve already read a book or two on the subject, spend your money on primers � you�ll get a bigger bang out of it.
