I checked out this Hemingway "classic" from the library a few weeks back, expecting a good read about adventure and hunting. Instead I got a dose of Hemingway's self-adoration concerning his literary prowess, which is surpassed by none (in HIS humble opinion). Consequently, I never made it through the first 100 pages.

I've noticed this tendency to digress into a treatise on literary style more than one of Hemingway's tales. Even Ruark was guilty of this on occasion, which should surprise no one as he suffered from a huge dose of Hemingway Envy.

Anyone else turned off by when an otherwise excellent writer launches into a diatribe on why he is the best writer ever?

I've never been able to see whay anyone would give "THE GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA" a good review, especially someone who has hunted Africa!

Everyone cusses PHC,as being on the untruthful side yet gives Himmingway a snobb membership in literature. IMO, Himingway wouldn't make a good wart on PHC's butt!

I feel the same way. Hemmingway is such a downer, that I have shelved Green Hills of Africa and Hemingway on Hunting. A waste of good afternoon reading this guys stuff.

Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one and they all stink.

Personally I like Hemingway, Ruark and PHC. I would not go as far as to say I like one better than the other, I like them for different reasons.

But, all things considered, good question to ask yourself is, which one has a pulitzer to his credit?

Brian

I couldn't disagree more about Hemingway in general or The Green Hills of Africa in particular.

For his life's work, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and his influence on English prose endures to this day.

He had his flaws, as a human being, but who among us does not? He was an aggressive, alcoholic, womanizing believer in machismo - in the noble Spanish connotation - and that a man needed to prove himself in the pursuit of manly things before being worthy of the name.

But he was also a proud and unapologetic hunter and sportsman, an aficionado of the bullfight and blood sports in general. He drove an ambulance in the first world war, while still in his teens, and was wounded for his efforts.

Many didn't and don't like him or his work, but most of the Hemingway-bashers of late have a post-modern, politically correct agenda, and are radical academics or deconstructionist literary critics, God help us all.

hemingway wrote a book about his time in africa, not a hunting book on africa. he also wrote several pirces of news about experiences in africa that have little to do wiht hunting.
If you want a how-to, or 'then with a keen eye, steady hands and my trusty 450/400 hit the beast etc...' look elsewhere.

most of those who piss on Hemingway don't understand a tenth of ewhat he was tlking about, the literature refernces in GHOA are meaningless unless you have read those of whom he speaks.

get it out of your head that Hemingway was ahunting or outdoor writer, he was nothing of the sort. Boddington, PHC, half of Ruark, Jack o'conner yes, but hemingway, not even close.

i think people pic up GHOA and wonder where the subtitle 'Hunting africa's ghost antelope and buffalo and how you too can afford it' is, and thats a shame.

_BAxter

MacD37:

I may be one of the few people who read -who never read Hemingway. I can say that I spent considerable time in Cuba and in Havana as a young man and was told that he was an unpleasant and vicious drunk.

I never said I don't like Hemingway's works or appreciate Hemingway the man. On the contrary, I love his formation of characters in his works of fiction. They become more real to me than many people I know who actually walk this earth on two feet (as opposed to walk the pages of literature).

Hemingway's macho lifestyle, based on adventure and pursuit of glory, are a blueprint for how a man, a REAL man, should live his life (a fact which really pisses off my wife when I bring this up). Of course he did tend to take things a little too far, on occasion: like the fact that he felt the only relationships in life that have any true meaning are relationships between men. Women are in a man's life simply to provide comfort and entertainment (sex). This might explain why he was married a gazillion times.

What I DID say is I hated "Green Hills of Africa," which is purported to be a non-fiction account of his safari to East Africa. In this particular work, he failed to capture and hold my interest, mainly because of the self aggrondizement in comparing his literary prowess to other writers of the day.

Did it go over my head? Not really. It's just not what I was expecting or in the mood to read, that's all.

quote:

Originally posted by Allout:
Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one and they all stink...
...good question to ask yourself is, which one has a pulitzer to his credit?

Brian

I have to assume you include the Pulitzer judges among "everyone." Assuming that, what difference does the prize make to this discussion? Not trying to stir the pot, just making an observation. Frankly I find Hemmingway a tough read - unless of course you're half hit in the ass, as he was when he wrote it!

gerry375

But weren't Roark and PHC the same? I think we have to take each one on their own merits and faults. GHOA certainly has it's place in African writings, but it's not Use Enough Gun nor was it intended to be in the same style. I found it easier to understand Hemingway after reading everyone else. Just my HO.

oupa, if Hemingway wrote drunk, then he started drinking at 3am so he could be up at 5 to write. Comments such as your about him drunk while writing are asinine. You don;t write classics iof literature or redefine the method while drunk. And if it is a well known 'fact' how about some proof? Sure he drank too much, but was a social drunk until later in his life when the demons showed up.

hemingway was not a prolific writer at all. he wrote 300-700 or so words a half day from early in the morning until about noon or one. he labored over each word and re-wrote as ncessary. You think Charlie Scribner would have had a thing to do with him had he poured drunken words on the paper in a fit of machismo?

bullshit.
_Baxter

I too enjoyed "The Green Hills...", it was one of the first books I had read that concerned hunting in Africa and as such, one of many that got me where I am now.

There are not too many books concerning our passion out there that I have read and not liked. I think one must keep in mind these are often written based on the writer's point of view and will differ from our own personal experiences, expectations, beliefs and reality.

After all, it's all about what YOU make of it.

Here's to good reading and good hunting!

Gentlemen I didn't say I didn't like anything Himingway did, just not GHOA! And the fact that he has a NOBEL PRIZE, means nothing, Al Gore has been nominated for one too! That really makes the NOBLE something now doesn't it?

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:
. . . a NOBEL PRIZE, means nothing . . . !

Mac, how dare you say that. Many people, including Al Gore probably, would kill for the chance to get a Nobel Peace Prize!

quote:

Originally posted by oupa: Frankly I find Hemmingway a tough read

Somehow I don't find it terribly hard to believe you've had trouble understanding... Just an observation, not trying to stir the pot.

Brian

quote:

Originally posted by GAHUNTER:
Did it go over my head? Not really. It's just not what I was expecting or in the mood to read, that's all.

I'll go with that.

The GHOA was lousy, but I couldn't put it down because I was too busy reading.

Cheers

GHOA was my first Hemingway book & I didn't/don't care much for his writing style, JMO. As far as the NBP, they give those away like NFL signing bonuses, to anybody.

Allout, what obvervation have you made to support your support of oupa?

_Baxter

For those interested, Joe Coogan has a nice piece in the latest African Sporting Gazette, wherein he attempts to retrace Hemingway's January-February, 1934 Tanganyika safari. As those who have read it know, Hemingway's chronicle was generally short on details as to times and places.

But Hemingway's 1934 safari was the basis for The Green Hills of Africa, a book that Coogan, who has PH'ed in Tanzania on and off over the past thirty years, very much enjoyed reading.

So, Coogan consulted with Harry Selby, who had apprenticed with Hemingway's PH, Philip Percival (referred to as "Pop" throughout Hemingway's book), who had himself PH'ed for no less than Teddy Roosevelt, twenty five years before Hemingway's safari in 1934.

Coogan figured out, with Selby's help, that Hemingway hunted down from Nairobi, through Mto-wa-mbu, Babati, Kondoa-Irangi and Kibaya and finally finished up in the mountainous regions near Hamdeni - in the latter regions, always chasing after the elusive kudu that he never did find.

Ruark was influenced by Hemingway to follow after him, as he did with Harry Selby nearly twenty years later. Of course, Ruark was a journalist, and Hemingway a littérateur. So their styles and purposes naturally differed, but I have found that what is satisfactory in one, is also in the other, and more is valued and held in common than not.

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
hemingway wrote a book about his time in africa, not a hunting book on africa. he also wrote several pirces of news about experiences in africa that have little to do wiht hunting.
If you want a how-to, or 'then with a keen eye, steady hands and my trusty 450/400 hit the beast etc...' look elsewhere.

most of those who piss on Hemingway don't understand a tenth of ewhat he was tlking about, the literature refernces in GHOA are meaningless unless you have read those of whom he speaks.

get it out of your head that Hemingway was ahunting or outdoor writer, he was nothing of the sort. Boddington, PHC, half of Ruark, Jack o'conner yes, but hemingway, not even close.

i think people pic up GHOA and wonder where the subtitle 'Hunting africa's ghost antelope and buffalo and how you too can afford it' is, and thats a shame.

_BAxter

I unfortunately come from a long line of writers, some known as well as Hemmingway. The one thing I can tell you is that comprehension is so sorely lacking from even most well educated readers. We all allow our perspectives to modify the original intent of others writers work or to dilute or blatantly misinterpert it all together. What is missing on the part of many of the comentators here is an appreciation for the times in which GHOA was written, both politically, and personally for Hemmingway. How many of us after some time has passed have re-read a piece and come away with a new understanding? I would note that the work itself didn't change.



My great great uncle, one Samual Langhorne Clemens wrote a few pieces in which he later became maligned... he also wrote the following on writing.

"Experience of life (not of books) is the only capital usable in such a book as you have attempted; one can make no judicious use of this capital while it is new."
- letter to Bruce Weston Munro, 10/21/1881

mrlexma great post

quote:

Originally posted by mrlexma:
For those interested, Joe Coogan has a nice piece in the latest African Sporting Gazette, wherein he attempts to retrace Hemingway's January-February, 1934 Tanganyika safari. As those who have read it know, Hemingway's chronicle was generally short on details as to times and places.

But Hemingway's 1934 safari was the basis for The Green Hills of Africa, a book that Coogan, who has PH'ed in Tanzania on and off over the past thirty years, very much enjoyed reading.

So, Coogan consulted with Harry Selby, who had apprenticed with Hemingway's PH, Philip Percival (referred to as "Pop" throughout Hemingway's book), who had himself PH'ed for no less than Teddy Roosevelt, twenty five years before Hemingway's safari in 1934.

Coogan figured out, with Selby's help, that Hemingway hunted down from Nairobi, through Mto-wa-mbu, Babati, Kondoa-Irangi and Kibaya and finally finished up in the mountainous regions near Hamdeni - and in the latter regions always chasing after the elusive kudu that he never did find.

Ruark was influenced by Hemingway to follow after him, as he did with Harry Selby nearly twenty years later. Of course, Ruark was a journalist, and Hemingway a littérateur. So their styles and purposes naturally differed, but I have found that what is satisfactory in one, is also in the other, and more is valued and held in common than not.

Hemingway was a true author, while PHC was a boys own story teller.

What is in Captstick is pretty obvious, while in Hemingway there are more subtleties and nuances.

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
Allout, what obvervation have you made to support your support of oupa?_Baxter

Baxter,
The only support I lend OUPA is in agreeing with him that HE has difficulty understanding a true writer. I've gone back and edited my previous post to better reflect this. Thank you for the heads up.

Brian

My my, it does seem as though I've struck a nerve... or ten or twelve!

My friends, while my previous comment alluding to Hemmingway's drinking was intended merely as humor it seems to have been lost on most and for that (and perhaps questionable taste) I apologize. Ernest Hemmingway was unquestionably an outstanding writer. Tempermental perhaps, even boatful in the later years, but most true artists are typically tempermental and those who've been recognized for their art, deservedly boastful. I have enjoyed many works by Hemmingway and surely will again - impaired AND sober. Fact is I like to relax whenever reading and sometimes that includes the comfort of a strong drink. Feel free to mention such after my death.

I know Hemmingway wrote some great stuff. I do not know what time of day he wrote or how much per day he wrote - I'll leave that to our more learned members and accept their word. Neither do I know how much, when or how long he drank, ate, made love or defecated. I know he did all of these things but alas the specifics neither interest me nor do they have the slightest bearing on my opinion of the man. We do know he drank to excess by his own admission as well as Phillip Percival's. We also know that in "True at First Light" he made references to having a quart of beer for breakfast. That last work being neither purely Papa’s, biographical or fictional we'll never really know if he breakfasted on beer or not but the insinuation is undeniably there for all to see...or at least read. Likewise we'll never know for sure if it was his friend Gary Cooper's long suffering cancer death that prompted the here-to-fore known "Hemmingway solution."

Again, if my making a (bad) joke about this offends you, please accept my apologies. I will not however expect the same (apology) from any of you who've been so venomous in your replies for my expression of what the thread starter allout made reference - "opinions... everyone has one..."
Now let's get on with more interesting and important topics, on which we can all (???) agree such as hunting and let poor Ernest rest in peace.

GHOA is not Hemmingway's best work -- I'm not sure it was even meant for publication (it was published post-humously) But it does have some excellent glances into his writing philosophy, and the bit about hunting isn't something that should ever have a time limit are worthwhile.

PHC, and the others did wonders for safari hunting, and they wrote fun stories, but I don't if a single one of them would have ever put themselves in league w. Hemmingway as a author.

quote:

Originally posted by mrlexma:

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:
. . . a NOBEL PRIZE, means nothing . . . !

Mac, how dare you say that. Many people, including Al Gore probably, would kill for the chance to get a Nobel Peace Prize!

Mrlexma, you took that out of context!

What I said was, "the fact that HE has a nobel prize means nothing,AL GORE has been nominated for one, THAT, really makes the NOBEL something!"

Talk about not comprehending the meaning of something written! What I was saying was, when some Idiot like Al GORE is even considered for nobel prize, it cheapens the value of the prize. One should judge him on his writing not the Nobel prize, that's all. Many Nobel prizes have been handed out to the darlings of the moment, that were not desearved!

I understood everything Hemingway wrote, I just didn't like what he wrote, in GHOA!

Now, if you really want to get onto a depressing topic, let's talk about "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," which is about as far as from a hunting story as you can get and still be set in a safari camp. I saw the movie before I read the book and was shocked at how different the two were.

For those who saw only the movie, I'll give you a hint: the book does not end quite so happily as the movie. Some say this story was intended to be his autobiography, in fictionalized form. If so, it's easy to see why he drank so much!

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:
Mrlexma . . . Talk about not comprehending the meaning of something written!

Mac, it was a just a joke.

As in "many people, including Al Gore probably, would KILL for the chance at a Nobel Peace Prize."

The Nobel Prize, in the arts and sciences, is still the epitome of awards for artistic and scientific achievement.

It is the Nobel Peace Prize that has been politicized and cheapened over the years, IMHO.

joec:

Of course, you are right and never should have posted my comment. I should have kept my mouth shut because, obviously the man was talented or so many people for so many years wouldn't be saying so -and it is the product of that talent that is his proper legacy -not stories repeated to me about his social behaviour.

After reading the above posts, following my post, I still stand by what I said. The guy was a good writer, but a downer to read. I have read For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea and his hunting works. He depresses me by his writing about the hopelessness of man and life. No wonder he offed himself. His world view was dramatically different from mine and hence I do not like his writing.

I admire the skill he uses in his craft, but I do not like the way he writes or what he choses to write about. It is ok for others to like his writing and his work, I do not.

I could care less if he won a Pulizer Prize or Nobel Prize or a Brownie Point. That does not entice me to read his works or anyone elses.

quote:

He depresses me by his writing about the hopelessness of man and life.

Or perhaps he writes about what is the 'struggle of life' for a man.

I don't think his writing shows hopelessness at all. Somtimes things in life that are not earned are not appreciated.

Also true artists are not ordinary people. They should be excused for some extent for their excentricities, foilibles, madness. A true artist is several parts mad, and the rest is just plain crazy.

quote:

aggressive, alcoholic, womanizing believer in machismo

those are flaws?

oops, there I go again, thinking out loud!


oh, well.

Mrlexma's post couldn't of said it better, so here it is again in full.

I would only add--if you don't like a writer, don't read their stuff! Free country, after all.

quote:

I couldn't disagree more about Hemingway in general or The Green Hills of Africa in particular.

For his life's work, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and his influence on English prose endures to this day.

He had his flaws, as a human being, but who among us does not? He was an aggressive, alcoholic, womanizing believer in machismo - in the noble Spanish connotation - and that a man needed to prove himself in the pursuit of manly things before being worthy of the name.

But he was also a proud and unapologetic hunter and sportsman, an aficionado of the bullfight and blood sports in general. He drove an ambulance in the first world war, while still in his teens, and was wounded for his efforts.

Many didn't and don't like him or his work, but most of the Hemingway-bashers of late have a post-modern, politically correct agenda, and are radical academics or deconstructionist literary critics, God help us all. MR

GHOA is one book I read everytime I am fortunate enough to fly across the pond. While it is not his best work, it does capture the competition that arises between men, especially when hunting, and he conveys his love of all things wild and African. He was a man who passionate about life and things he loved. Fishing, hunting, boxing, bull fighting and women. Did he drink a lot, yes, big deal. I'm not looking for a saint, I'm looking for a damn good writer and story teller and Hemingway sure does the job.

Here is one of my favorite Africa quotes taken from the GHOA

“ All I wanted to do now was to get back to Africa. We had not left it yet, but when I would wake in the night I would lie, listening, homesick for it already.

Now looking out the tunnel of trees over the ravine at the sky and white clouds moving across in the wind, I loved the country so that I was happy as you are after you have been with a woman that you really love, when, empty, you feel it welling up again and there it is and you can never have it all and yet there is, not, you can have, and you want more and more, to have, and be, and live in, to possess now again for always, for that long, sudden-ended always; making time stand still, sometimes so very still afterwards you wait to hear it move, and it is slowly starting. But you are not alone, because if you ever have really loved her happy and un-tragic, she loves you always, no matter whom she loves nor where she goes she loves you more. So if you have loved some woman and some country you are very fortunate and, if you die afterwards it makes no difference.

Now, being in Africa, I was hungry for more of it, the changes of the seasons, the rains with no need to travel, the names of the trees, of the small animals, and all the birds, to know the language and have time to be in it and to move slowly.â€

Hemingway was a true literary giant that was all machismo. He had serious issues with women, enjoyed good male companionship, and extolled the virtues of doing things right and how unmanly it was to discuss your fear. If you have any of his short story collections, make sure to read "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber". It's a quick read about a safari, but one that you can read again and again and pick up some new nuance. Good stuff.

I happened to mention this book to the late PH Clary Palmer-Wilson. Clary told me he was hunting with clients in Tanganyika when Hemingway and Percival visited his camp one evening. EH was roaring drunk and demanding to know where Clary and his clients had found "those bloody kudu." Clary said he was not impressed and liked his son much better.
I very much liked "The Green Hills of Africa," although it is not my favorite in the Hemingway canon. The man certainly had his demons, including the memory of his own father shooting himself. But he was without peer in his ability to pare sentence and paragraph construction in the English language to its pure, descriptive essence.
Hemingway was an artist. Capstick was an illustrator.

I like PHC ,Hemingway,and Ruark and in the months of march,april and may when im guiding full time sometimes in los andes mountains i always have a copy of them,i believe them and Wilbur Smith made a great effort to show our way of life to common people.Juan

I have read a lot of Hemingway, novels and short stories, some because I had to (for classes) some because I wanted to. I even read For Whom the Bell Tolls in a Chinese translation when I was going to school in Taiwan. I can honestly say that I just don't see what the fuss is about. I really did try! I like The Old Man and the Sea. I decidedly do not Like To Have and Have Not and everything else falls somewhere in between. I'm not saying he's over-rated, but I just don't connect with him. Of course, I have the same problem with Faulkner (even his hunting stories), but I think that's because so much of his writing is in and about the South and as a native of the Midwest, the "Southern Experience" is quite foreign to me. (I suspect most Southerners don't find Garrison Kiellor as funny as I do for much the same reason.)

I would be cautious about saying a writer so many others rave about is "crap." Rather, it may just be that his art (like that of Picasso or DeBussy) just doesn't communicate with you. You know, like two people who don't speak the same language.

So Slatts, after reading everyone else piling on, now your calling poor Ernie a homo??? Where will it end!

My wife, who hates all things Ernest Hemingway, insists the man was homosexual. Of course, we know he was not! He absolutely loved to have sex with women -- he just didn't like having to talk to them afterward!

Sounds like a sensible plan to me.