I would agree that Ernest's masculine tendencies come more from his father than a rebellion against femininity by the actions of his mother. His father was brutal and had high expectations of Ernest while at the same time he was badgered by Grace Hall. Imagine private conversations between Ernest and his father and what Ernest's feeling were after them. Misogynistic, maybe. More like, "Don;t ever let yourself get roped into being controlled by some dame like I am by your mother."

If you read Ernest's letters in reference to his parents deaths, you will see that he heavily favored his father and was much more affected by his death than his mother. Being a suicide didn't help either.

Being super-masculine was the only way Ernest could permanently 'get back' at his mother for treating his father like shit. I think as hard as Ernest tried, he never met the mark with his mom. When TSAR came out she criticized the work directly. Imagine, (even from a Victorian woman), criticizing your own sons work (remember, Ernest was still pretty young at 27), a work that truly made a difference in the world of literature. She was also very likely jealous as we since she was a failed opera singer.

I think other factors than the way his mother treated him (in regards to dressing/treating him as a girl at a very young age)were more determinate in what made EH.



You want to see some good pics, look up the pics by Robert Capa of EH in the Life archives, very good pics.

Sorry, they are at Magnum Photo not Life

Great old photos. Thanks for posting.

Perhaps it is just the angle of the photo but if I was employed to produce a Cape buff Euro mount for EH I damn sure would have checked that it was centered on the panel.

Many thanks for the pix as well as the comments, KPete. Most enjoyable.

I must say that at first I thought the early photos looked a lot like Roark. Or am I imagining things?

Also, as I recall, Hemingway committed dsuicide in 1955. That would have been about a year after returning form his last safari. I hope the warm feelings would last oonger than that. However, he had his demons, God bless him.

Thanks for the kind remarks.

EH took his own life on July 2, 1961 in Ketchum, Idaho, firing both barrels of his double shotgun pressed against his forehead. He had been battling severe depression for many years and had come to believe that his best writing was behind him.

That day the world lost a remarkable writer who helped to define the post-war generation.

I have heard about both barrels being fired but I think most of what I have read is that it was only one. I'll have to check Baker.

I like Chgarles Scribner III's thought that EH would have had a 'late' style like some painters did and it is a wonder to think of what he could have produced.

My uncle commited suicide on the same day (also by firearm) in 2002. It's a very morose time around the house as I remember two of the greatest influences on my life.

_BAxter

Great pics but I know one too many guys who have styled themselves on the Hem "persona" (not necessarily the Hem "life"). Most all of these guys are assholes. Papa himself was likely a racist and definitely a misogynist. This is a guy after all who referred to his own mother as "that bitch" with apparent regularity. That said, the man could write with the best of them and I truly like his stuff....but I also look at his output with an objective eye and in light of his background and personal demons. Frankly, those demons and failings likely made him a much better writer at least in the short term.

As an aside, I recall years ago walking into a gun shop and seeing a very nice Italian Hemingway commemorative shotgun. I asked them where they kept the JFK commemorative Mannlicher Carcano. True Story.

Great photos, thanks for posting.

Personally, I don't particularly like Hemingway's work but I appreciate his contributions to hunting and adventure literature.

Green hills would be one of my favourite african hunting books, and it has deffinatly motivated me to get there one day and hunt a Kudu. Thanks for the pic's, next time I read it I will have something visual to add to the words.

quote:

Originally posted by tendrams:
Great pics but I know one too many guys who have styled themselves on the Hem "persona" (not necessarily the Hem "life"). Most all of these guys are assholes.

I know not exactly why, but this post has me in absolute stitches. Ta, mate!

http://hollisterhovey.blogspot...-on-safari-1954.html


here are some more photos from a very interesting site and woman....

regards from sweden.

K pete, first, a word of thanks for the pictures. They certainly brought Hemingways life and interest in Safari to the fore.
Re your remark "this is the same safari where he shamelessly took up with a native girl as his mistress, referring to her in his writings as his "fiancée", I have a slight diference of opinion.
I have a BA in English Lit from Cambridge, and Hemingway was the subject of one of my disseratations. I have read the book in question
many times. I am not at all sure that he "shamelessly" took up with a local lady. I suspect the comments about his "fiance" are tongue in cheek, the "affair" was likely more of an intellectual rather than romantic excursion, especiallly since Hemingway specifically alludes to his wife knowing about it.
In any case, it is not up to us to judge whether he was "shameless" or otherwise, not having walked in his shoes for a mile!
Regards, and with no desire to cause offence

A quick word about this "hyper male'stuff. Hemingway would be considered just a normal male in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. (I have lived in all odf the above cultures) Only in the politically correct US of A would he be considered "hyper' male. thank you Betty Freidan et al!

quote:

Originally posted by emron:
K pete, first, a word of thanks for the pictures. They certainly brought Hemingways life and interest in Safari to the fore.
Re your remark "this is the same safari where he shamelessly took up with a native girl as his mistress, referring to her in his writings as his "fiancée", I have a slight diference of opinion.
I have a BA in English Lit from Cambridge, and Hemingway was the subject of one of my disseratations. I have read the book in question
many times. I am not at all sure that he "shamelessly" took up with a local lady. I suspect the comments about his "fiance" are tongue in cheek, the "affair" was likely more of an intellectual rather than romantic excursion, especiallly since Hemingway specifically alludes to his wife knowing about it.
In any case, it is not up to us to judge whether he was "shameless" or otherwise, not having walked in his shoes for a mile!
Regards, and with no desire to cause offence

Hi Emron:

Glad you liked the photos. Differing opinions are the spice that make AR such a satisfying stew. I certainly don't want to dispute a Cambridge man's opinion on this matter - with a Hemingway dissertation, no less. But given what I've written is now prologue to this discussion, it was not without some reason that I made the statement you quoted in your post.

You're certainly correct that whether Hemingway really did marry an eighteen-year old Wakamba tribes girl named Debba (or more simply consummate a sexual relationship) has been the subject of debate since EH arrived in Nice, France en route to his home in Cuba following his 1953/54 safari. Following his departure from Mombassa he couldn't seem to keep his mouth shut about the poor girl.

I imagine "the book" you are referring to is True at First Light. Yes, Debba figures prominently in True at First Light, though his son Patrick - who incidentally became a licensed white hunter in Tanzania and was the editor of this EH's last unpublished work - claimed publicly that he had no knowledge of any such matrimonial liaison. Regarding Debba, however, he did admit that, "I don't know everything". In True at First Light, EH's long-suffering wife Mary acknowledges being jealous, but says that this doesn't apply to Debba, whom she refers to as Ernest's "African fiancée". She goes on to say, "since when does a good loving husband not have a right to a fiancee if she only wishes to be a supplementary wife?"

But my remark was not predicated on True at First Light alone. EH wrote in a letter to A. E. Hotchner on March 14, 1954 while sailing back from Africa, "(In) September I will have an African son. Before I left I gave a herd of goats to my bride's family. Most over-goated family in Africa. Feels good to have African son. Never regretted anything I ever did." Hotchner later wrote that he believed Hemingway and his claim regarding Debba. True at First Light is claimed to be "a fictional memoir" - the prototypal oxymoronic phrase - yet it is not clear at all that EH intended it to be any less accurate a rendition of his time in Africa than his earlier safari depicted in Green Hills of Africa. It seems instead that Patrick (his son after all) may have taken the "fictional memoir" approach to insulate his father's reputation.

There are numerous other accounts that I'm sure you are aware that support the claim that EH's affair was anything but fictional, including letters and at least two biographies. For example, Carlos Baker's authoritative 1969 biography, Ernest Hemingway, A Life Story, drawing on Mary Hemingway's diaries, says that toward the end of the 1953 safari Hemingway showed signs of "wanting to go native," telling Mary that she was "depriving him of his new wife," Debba. According to Baker, Mary did not take offense, suggesting only that Debba, "ought first to have a much needed bath." (Bizarrely, EH went so far as to dye all of his clothing Masai ochre (red) in his pursuit of becoming more African.)

Mary Hemingway also wrote in her personal journal about a party at Kimana Swamp, "Somebody had brought the local Wakamba girls to help the celebration. Papa took them to Laitokitok and bought them dresses for Christmas, brought the girls back to camp and invited them to dinner but no dinner was served. He took the girls to our tent and the celebration there was so energetic that they broke the bed."

Indeed, EH wrote frequently about Debba to his friends, at one time writing that he liked to have Debba “feel the embossing on the old leather holster of my pistol.” Writing to Harvey Breit from Magadi, Kenya during the safari where he met Debba, EH wrote, "my girl is completely impudent, her face is impudent in repose, but absolutely loving and delicate rough. I better quit writing about it because I want to write it really and I musn't spoil it. Anyway it gives me too bad a hardon."

Could this all have been an elaborate ruse or fantasy taken to an absurd if not demented level? Perhaps. EH was a known braggart and was given to exaggeration and outright lying when it suited him. For example, in an effort to portray himself as an accomplished international 'swordsman', he told Hotchner that he slept with the famous WWI spy Mata Hari, saying, "One night I fucked her very well, although I found her to be very heavy throughout the hips and to have more desire for what was done for her than what she was giving the man." The only problem was that Mata Hari had been shot by a firing squad by the French in 1917 and EH didn't get to Europe until 1918 where he famously became a Red Cross ambulance driver in Italy.

Your suggestion that it was "likely more of an intellectual rather than romantic excursion" seems to be at odds with the fact that Hemingway himself admitted to barely being able to communicate with Debba. He often spoke to her in Spanish, given that she couldn't understand him anyway (and he thought Spanish sounded more alluring). A wafer-thin 'intellectual excursion' in my way of thinking (apologies to Mr. Creosote).

As I said, I wish to dispute neither your scholarship nor your opinion. Regarding my caption, however, Mary Hemingway wrote to several friends that during that safari she felt beleaguered, belittled, abused, and humiliated. Even his old friend Philip Percival was embarrassed at EH's behavior. Suffice it to say then that, irrespective of whether or not he bedded his 'fiancée Debba', his treatment of his wife on that safari was indisputably shameless. And I don't need to walk a mile in his shoes to know that.

Thanks for the interesting post!

Touche'!
Kpete, that dissertation is 30 years old,so I am happy to be corrected! You certainly looked at sources I never consulted, and on the face of it, i have to agree, Papa appears to have been a bad boy by our lights.
I prefer Hemingways earlier writings by far. His later writings show less flexibility and greater misanthropy, much like a Dagga boy.
The Debba episode in True at First Light certainly seems almost surreal in its suspension of disbelief. To me it seemed that the "engagement" was more of a tongue in cheek cultural experiment or similar, more or less platonic; but the sources you quote certainly do not support that view
Thanks again for the great photographs and the in depth research!

Not at all Africa related, but I watched the movie "The Killers" this morning. Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner in a movie based on one of Hemingway's novels. Great movie! I highly recommend it.

Brett

Here's Ernest and Mary approaching a downed blue wildebeest during their 1953/54 safari. This is one of the two wildebeest Mary shot on that safari, both of which had poor bullet placement. When it was discovered that her shot on this wildebeest was 14" higher than she had aimed, EH scolded her, saying that her erratic shooting was exposing her to danger. (How she could shoot 14" high on a wildebeest and not miss it entirely is puzzling to me. They are not that large - or tall - an animal.)


Note that EH is wearing his glasses - something he always did when shooting (though he rarely wore them in the photos taken with his trophies). When Mary was hunting he always backed her up.

The rifle carried by Mary appears to be EH's .256 (6.5mm) Mannlicher-Schonauer. Ernest's gunbearer, Ngui, is seen in the background holding EH's favored Griffin & Howe Springfield in .30-06. Not great resolution, but an interesting photo all the same.

awesome photos kim, thank you for taking the time to post these pics - awesome times those must have been -

Hem once said Mary at times could miss "Jesus Christ sitting on William Failkner's lap." While at other times break the neck at 300 yards. Needless to say she must have been slightly inconsistent.

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
Hem once said Mary at times could miss "Jesus Christ sitting on William Failkner's lap." While at other times break the neck at 300 yards. Needless to say she must have been slightly inconsistent.

A wonderful quote that made me laugh out loud. Thanks, Baxter!

Here are some additional photos I've scrounged:





And a better quality photo of EH with one of his Cape buffalo:



While not Hemingway related, here is a photo taken in Zanzibar of the world record for elephant tusks, 235 pounds and 226 pounds each:



And, what does the record elephant cow tusk look like?



And the same tusk in a somewhat more 'novel' setting EH would undoubtedly have approved:


The model Magritte Ramme posing with the world's largest elephant cow tusk. This was reputedly part of a French art exhibit with an African leitmotif. Readings of Hemingway were given during the exhibit. Contrary to many rumors, Ms. Ramme is not a member of Buzz Charlton's tracking team.

The Mannlicher had a full-length stock. In that pic with the Wildebeest it looks as thought the rifle Mary has has a standard style stock. Unless perhaps there was a glare on the part of that stock that overexposed and made it look as though it were not there.

Perhaps this rifle is the same as the one with Mary and the leopard?

This wins my vote for interesting and well written post of the year! I've enjoyed the articulate banter, and will wisely stay out of the fray myself. Thanks, Kim for starting his post.

As a wise man once said, "better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool, then to open it and remove all doubt"

Don't see much difference in the trophy room picts from my Uncle Abe Badgley's trophy room.Including the Grand Slam of American Bears, Polar Bear included. Only big difference is my uncle didn't shoot himself. Oh also he didn't ever live in cuba. He also killed the Big 5. Hunted in Africa in the early 50's.He hunted w/ his friend Jimmy Walker.

What?

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
The Mannlicher had a full-length stock. In that pic with the Wildebeest it looks as thought the rifle Mary has has a standard style stock. Unless perhaps there was a glare on the part of that stock that overexposed and made it look as though it were not there.

Perhaps this rifle is the same as the one with Mary and the leopard?

Baxter:

Did it? I'm not so sure, and have never seen evidence that the Mannlicher-Schoenauer took to Africa had the full-length stock and muzzle band that was, indeed, one of its classic features. But we know that EH had left to others the responsibility of preparing his weapons for Africa, so perhaps the "little Mannlicher" he took to Africa in 1953 was sporterized - like his Springfield. Cutting down the full-length stock would enhance its handling and reduce weight - a consideration inasmuch as this was Mary's primary hunting rifle.

Take a look at the photo again of Mary Hemingway and look at the style and location of the forward-sitting bolt handle (difficult with the photo resolution, I know). Then look at the close-up of a sporterized Mannlicher. Very similar to my eyes ...

This was bothering me so I did some further research and found that while Hemingway had only one .30-06 (his much beloved Griffin & Howe Springfield), he had at least two and as many as four Mannlicher-Schoenauer rifles. One of these was left with a full stock, but another (and maybe two) were modified by Griffin & Howe - the same NY firm that customized his .30-06 Springfield. We do know that Mannlicher-Schoenauer serial number 18040 in 6.5x54mm was won by EH at a raffle in Sun Valley in 1941, and he used that rifle to hunt extensively in the US.

It was the Springfield that EH chose for his first safari in 1933 as his 'go to' gun, but in correspondence with Milford Baker soon thereafter, he wrote that at nine pounds the .30-06 was too heavy to carry up and down the mountains and wanted something lighter. Later correspondence shows that he ordered a modified Mannlicher-Schoenauer from Griffin & Howe due to its being shorter in length and three pounds lighter (despite being less powerful).

Interestingly, EH was already familiar with the Mannlicher. His brother, Leicester, is quoted as having recalled his older brother Ernest returning from Italy in 1918 with war souvenirs that included a military Mannlicher-Schoenauer with a straight pull bolt. "That's a sniper's rifle who was using it to pick off our troops from up in a tree", Ernest told him.


Pauline Hemingway on the 1933 safari with a nice Thompson's gazelle taken with EH's Model 1903 Mannlicher customized by Griffin & Howe.

My guess is that Pauline's Mannlicher is the same one carried by Mary twenty years later in Africa and featured in the photos previously posted. Note the photo below where EH is holding the G&H Mannlicher which sports a longer-than-normal barrel and shortened stock forend.


Hemingway's G&H Mannlicher-Schoenauer is a take-down rifle with the joint an inch and a half above the magazine floorplate and a G&H single trigger that replaced the original Mannlicher double triggers.

In the photo below, Mary is posing with a nice lessor kudu she took during the 1953 safari. Of interest is the take-down G&H Mannlicher-Schoenauer her gunbearer, Charo, is holding. Presumably, this is the rifle that was used to shoot the kudu.

I saw the forward bolt handle but thought it was perhaps a camp rifle and not Hem's Mannlicher. Whenever I read about the 'little mannlicher' i always thought it was the full length model.

There is a pic by Lloyd Arnold with Hem and the full-length model. it makes sense this is a Sun Valley gun as the pic was taken at the lodge there. There is also another pic of his bedroom at the Finca showing presumably the same rifle leaning against a wall.

I was not aware that Hem had a multitude of Mannlicher's and am curious as to what sources you are looking at that describe these in such detail. I know there is a book coming out very soon (Hemingway's Guns) that should have much of this information. It also has pretty good proof that the shotgun that Hem used to kill himself was not a Boss but a W $ S Scott.

quote:

Originally posted by BaxterB:
If any one really suffered by the hand of Grace Hall it was Ernest's father...

True.

Hemingway was a truly remarkable writer. I've been reading his stuff for fifty years. Occasionally, I'll pick up one of his volumes and re read it. The prose is as fresh as the day he wrote it.

I would never presume to criticize Hemingway. His was a complex personality. He suffered two severe concussions during his life, which may have done some permanent damage. We'll never know. All I can say is that I am glad he was with us he and left behind some of the greatest and most subtle literature in American literary history..

quote:

most subtle literature in American literary history

You are 100% correct there and it is the reason so many people don't like or 'get' hemingway. His habit of writing by the 'iceberg' principle leaves an awful lot implied and it is here where he really set himself apart from other writers. He really was the bridge between Victorian writers and the the modern era.

Just a side note, the gazelle Pauline is shown with is not a Thompson's gazelle but Gazella granti Robertsi or "Robert's Gazelle" a regional variation of the Grant's gazelle.

Fascinating comments. It has been a long while since I've read all the posts in a thread this long. I've learned a lot about a safari hunter that I knew very little about, and tomorrow I will order some of the publications mentioned by you Kim. We can only hope that long after one of us dies, that an intelligent group of men, posts some of our archives on a blog and debates the merits of our alleged bush conduct.

Oh the pictures were appealing also, not just the commentary. I liked that Hemingway had his rifle pointed at the proper angle in each snapshot.

FYI, I didn't see it mentioned but a lot of the questions posed here about the Mannlichers, etc. are answered by the new book "Hemingway's Guns" by Silvio Calabi, Roger Sanger, et al. Wonderful book with LOTS of detail. For example, one of the 6.5 x 54 Mannlichers was a takedown model (can be seen in the pic with Mary Hemingway above.

That Mannlicher (take down) was apparently Philip Perceivals.

The rifle in the lion photo appears to be a Mannlicher-Schoenauer, which Hemingway is known to have owned and figures significantly in his short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis McComber".

Pretty undergunned for a lion, but as mentioned above, Hemingway used a .30-'06 Griffin & Howe Springfield 1903 for buffalo, as indicated by the photograph, and also killed a rhino with the same one, according to his account in "The Green Hills of Africa."

I think I can spot the two holes in the bottom plate of a M/S spool magazine in the photo, and the stock design and what appears to be the bolt release look M/S also. It does not appear to have the M/S takedown system, which does not employ any alteration to the stock, but that may be the contribution of some British gunmaker, of whom several were fond of such devices.

Incidentally, Hemingway mentions using a scope with the G&H Springfield, presumably with a G&H side mount, but I don't see any evidence of the side mount base in the buffalo photograph.

I have a G&H Springfield roughly contemporaneous with Hemingway's, complete with Hensholdt scope in a G&H side mount, and it is a real joy to shoot.

The Mannlicher in KPete's posting above is a takedown model, not a "sporterized" version. It has a latch directly in front of the trigger guard and a wedge in the foreend (both visible in the pictures) which distinguish it from other M/S models.

Removing the wedge and opening the latch, after removing the magazine, allow the barrelled action to be removed from the stock. The tang is secured to the stock by a hook type device, similar to that used in the M1 carbine and the Model 100 Winchester. The whole thing could be furnished in a fitted case which is roughly the length of the stock.

This takedown system, pioneered by Charles Newton in his Model 1916 rifle, does not require unscrewing the barrel, as was common with the takedown systems used by Winchester and Savage at the turn of the 20th Century, with the consequent loss of accuracy,

I have a much abused example in caliber 6.5X54 complete with the (equally abused) case resting atop my gun casbinet.

For a photo of a Mannlicher takedown disassembled, see http://www.egun.de/market/item.php?id=3009799

Unlike many African writers (Peter Capstick?), “Karamojo” Bell didnt seem to have been particularly threatened by an elephant, rogue or otherwise. The prose in his books has none of the trumpeting about the manly virtues of facing grisly death upon which Capstick built his writing career and that has been popular ever since Hemingway went on a couple of hunting trips. Hemingway was disappointed when he shot a lion and it just died, and that’s all.

Trax, interesting post. Though I'm certainly not an expert on the topic I've often thought that Hemmingway was a bit obsessed with the aspect of death involved in hunting. We've probably all heard the saying that "I hunt not to kill but kill to have hunted" (or however it goes and with appologies to whoever said that). But it seems to me that with Hemmingway seemingly the opposite was true. Maybe I'm wrong and maybe that's unfair to him.

In any case, as you noted it seemed that some similar thing was in play with Capstick. It appears to me that with both men the killing, the danger, and the idea of "tempting" or "cheating" death was prominent in their writings. Again, maybe I'm wrong...

But...in my opinion anyone who gets his rocks off on unnecessarily and recklessly endangering himself either improperly values his life or has psychological issues.

Thanks Kim,
it's always good to look at those pics again.
Did EH hate the double rifle he took on the second safari? I know he disliked the triggers on the .470 he used in 1934 but believe he had his own .577 later in life. In "The Christmas Gift", reproduced in 'Bi-Line', he related how he let an old friend try it out in Abercrombie & Fitch and that it knocked the guy over. (One of the things I like about Hemingway was his hate of people like Senator Joseph McCarthy. He wondered if there was anything wrong with McCarthy that a .577 solid would not cure.)

Trax,
yes, Hemingway's mother was a ball-cutter but she may have helped create a passable role model for real men and boys, even if he did suck a bit much lunatic soup.

I certainly did not know his father also married several times but, if so, you could hardly blame him for moving on from Grace.

As to the suicide: if bi-polarism isn't enough explanation, having a father's example like that is no safeguard. (When things get tough, the first thing I think is: what would Dad do?) However, I recently heard a medical authority assert that Ernest had been put on a dangerous drug by his doctor and that this was the main cause.

I have no idea what he meant when he said his son Gregory was the darkest in the family next to himself - but at least he was not an actor

I dont know about Ernests father, but it was Ernest and transgender son Gloria(Gregory) who both had several marriages, suffered depression and substance abuse.
Interesting how Ernest was treated girly like by his mother/toughned by his father,had a transgender son, and wrote fiction novels based/titled on tough brave gay characters.
I have worked with males who very convincingly presented themselves to be some of the toughest macho males on the planet, and indeed they were true hard working farm boys great athletes, big drinkers and tough fighters,[as much as any hetro male], but still 100% camp as a row of tents. Was humorous to hear them speak in their girly voice when away from general society.
There can be other more subtle hints....