Hello the campfire
Just re-read The Green Hills of Africa. Great book. I enjoyed the hunting scenes and was glad to remember the Hemmingway told of the misses and the gut shots with the god shots and fine horns.
Just my opinion
Judge Sharpe

It is a great book written in a style different than most exploraton and safari novels...

POP & POM right?

Yes, a fine read which makes the mind wander those very hills. An he Hemmingway did have a way with clearly depicting that we held his eye.

never read it... do you recommend it?

I read it when i was 15 years old and i became addicted to Hemingway ,i recommend AL ROMPER EL ALBA i dont know its tittle in english but is a work finished a published by one of his son after his death Juan

I recommend it highly.Excellent subject matter written in the inimitable style of that literary giant whose life was even more interesting than his works.Or as he himself would say,"It was good,damn good."Also if you have'nt read it,I recommend the short story,"The short happy life of Francis Macomber".Dig out your old copy of "Islands in the Stream";in the first section,"Bimini",about half way through,just prior to the shark incident,there is a short paragraph in which he gives such an eloquent description of the little 256 Mannlicher,'with the 18" barrel they don't sell anymore'.It's worth reading.

quote:

Originally posted by juanpozzi:
I read it when i was 15 years old and i became addicted to Hemingway ,i recommend AL ROMPER EL ALBA i dont know its tittle in english but is a work finished a published by one of his son after his death Juan

In my office I have True at First Light which was completed after his death -- is that the one you are describing?

I just re-read Green Hills of Africa.

Finished it last night. It gets better every time.

The last few chapters, contrasting Hemingway's success with kudu and failure with sable, are riveting.

The sable hunting passages - soliloquies, really - at the end of the book, in which Hemingway agonizes over gut-shooting a big sable bull, and losing him after hours of the hardest kind of tracking, with the sun pounding down and with no water to drink, and with his hopes at first kindled by splashes of blood in the grass and on the rocks, but then slowly crushed by the diminishing and finally disappearing spoor, have always stuck in my mind.

He blamed his own overconfidence and carelessness, and nothing else.

As he put it, quite rightly, "Every damned thing is your own fault if you're any good."

Great book. One of my favorites. My daughter (15) started reading it on a lark and loves it.

Good for your daughter, BaxterB. Most young girls won't read anything but texts on their phones these days!

Green Hills of Africa is one of my favorite books. There was an old thread on here several years ago about the book. Some didn't like the book. Here is my post from back then..

"I am not ashamed to say that Green Hills of Africa is one of my favorites. However, it is definitely not for everyone. There is good, and there is bad in this book. You must read it more than once to really appreciate it, and to ignore it's faults.

The Good: This book does an outstanding job of taking you inside the frustrations and challenges of pursuing a Trophy game animal!! Some of Hemingway's comments and inner thoughts will give you a good laugh. The descriptions of the country and the struggles with the terrain really put you into Hemingway's boots. If your like me, the book will also make you lust for a Griffin & Howe 1903 Springfield sporting rifle. The relationship with Hemingway and his tracker grows as they gain respect for one another. The genuine passion for unspoiled nature is evident in his words. Hemingway clearly loved Africa.

Now the Bad: At several points during the book Hemingway will go off into deep conversations about literature and other famous writers ect. This part ruins it for most readers because it takes you completely out of the setting and is quite difficult to get through. To be honest, the best approach is to skip past these parts and get back to the main plot. I have read the book enough times so that when the Literature discussion begins I know exactly how many pages to skip over, bypass it completely, and return to the story. Also, the Character of Pop the Professional Hunter is not given much of anything to do. His presence is that of a reassuring voice in times of doubt, and a director of sorts to the Safari. He lacks charisma, charm, or any kind of depth. The reason for this is because we enter the story after the Safari has been underway for quite some time. Consequently no introduction or back story is given for the characters, only the events that take place in the narrative. So the reader has to play catch-up with who's who and fill in the blanks on what has taken place before the book begins.

This book is not a Capstick style action packed fight with charging dangerous game... It is better than most modern safari books about a quest to shoot one of everything on your species check list... I most recently re-read the book during the course of our last White-tail deer season. Is was a tough season full of disappointment. All the signs were there, but I kept coming up empty handed. Two weeks before the season ended I finally got the very nice 10pt I was looking for. Reading Green Hills of Africa during the course of that deer season gave me a new appreciation for the hard work, failure, and triumph Hemingway endured during the course of the novel.

Try reading or re-reading the book yourself, and take my advice on the Good and Bad points listed above. Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I do."

The only thing I will add to my old post is that Hemingway's relationship with his friend Karl is a good element of the book. We all have a hunting/fishing partner that just has unnaturally good luck, and consistently ends up with better trophies.

It's still one of my favorites and one of Hemingway's best.

It is a fine book indeed. That makes me want to read it again.

Once upon a time when "Papa" was queried about tips on writing, his response was to write what you know + not too long after it happened.

Another of one of his that I really enjoyed was from his days working for the Toronto Sun, if I can recall; its been too many years. He was one of several correspondents come to interview Benito Mussolini in the late 20s-early 30s. Several of the other papers commented on the fact that when they entered the room Mussolini was looking intensely at a large volume on his desk before recognizing the reporters. The general consensus of the scribes was that he was an incredible intellente man so absorbed in thought. Hemingways article read, I was also in that room with "Il Duce", I for one walked up behind the "great man" + looked at what he was supposedly reading. It was an Italian/ English dictionary UPSIDE down. The man is a fool, + if I am taken out tomorrow + shot I will die knowing that I was shot by a fool!

One of my favorites. “The trouble you shoot yourself into, you must be prepared to shot yourself out of.”

I also liked, “I wonder if there should be anything wrong with Sen, Joseph McCarty that a .577 would would not cure.”

I think he was left pandering which he felt compelled to do from time to time with that last quote from time to time.

Yeah he had a real hard on for "Tail gunner" Joe. Fortunately for him his fame was so vast that MeCarthy couldn't really mess with him as he had with so many others. That self serving A.H. ruined a lot of lives.

Great book. Took me a while to understand the "grey ghost" greater kudu discussion because my first African hunt was in Namibia and they were simply everywhere. But having hunted East Africa, I understand. Like Hemmingway's writing style.

"Write what you know + not too long after the fact." E.H.

Hemingway stated in an interview his goal in writing Green Hills. He wanted to write a factual story of a safari as it happened to see if it could be as successful as a fictional story. When this is understood, one can understand why the work reads as it does.

Of his Africa works, Macomber is my favorite. The film with Greg Peck is also very good.

quote:

Originally posted by cal pappas:
Hemingway stated in an interview his goal in writing Green Hills. He wanted to write a factual story of a safari as it happened to see if it could be as successful as a fictional story. When this is understood, one can understand why the work reads as it does.

Of his Africa works, Macomber is my favorite. The film with Greg Peck is also very good.

That’s the foreword of the book.

The Short Happy Life Of Francis Macomber is one of my favourites as well. It also speaks of the 1903 Mannlicher + is written about in the Bimini section of Islands in Ther Stream; he gives an entire paragraph of description of the little Mannlicher (with the 18" barrel that they don't sell anymore). After reading Green Hills many years ago I dearly wanted a Griffin + Howe 1903 Springfield.

Norman, I smiled when I read your post about the Mannlicher. My family rolls their eyes in exasperation when I go off on a gun nerd tangent regarding movies and books ('wait a minute, Jack Bauer was shooting an HK in the last scene. Why's he suddenly carrying a Beretta...?). It takes a special person to get excited that a novel contains a full paragraph about a rifle.

It is a paragraph of excellent descriptive writing that should be read by all. You can actually feel the rifle + smell the oiled sheepskin of the case.

Leon, + here I thought that I was the worlds worst on aggravating family + other theatre goers by bringing up such things as "That gun wasn't invented yet, etc., ad nauseum." I don't say anything anymore because no one cares + just is an annoyance. But I think it.

You cannot watch a movie with my Dad. Always pointing out inaccuracies and absurdity. And when not doing that, he names every actor and actress and every other movie they’ve been in.

That's what I mean. I quit doing it because no one cared anyway + it offended others. IMO though, if ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?

Lol! I say, “Dad it’s not a documentary”.