Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
London : Panther/Granada, 1977
Description
His second major venture into nonfiction (after Death in the Afternoon, 1932), Green Hills of Africa is Ernest Hemingway's lyrical journal of a month on safari in the great game country of East Africa, where he and his wife Pauline journeyed in December of 1933. Hemingway's well-known interest in--and fascination with--big-game hunting is magnificently captured in this evocative account of his trip. In examining the poetic grace of the chase, and the ferocity of the kill, Hemingway also looks inward, seeking to explain the lure of the hunt and the primal undercurrent that comes alive on the plains of Africa. Yet Green Hills of Africa is also an impassioned portrait of the glory of the African landscape, and of the beauty of a wilderness that was, even then, being threatened by the incursions of man.… (more)
Media reviews
". . . a fine book on death in the African afternoon. . . . . The writing is the thing; that way he has of getting down with beautiful precision the exact way things look, smell, taste, feel, sound."
". . . not one of the major Hemingway works. . . . an overextended book about hunting, with a few incidental felicities and a number of literary wisecracks thrown in."
User reviews
LibraryThing member laytonwoman3rd
Hemingway's account of his first African safari. The one where he got dysentery, not the one where he survived two plane crashes. I enjoyed reading it, although I am not a fan of Hemingway. It went fairly quickly. I never once thought to myself---"Ernest, you macho jerk", even when he was cursing
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fate for giving his companion better opportunities for bigger trophies than he was getting. The writing isn't spectacular, but some of it is almost fine. There's a touch of self-deprecating humor on the author's part that surprised and delighted me. Some of the banter 'twixt Ernest and his wife was sweet and endearing, even though I knew what they didn't know yet about how that was going to turn out. I get the feeling that I might have been amused by the man if I had met him when he was relaxed, enjoying himself and not in competition with anyone over anything. Just confirms my long-standing opinion that Hemingway's life was more interesting than his fiction. Show Less
LibraryThing member nandadevi
Against a background of readings about wildlife research and conservation in East Africa, an account of Hemingway blasting his way through the phylogenetic tree should sit uneasily with me. But as is apparent in other accounts, the impetus for conservation has often come from, not despite of,
Nevertheless, Hemmingway is an unregenerate killer, "..everything has to die sometime." he says, and takes it upon himself to hasten the day for several unfortunate creatures. Not the weak and the lame as might be taken by their natural predators, but the best and the largest for the impression their severed heads might make upon his guests at home. But inside the story, and Hemingway is enough of a reflective story-teller to tell it, is another tale. One of a successful man who has no dominion, who trembles on the edge of un-success, who only just manages to persuade himself that his bloody trail through Africa constituted some kind of affirmation of manhood.
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wildlife hunters. Hemingway's description of the landscape around Lake Manyara in Tanzania is as good as it gets, and he has a hunter's eye for describing the animals around him, and the relationship between the people and the land.Nevertheless, Hemmingway is an unregenerate killer, "..everything has to die sometime." he says, and takes it upon himself to hasten the day for several unfortunate creatures. Not the weak and the lame as might be taken by their natural predators, but the best and the largest for the impression their severed heads might make upon his guests at home. But inside the story, and Hemingway is enough of a reflective story-teller to tell it, is another tale. One of a successful man who has no dominion, who trembles on the edge of un-success, who only just manages to persuade himself that his bloody trail through Africa constituted some kind of affirmation of manhood.
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LibraryThing member herschelian
Written in the early 1930s, this is one of Hemingway's best works in my opinion. It is a lyrical account of a month he and his wife spent on safari in East Africa big-game hunting. His descriptions of the land, the bush, the animals and the people are really superb, and though it seems a little
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dated now it is still a wonderful read. Show Less
LibraryThing member Iudita
I did not neccesarily enjoy the story line to this book. It consisted of one chapter after another of Hemingway on a hunt in Africa and descriptions of kill after kill. What I did enjoy was Hemingway's writing. I find he is a master at describing a scene and evoking a mood with his writing. If you
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enjoy his work, this one is worth reading but don't expect to get caught up in a great story line. It's just not that kind of book. Show Less
LibraryThing member gbill
As "Death in the Afternoon" (1932) is to bullfighting, "Green Hills of Africa" (1935) is to big-game hunting. I'm not a hunter, and in our time am apalled by how many species have been driven to extinction or the brink of extinction to satisfy man's lust to kill and desire for trophies. Hemingway
However I have to say that as in "Death in the Afternoon", I was fascinated. The writing is clean and took me into a world I would otherwise never know. It's a world that made me question the morality of Hemingway and the other hunters, but at the same time as I cogitated further, I became painfully aware of a slippery slope in the indirectness of my own cruelty to animals, through the land I live on, the energy I waste, and the meat I eat.
There is a directness, honesty, and desire to live his life to the fullest and on his own terms which is refreshing in Hemingway, and I have to respect that. "Green Hills of Africa" transported me, raised questions, and was well written: all signs of a good book.
Quotes:
On artists:
"Writers are forged in injustice as a sword is forged."
On children:
"It must be very nice to have a daughter."
"You cannot know how nice it is. It is like a second wife. My wife knows now all I think, all I say, all I believe, all I can do, all that I cannot do and cannot be. I know also about my wife - completely. But now there is always someone you do not know, who does not know you, who loves you in ignorance and is strange to you both. Some one very attractive that is yours and not yours and that makes the conversation more - how shall I say? Yes, it is like - what do you call - having her here with you - with the two of you - yes there - It is the Heinz Tomato Ketchup on the daily food."
On hunting, and eating animals:
"I did not mind killing anything, any animal, if I killed it cleanly, they all had to die and my interference with the nightly and the seasonal killing that went on all the time was very minute and I had no guilty feeling at all. We ate the meat and kept the hides and horns."
On love:
"The only person I really cared about, except the children, was with me and I had no wish to share this life with any one who was not there, only to live it, being completely happy and quite tired."
On remembering:
"All I wanted to do now was 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."
On self-reliance, and accountability:
"Every damned thing is your own fault if you're any good."
On solitude, and writing:
"If you serve time for society, democracy, and the other things quite young, and declining any further enlistment make yourself responsible only to yourself, you exchange the pleasant, comforting stench of comrades for something you can never feel in any other way than by yourself. That something I cannot yet define completely but the feeling comes when you write well and truly of something and know impersonally you have written in that way and those who are paid to read it and report on it do not like the subject so they say it is all a fake, yet you know its value absolutely..."
On the transience of life (and a sad commentary on pollution from 1935):
"...when, on the sea, you are alone with it and know that this Gulf Stream you are living with, knowing, learning about, and loving, has moved, as it moves, since before man, and that it has gone by the shoreline of that long, beautiful, unhappy island since before Columbus sighted it and that the things you find out about it, and those that have always lived in it are permanent and of value because that stream will flow, as it has flowed, after the Indians, after the Spaniards, after the British, after the Americans and after all the Cubans and all the systems of governments, the richness, the poverty, the martyrdom, the sacrifice and the veniality and the cruelty are all gone as the high-piled scow of garbage, bright-colored, white-flecked, ill-smelling, now tilted on its side, spills off its load into the blue water, turning it a pale green to a depth of four or five fathoms as the load spreads across the surface, the sinkable part going down and the flotsam of palm fronds, corks, bottles, and used electric light globes, seasoned with an occasional condom or a deep floating corset, the torn leaves of a student's exercise book, a well-inflated dog, the occasional rat, the no-longer-distinguished cat; all this well shepherded by the boats of the garbage pickers who pluck their prizes with long poles, as interested, as intelligent, and as accurate as historians; they have the viewpoint; the stream, with no invisible flow, takes five loads of this a day when things are going well in La Habana and in ten miles along the coast it is as clear and blue and unimpressed as it was ever before the tug hauled out the scow; and the palm fronds of our victories, the worn light bulbs of our discoveries and the empty condoms of our great loves float with no significance against one single, lasting thing - the stream."
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is also a bit pompous so this book is definitely not for everyone. However I have to say that as in "Death in the Afternoon", I was fascinated. The writing is clean and took me into a world I would otherwise never know. It's a world that made me question the morality of Hemingway and the other hunters, but at the same time as I cogitated further, I became painfully aware of a slippery slope in the indirectness of my own cruelty to animals, through the land I live on, the energy I waste, and the meat I eat.
There is a directness, honesty, and desire to live his life to the fullest and on his own terms which is refreshing in Hemingway, and I have to respect that. "Green Hills of Africa" transported me, raised questions, and was well written: all signs of a good book.
Quotes:
On artists:
"Writers are forged in injustice as a sword is forged."
On children:
"It must be very nice to have a daughter."
"You cannot know how nice it is. It is like a second wife. My wife knows now all I think, all I say, all I believe, all I can do, all that I cannot do and cannot be. I know also about my wife - completely. But now there is always someone you do not know, who does not know you, who loves you in ignorance and is strange to you both. Some one very attractive that is yours and not yours and that makes the conversation more - how shall I say? Yes, it is like - what do you call - having her here with you - with the two of you - yes there - It is the Heinz Tomato Ketchup on the daily food."
On hunting, and eating animals:
"I did not mind killing anything, any animal, if I killed it cleanly, they all had to die and my interference with the nightly and the seasonal killing that went on all the time was very minute and I had no guilty feeling at all. We ate the meat and kept the hides and horns."
On love:
"The only person I really cared about, except the children, was with me and I had no wish to share this life with any one who was not there, only to live it, being completely happy and quite tired."
On remembering:
"All I wanted to do now was 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."
On self-reliance, and accountability:
"Every damned thing is your own fault if you're any good."
On solitude, and writing:
"If you serve time for society, democracy, and the other things quite young, and declining any further enlistment make yourself responsible only to yourself, you exchange the pleasant, comforting stench of comrades for something you can never feel in any other way than by yourself. That something I cannot yet define completely but the feeling comes when you write well and truly of something and know impersonally you have written in that way and those who are paid to read it and report on it do not like the subject so they say it is all a fake, yet you know its value absolutely..."
On the transience of life (and a sad commentary on pollution from 1935):
"...when, on the sea, you are alone with it and know that this Gulf Stream you are living with, knowing, learning about, and loving, has moved, as it moves, since before man, and that it has gone by the shoreline of that long, beautiful, unhappy island since before Columbus sighted it and that the things you find out about it, and those that have always lived in it are permanent and of value because that stream will flow, as it has flowed, after the Indians, after the Spaniards, after the British, after the Americans and after all the Cubans and all the systems of governments, the richness, the poverty, the martyrdom, the sacrifice and the veniality and the cruelty are all gone as the high-piled scow of garbage, bright-colored, white-flecked, ill-smelling, now tilted on its side, spills off its load into the blue water, turning it a pale green to a depth of four or five fathoms as the load spreads across the surface, the sinkable part going down and the flotsam of palm fronds, corks, bottles, and used electric light globes, seasoned with an occasional condom or a deep floating corset, the torn leaves of a student's exercise book, a well-inflated dog, the occasional rat, the no-longer-distinguished cat; all this well shepherded by the boats of the garbage pickers who pluck their prizes with long poles, as interested, as intelligent, and as accurate as historians; they have the viewpoint; the stream, with no invisible flow, takes five loads of this a day when things are going well in La Habana and in ten miles along the coast it is as clear and blue and unimpressed as it was ever before the tug hauled out the scow; and the palm fronds of our victories, the worn light bulbs of our discoveries and the empty condoms of our great loves float with no significance against one single, lasting thing - the stream."
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LibraryThing member alanteder
You have to keep a strong hold on your Freud-dar while reading this "absolutely true book" about Hemingway's late-1933/early 1934 African safari trek in Kenya with his then-wife Pauline Pfeiffer (called "P.O.M.", standing for "Poor Old Mama" in the book), his friend Charles Thompson (called "Karl"
Hemingway spends the safari mostly unsuccessfully stalking lions, rhinos and kudu (a type of antelope) and even when he returns to camp with occasional trophy horn(s) to show them to "Mama" and "Pop", he also discovers that (surrogate brother) "Karl" has brought back something bigger, longer or thicker. You really do have to keep yourself in check and not let the imagination run too wild while reading this.
Meanwhile you do get very evocative pictures of the African landscape and EH's dealings with his various native trackers and bearers. Two called "M'Cola" and the "Old Man" he becomes especially close to. Another, nicknamed "Garrick", who over-dramatizes events, EH resents more and more and he becomes the only villain (minor really) of the piece for dramatic purposes. EH provides occasional commentary on his writing influences and also uses the opportunity to take an anonymous swipe at Gertrude Stein for her labelling him a coward in her then (1933) recently published "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas".
This is a feast for Hemingway lovers, but you should read between the lines to get the most out of it. It is also useful background to reading the short stories "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" which were also inspired by this same safari.
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in the book) and hunter/guide Philip Percival (called "Pop", "Jackson Phillips", "Mr. J.", "Mr. J.P." "Colonel" etc. at various times in the book).Hemingway spends the safari mostly unsuccessfully stalking lions, rhinos and kudu (a type of antelope) and even when he returns to camp with occasional trophy horn(s) to show them to "Mama" and "Pop", he also discovers that (surrogate brother) "Karl" has brought back something bigger, longer or thicker. You really do have to keep yourself in check and not let the imagination run too wild while reading this.
Meanwhile you do get very evocative pictures of the African landscape and EH's dealings with his various native trackers and bearers. Two called "M'Cola" and the "Old Man" he becomes especially close to. Another, nicknamed "Garrick", who over-dramatizes events, EH resents more and more and he becomes the only villain (minor really) of the piece for dramatic purposes. EH provides occasional commentary on his writing influences and also uses the opportunity to take an anonymous swipe at Gertrude Stein for her labelling him a coward in her then (1933) recently published "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas".
This is a feast for Hemingway lovers, but you should read between the lines to get the most out of it. It is also useful background to reading the short stories "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" which were also inspired by this same safari.
Show Less
LibraryThing member edwinbcn
Green Hills of Africa is Ernest Hemingway second book of non-fiction, consisting of a memoir of his hunting trip to East Africa. The book opens with a long description of a meeting with an Austrian expat, whose car broke down. They talk about literature, American literature in particular.
Hemingway's unique style of writing is extremely apt for this type of story. His short sentences, and crisp observations seem to be just fit for the life of a hunter, constantly on the look out for animals to shoot.
While the book starts of fairly interesting enough, the story becomes repetitive and somewhat boring in the later chapters, as story elements are repeated: looking out for an animal, and attempting to shoot it.
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Subsequent chapters are about hunting big game.Hemingway's unique style of writing is extremely apt for this type of story. His short sentences, and crisp observations seem to be just fit for the life of a hunter, constantly on the look out for animals to shoot.
While the book starts of fairly interesting enough, the story becomes repetitive and somewhat boring in the later chapters, as story elements are repeated: looking out for an animal, and attempting to shoot it.
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LibraryThing member emed0s
Not being a hunter, and being more concerned everyday with animal suffering, I couldn't relate to this one. Sure Hemingway's quality writing is a constant and some brilliant reflections on multiple subjects (including the ethics of hunting) arise here and there, but overall I was bored most of the
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time that I spent reading this book. Show Less
LibraryThing member bblum
Slow and ponderous.
LibraryThing member JBreedlove
Self-involved Hemingway at his best. Great descriptive sense of place writing is that sharp style that seems easy but that he makes almost sublime. It must be from his time as a newspaper reporter. I read this on the heels of the KBurns documentary.
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1935
ISBN
0586044655 / 9780586044650