Green Hills of Africa

I really do love Hemingway.  His stories are brilliantly written.  He paints the picture, develops the characters, and creates tension in his novels as few can do.   While he does all of this, I have to say the content of the story was not my favorite.  Green Hills of Africa is a true story of a safari journey in East Africa by Hemingway and his wife, Pauline Marie.   Early on Hemingway shares his disdain with one of the expats who works as a supporter of the safari, and learning of Hemingway the novelist, gets in a discussion about who is the best author of the day.  The second part of the book has Hemingway reminisce of former hunts, and the third part illustrates Hemingway’s failure to land a kudu in the pursuit.  In the final chapter we learn Hemingway finally succeeds and gets his kudu of 52 inches but upon return to the camp finds someone has landed one larger.  It’s all about the hunt…  Since I don’t like hunting, or fishing, the reading was not exciting, actually pretty boring, but again, he does it with great prose.  Interesting how an author can write about a hunting trip and sell it as a book, HEY wait a minute… Hemingway is the precursor to all of these reality shows, huh?  I bet he never thought that he would be the preamble to Jersey Shore?  How he must be turning in his grave! In the end Hemingway is embraced by the hunters, even those who really didn’t like him.  Must have been all the stories he told them?  Go pick up For Whom the Bell Tolls.  You’ll get a much better read.