Rhinos fall before him. Antelope turn into trophies with the flick of his finger. And the drinking, quintessential Hemingway motif, is in full effect.A work of non-fiction, Green Hills of Africa records the author's foray into East Africa in the 1930s for a big game safari. While a true account, the characters, events, and setting in the book may seem familiar to readers of several of Ernest Hemingway's finest short stories, including The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Indeed, the book seems to be the ore from which the latter works are refined.
Hemingway hunts down the drama in life, finding the narrative in real events. Devolving at points into stream of consciousness, he manages to critique America's literary scene all while pursuing the fabled horns of a host of different animals. His interactions with native trackers and Masai tribespeople are fascinating. Yet it is his ongoing and awkward competition with fellow hunter Karl that imparts a fierce tension to the account.
The two men's pursuit of the elusive Kudu antelope is woven into the storyline, assuming a regularity almost as powerful as the author's call for another German beer.
Hemingway's blunt, hard-edged language and terse style also heightens the authenticity of the work. A sort of royalty in Africa, he interacts with a crew of natives, throwing in a smattering of Swahili. The reader's hand is not held as the great hunter plods through the details of pursuing a sable bull or stalking a cape buffalo through claustrophobic tall grass tunnels. The hunt is brought to life, sometimes in agonzing detail, as an intensely physical and mental undertaking, an experience eclipsed by one thing only - writing.
Throughout, the author lionizes writing. He talks of a "fourth and fifth dimension that can be gotten" in the literary realm. Yet Hemingway's pessimism about the status of great writing in the modern era rises to the surface: "A thousand years makes economics silly and a work of art endures forever, but it is very difficult to do and now it is not fashionable."
Hemingway's safari is bittersweet in other regards. It is the chronicle of the final chapters of the great abundance of Africa, the twilight of unfettered big game challenges in the mold of Teddy Roosevelt. At one point, Hemingway touches on the thrill of it all: "None of us had ever seen a wart-hog that would not bolt off, fast-trotting, tail in air. This was a virgin country, an un-hunted pocket in the million miles of bloody Africa. I was ready to stop and make camp anywhere."
Tagging along on the safari that is Green Hills of Africa gives a similar sense of excitement. It is, to the modern reader, a virgin country of its own, a fascinating tale of gritty realism set in an almost mythical landscape. And Hemingway - rifle in hand, flask in pocket, sweat fogging his glasses, curses spewing forth from under the stetson hat - is the perfect guide.
