The Pleasures of Place, People, and Persuit

Where a man feels at home, outside of where he's born, is where he's meant to go."
- Ernest Hemingway

Once, when I was 11 or 12, I begged my father to take me Mule deer hunting in Utah. Growing up in the West, among a certain strata of boy, the October deer hunt was a sort of blood ritual. We would take off from school for a couple days, go into the mountains with our fathers, shoot at things, and come home.

At this time in my life, I had tremendous blood lust. I wanted to bring something down. To be at the top of the pyramid for a second. To conquer something. I wasn't at the stage where I could explore where these impulses came from. The desire to carry and shoot. The desire to kill and show off my trophy. It really was a deep thing. I think as a child, I can best explain it as some way of coming to grips with the discovery that you are no longer the center of the Universe. You have recently discovered you aren't a god. So, you act like a god. You seek to become Shiva the destroyer, the killer of groundhogs, of robins, the boy who pulls the stinger out of bees in the window.

Lucky for me, I discovered (much later in life) that my father, a veterinarian, used to steer me away from the deer. He was happy to hike, camp, and shoot with me. He understood better than I, the stage I was in. Perhaps, at 11 or 12, disappointment with not finding something to kill might serve me better than blood.

Even now as I've grown, as I read Hemingway's 'Green Hills of Africa' and I feel all of those early impulses again. After finishing this story, I did a Google search to see how much a Safari in South Africa and Zimbabwe costs now days. I know this is absurd. It is one of those things I mock and despise among the rich. Photos of the Trump boys displaying their trophies or the owner of Jimmy Johns standing under an Elephant he has recently killed makes me both angry and sad at the same time. But I STILL, emotionally, deep down find myself thinking about Hemingway and Roosevelt. Thinking about the big tests, the pursuit, the hunt, the blood. It sickens and attracts. It is visceral. I really think C. G. Poore captured it perfectly when he said this story was "about people in unacknowledged conflict and about the pleasures of travel and the pleasures of drinking and war and peace and writing."

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19 people found this helpful

A Life Well Lived

Hemingway's account of a Kudu hunting safari in Africa between the wars is not one of his better-known works. But his ability to let the reader experience events through Hemingway's own senses is as strong as ever. This is a mesmerising story. I found the narration a little brisk for my liking, and slowed it down with the iPod software.

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9 people found this helpful

Green Hills of Africa

Stupidest book we've ever had to read. One of Hemingway's worst. Unless you are into killing people and learning what he ate for breakfast every morning, I'd skip this one.

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3 people found this helpful

It was good but not amazing

What made the experience of listening to Green Hills of Africa the most enjoyable?

Picturing the whole scene, the landscape, the experience of being there.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Green Hills of Africa?

When he shot a rhino

Which character – as performed by Josh Lucas – was your favorite?

Hemmingway

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No. It was good, slightly boring because it was all about one hunting trip but it is what it is and Im glad I listened to it. Its interesting.

Any additional comments?

If you like Hemmingway you will like it.

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2 people found this helpful

papa

Classic Book a good read love listening to the old stories, makes me wish I were born 100 years earlier

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1 person found this helpful

couldn't get through ch12

I was looking for a Josh Lucas narration after enjoying his subtle Oklahoma accent reading Louis L'Amour western short stories and I love Hemingway, but Lucas should have followed William Hootkins's lead and studied, just for 5 minutes, a Swahili language tape. This would have prevented him sounding like a caveman every time an African speaks. It's a very precise and pleasant sounding language and he's made it rather insultingly full of grunts and squeals, with a bad and uninformed accent. The letter M at the beginning of a word doesn't get a free American vowel, it's pronounced as a hum.

Good, true story told by the esteemed author. Couldn't finish it via audio. Will head to the library for the last hour's worth.

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A rare glimpse into this period.

The discussion on writing near the beginning is superb. The character Carl a perfect expression of the one guy in camp succeeding by luck.

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So much to learn about writing…

So much to learn about writing from Hemingway, just listen. Straight forward direct in his description. Clear in his thoughts and feelings of what he is saying…Josh Lucas makes it true of Hemingway talking to you…

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An epic story of hunting in a time gone by…

While there is language that makes my modern day eyes bug out, this is an epic tale of a season’s king hunt in Eastern Africa, wonderfully written and thoroughly enjoyable.

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A must read for every sportsman

I just devoured this book. I immediately listened it to it a 2nd time after the first time through. Hemingway is so relatable and real. Really captured the highs and lows of African hunting adventure

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