The green hills of Africa

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The green hills of Africa is a hunting story by Ernest Hemingway . This factual report appeared in October 1935 under the English title Green Hills of Africa .

overview

The safari book describes motorized hunting trips that Hemingway and his wife went on through East Africa between January 21 and February 20, 1934 . The legendary hunter Philip Percival led Hemingway. Charles Thompson, a rich friend of Hemingway, was in the hunting party. In 1934 Hemingway hunted mostly in what is now Lake Manyara National Park in what is now Tanzania . Hemingway's route is outlined in Rodenberg's biography. The passionate, heavily armed hunter Hemingway was out for hunting trophies . In this case, the horns of billy goats should be as stately as possible .

The two short stories The Brief Happy Life of Francis Macomber and Snow on Kilimanjaro were written after Ernest Hemingway's first African safari.

The author undertook a second East Africa safari from 1953 to 1954, which he processed into literature in The Truth in the Morning Light .

content

The safari is not going well. Hemingway has recovered from the dysentery he probably got while traveling on a dirty ship. The hunting party has been stalking great kudu (African antelope) for ten days and has not yet seen a buck. Locals carry Hemingway's rifles; a Mannlicher and a Springfield . The rainy season is approaching and with it the safe end of this safari. Because once the rain has set in, the coast of the Indian Ocean can no longer be reached by motor vehicle. During the hunt, people drink " a little over thirst ". Hemingway avoids the savannah on his stalking and takes pleasure in the hilly terrain around Lake Manyara . With meticulousness Hemingway prepares every morning before the hunting trip. So he is z. B. four clean handkerchiefs ready to hand. Because you can only aim through a clear lens that is not fogged up. A hyena with a " devious dog bastard face " is shot. “ The funny hitting ” of the bullet is described and “ the excited indignation of the hyena ” when dying. Hemingway kills a rhinoceros . In some places the narrative tone is strange. So he scolds the rhinoceros “bastard” , but forces himself to calm down before shooting the wild animal. In the forest it stinks like cat shit. The hunters suspect baboons in the bush. Hemingway shoots a buffalo for the horns. After killing, he feels “ numb ”. The stalking on kudu bucks leads to Lake Manyara. Teals are shot. Flamingo clouds rise. When driving out of a Masai village, there is a sporting race between spear-carrying people and automobiles. A trip to the savannah is made to hunt zebras . Tsetse flies sting the hunters in the neck. Hemingway sees kudu. He doesn't get a shot. Locusts move west. Scouts are sent out. An old local hunter with a long bow and quiver announces kudu and sable antelopes to the hunting party . Hemingway puts his wife under male care and hastily follows the old hunter. Hemingway actually shoots a kudu buck.

The highlight of the book is its finale - the great hunt for a sable antelope buck. Hemingway gunshot a huge animal with large horns. Nevertheless, the game flees. The wind is unfavorable. Hunters follow the sweat trail through the heat for hours, sometimes losing it and eventually giving up. Now the author calls himself a " wretched bastard ". He cannot forgive himself for shooting hands-free into the bowels of the game.

Literati

  • Hemingway defines the successful prose writer. He is talented and disciplined, has a conscience as constant “ as the Paris meter ”, and of course he must not bless the time too soon. Under the conditions he can write to the “ fourth and fifth dimension ”. Right " writers are forged by injustice as a sword is forged ".
  • Hemingway reads “Sevastopol” by Tolstoy on the way . He describes Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain as the veteran of modern American literature .
  • Readers who have taken a liking to Paris - A Festival for Life will also find new references to the literature business in the 1920s and 1930s in The Green Hills of Africa .
    • Hemingway tells of Joyce : " Joyce was of medium height and his eyesight ". He remembers the last evening in Paris, when both got drunk, when the great Irish writer kept quoting Edgar Quinet .
    • Hemingway's wife says of her husband: " He has to be in a terrible mood before he can write ."
  • The literary value of The Green Hills of Africa is controversial. After its publication, the book received negative reviews from Edmund Wilson , a promoter of the young Hemingway. Baker calls it a factual report.

Trivia

In the video game World of Warcraft there is a safari group around Hemet Nesingwary , who give the player the task of collecting lost pages from the book The Green Hills of Stranglethorn .

literature

source
  • Ernest Hemingway: Collected Works in Ten Volumes. Volume 9: The green hills of Africa. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1977, pp. 5-187, ISBN 3-499-31012-0 .
Secondary literature
  • Carlos Baker: Ernest Hemingway. The writer and his work (original title: Hemingway, the Writer as Artist , translated by the author himself), 2nd, revised edition by Helmut Hirsch, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1967, DNB 455602115 pp. 172–205.
  • Hans-Peter Rodenberg: Ernest Hemingway (= rororo 50626: Rowohlt's monographs ), Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1999, pp. 67-74. ISBN 3-499-50626-2 .

expenditure

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carlos Baker, Ernest Hemingway, The Writer and His Work, p. 178
  2. ↑ Hans-Peter Rodenberg, Ernest Hemingway, p. 67
  3. ↑ Hans-Peter Rodenberg, Ernest Hemingway, p. 72
  4. ↑ Ernest Hemingway, Collected Works in Ten Volumes, Vol. 9: The Green Hills of Africa, p. 107
  5. ↑ Ernest Hemingway, Collected Works in Ten Volumes, Vol. 9: The Green Hills of Africa, p. 172
  6. ↑ Ernest Hemingway, Collected Works in Ten Volumes, Vol. 9: The Green Hills of Africa, p. 50
  7. ↑ Ernest Hemingway, Collected Works in Ten Volumes, Vol. 9: The Green Hills of Africa, p. 50
  8. ↑ Ernest Hemingway, Collected Works in Ten Volumes, Vol. 9: The Green Hills of Africa, p. 125
  9. ↑ Hans-Peter Rodenberg, Ernest Hemingway, pp. 69-71
  10. ^ Carlos Baker, Ernest Hemingway, The Writer and His Work