Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway

From the thrill, frustration and excitement of the hunt for big game to whisky and soda, fresh butter and Viennese dessert with friends, Hemingway articulates a zest for life, brilliantly capturing the landscape of the African continent and its wildlife.

I decided to read this book shortly after returning from a trip to East Africa, whilst Africa was still fresh in my mind. I had been on safaris in Zambia and Tanzania and I had fallen in love with the strong colours, the infinite landscapes and the vast empty skies I had seen in the places I had visited.

What I did not realise was that Green Hills of Africa was not at all similar to the travel diary I had been keeping, in which I had written down the facts I had learnt about the animals I had seen and expressed my wonder at seeing them in the wild. I had interpreted the “hunt for big game” mentioned in the blurb as Hemingway simply being on the lookout for big game – after all, that was thrilling, frustrating and exciting to me as described. In fact, I should have interpreted those words literally, for Hemingway’s book is focused almost entirely on trying to kill as large a kudu as he can find.

I have to say that this realisation was quite a disappointment. Like most people in 2023, I am adamantly against big game hunting and I especially condemn the hunting of endangered animals, so I felt uncomfortable reading about Hemingway and his group nonchalantly tracking and shooting these animals.

At the same time, though, I do acknowledge that Green Hills of Africa was published in 1935 when hunting was an upper-class social sport and when numbers of animals were not at such critical levels as they have been in the twenty-first century. The book is a prime example of a reader’s quandary of judging a book written in the past by today’s standards. Having given that quandary quite a lot of thought over the years, my opinion is that it is possible to appreciate literature that includes actions that were acceptable when the book was written but which we would today find unacceptable, but simultaneously to recognise that those aspects are unacceptable by today’s standards. And if the latter overpowers the former, you don’t have to finish the book.

On a more personal level, although I disapproved of his choice of activity, I was admittedly envious of Hemingway spending a whole month on safari. I think there is nothing better on our planet than travelling through the silence of an African national park at dawn, eyes peeled for big cats, with the only shots fired being shots from a camera.