Green Hills of Africa

Green Hills of Africa (1935), a nonfiction book by American author Ernest Hemingway, features accounts and reflections based on a month-long East African safari Hemingway took in 1933 with his second wife, Pauline Marie Pfeiffer. Most of Green Hills of Africa takes place around Lake Manyara in the nation of Tanzania.

The book is divided into four major sections. At the start of "Pursuit and Conversation," Hemingway's hunting party returns from yet another fruitless hunt. While there are plenty of African animals to hunt while on safari, Hemingway will not be satisfied until he manages to kill the kudu, a highly elusive species of antelope native to East Africa. Hemingway briefly describes an encounter with Kandisky, an Austrian man whose automobile won't start. Having already published a number of popular novels, including A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway is recognized by Kandisky as an international literary celebrity. After rebuking Hemingway's offers to help with his stalled automobile, Kandisky instead engages in a heated literary debate with the author.

Later that night, Kandisky visits Hemingway at his camp, as they had previously discussed. While Kandisky wants to debate literature some more, Hemingway's mind is elsewhere. All he seems to care about is hunting the kudu; his frustrations with his companion, Colonel "Pop" Phillips, continue to mount. The conversations about literature, nevertheless, produce some of the book's most famous passages. For example, Hemingway suggests that the only good American writers are Henry James, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain. Hemingway goes on to say that Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is "the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." Hemingway and Kandisky also discuss the German writers Rainer Maria Rilke and Thomas Mann.



In Part 2, "Pursuit Remembered," the narrative moves back in time to better contextualize Hemingway's obsessive hunt for the kudu. Earlier in the trip, Hemingway initiated a friendly competition with this friend Karl to determine who could kill the kudu first. The two also hunt other animals. Hemingway kills a rhino but is immediately dismayed to find that the rhino Karl killed is bigger. Hemingway likens the competitive nature of hunting to that of creating literature. Although literature is about art and emotion, the same competitiveness drives writers to outdo one another to create better work, Hemingway suggests. This idea is emphasized by more debates about the virtues of various authors. While the previous section focused on American and German writers, the debates in Part 2 focus on European authors, including Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gustave Flaubert, Leo Tolstoy, and Stendhal.

Eventually, Karl kills a kudu, besting Hemingway and winning the competition. Hemingway tries to comfort himself with the fact that Karl's kudu is particularly ugly. Unfortunately, Hemingway finds that the only thing capable of easing his increasingly tempestuous bouts of anger is liquor, specifically whiskey. He laments the sense of bitterness that has soured a friendship and invaded what should be a rousing safari adventure, but he does not know how to end his frustration.

In Part 3, "Pursuit and Failure," the narrative returns to the present. Hemingway commiserates with M'Cola, a hunting companion over their shared frustrated with their respective guides, along with their shared antipathy toward Karl's success. However, it becomes clear that Hemingway's bitterness is far greater than M'Cola's, thus deepening Hemingway's feelings of isolation. M'Cola suggests that perhaps Hemingway would be better off drinking calming tea as opposed to whiskey, but Hemingway refuses, instead, forcing his body into "angry sleep" each night with liquor. One day, a sudden downpour leaves Hemingway's gun wet. M'Cola promises to clean Hemingway's gun for him but forgets, thus igniting Hemingway's anger anew. Rather than shouting at M'Cola, however, Hemingway represses his anger, eventually concluding that it is better to forgive than to torment himself with negative emotions. Hemingway is rewarded for his more positive outlook when he hears about a previously untouched hunting ground that is supposedly teeming with kudu.



In Part 4, "Pursuit as Happiness," Hemingway is ecstatic as his party drives through the largely untouched hunting ground, discovering it to be as teeming with wildlife as he had hoped. There are indeed kudu everywhere, almost waiting to be picked off by hunters. Nevertheless, Hemingway, always in search of a challenge, decides instead to hunt the even rarer sable antelope. He wounds one, but it eventually escapes. The frustration at having come so close to killing a sable is even more profound than his previous frustration over the kudu. To make matters worse, Hemingway discovers at the end of the day that Karl has killed yet another kudu, this one far more beautiful than the last. Swallowing his anger and his pride, Hemingway congratulates Karl on the kill.

After receiving a number of mixed and negative reviews for Green Hills of Africa, Hemingway fell into a deep depression. It was during this period, however, that Hemingway wrote what are arguably his two finest Africa stories: "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."