True At First Light : A Fictional Memoir Of His Last African Safari

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Summary: Nice to hear from Papa again, but...
Review: You should have seen how excited I was to hear that a new Ernest Hemingway book was being released posthumously. Many people before me have summarized the content of this book, so to make a long story short, True At First Life is a cut down version of the journal he kept while on safari in Africa in 1952-53. Although the book is worth reading for biographical content, it often is very disjointed at times. This is most pronounced in the first five chapters of the book. This book was edited by his son, Patrick Hemingway. I would like to believe that Papa himself would have provided us with a more cohesive tale had he been alive to edit the book himself. In any case, the book suffers from a lack of climax. For instance, there is threat of invasion from a warring tribe in the first five chapters that is never realized. Even the killing of Mary's (his 4th wife) lion lacks punch. The only thing that made me want to continue reading this book was the great Hemingway style that shines through despite choppy editing and anticlimactic sequences. As a big Hemingway fan, I felt that this book was worth reading just to hear him speak to us again in his simple, direct style of writing. As a novel, it suffers from a lack of substance, plot, and progression. This however, will never detract from the beauty of his earlier works such as The Sun Also Rises and Farewell to Arms.

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Summary: Mzuri sana
Review: My first ever time to read Hemingway. Wow! This book may not be 'true at first light' but it is 'true to' (Africa) at first light, at high noon and when the light fades beyond the Masai Mara. We should all be glad Papa H. took more than his guns and camera on safari. He took his five senses and put it all to prose. All those long sentences, rambling syntax and repetitions are what make this book 'ture'--- true to Hemingway and true to the Africa he knew and loved.

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Summary: Darkness Visible
Review: One of Ernest Hemingway's contemporaries, Virginia Woolf, wrote that "every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works, yet we require critics to explain one and biographers to expound the other." Though Woolf was alluding to Pope, Addison and Swift, her observation could nor have been more descriptive of Hemingway's empirical model of writing, a model that provided an enormous self-portrait that both scholars and admirers alike have come to question and interpret: if Hemingway's writing was an extension of his life of if his life was formed from his writing. "True at First Light" is no exception. Though the book is subtitled "a fictional memoir," it remains true to the Hemingway style, part fiction and part biography. For traditional Hemingway readers, those whose love of the writer is congruous to their love for his writing, the book is worth reading for its biographical content. Those not so familiar may want to pass over this one and go back to the earlier books, the first novels and the early stories, such as the awe inspiring African tales "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." No matter what Hemingway wrote or endeavored during his long twilight, the early works read as fresh and interesting as the day he wrote them. This book only serves to obscure those achievements that a thousand writers have imitated but never equalled. "In Africa," he writes in this book, "a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon." Unfortunately, in "True at First Light," most of the darkness is still visible.

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Summary: Why say a word or two, when a thousand will do.....
Review: As an old Hemingway and African hand I was very disappointed. I'd like to believe that Papa would have edited this down to a long article or a very short story. The whole book is centered on some masterful writing from chapters 8 to 11/12 highlighted finally by the lion and leopard hunts, a very pointed assessment of the "white hunter/safari racket", the Masai, and himself. The book is similar to a Moveable Feast in that it drolls along, them hammers the reader in a few pages. Otherwise its very disappointing. There is a limit to so much redundancy concerning passing around beer, camp life, the philosophy of killing animals, and small talk; which was far exceeded. Hemingway now has left material for four books since his death. The best was probably Islands in the Stream, but the three others - Feast, Eden and now Light, although they all throw a few great punches, loose the fight. Hmmmm....seems a book comes out about every 10 years after his death. I guess we have 10 or more years till the next, plenty of time to edit it down.

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Summary: Endlessly Bathing, Endlessly Drinking
Review: "Then I took a bath." "Then Mary asked me if I wanted another gimlet." Then another bath. Papa must've been the cleanest damn white hunter ever. If you're looking for economical writing, dis ain't da place. The most telling sentence in the book occurs when Pat Hemingway quotes his father: "We're just sitting cross-legged in a bazaar, and if people aren't interested in what we're saying, they'll go away." The book should have been titled "Cross-legged in a Bazaar," and that quote should have been on the quote page. You've been warned. But if you stay along for the ride you'll get some fairly typical "African" Hemingway. Oh, the disquiet of the marriage is not so well articulated as in "Garden of Eden," and the only threat of something violent happening (a Mau Mau insurrection) dissolves early on. The book delivers many incredibly boring conversations (even for posthumous Hemingway) in their entirety, and the author's now famous male chauvinism remains largely intact (and as thoroughly annoying as ever) throughout the text. Funniest thing is Papa now attributing to himself a number of enthusiastic "That's wonderful, darling!" comments, right out of effeminate British romance films of the Forties. Say what? There are some distinctive descriptive passages, but is it worth the trip? For me, to read some new Hemingway at the end of the century he helped define was reason enough. But it may not be for you.

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Summary: Hemingway has brought Africa to his readers in his own words
Review: Hemingway has found a spot on the shelves of readers yearning to read the journals of an exquisite writer. His accounts of this safari with his wife, his attentive bond with the local tribes, and the pure enchantment of the hunt have kept this reader from putting the book down. He has out done himself on bringing his dedicated readers and those who favor a good adventure novel together for a novel to cap of a legacy. Both groups and anyone wanting a good book to sit down with at their hunting camp, or just a book to throw yourself into the cold nights coming this winter, would appreciate True at First Light

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Summary: Much better than most reviews
Review: There is some masterful writing in this book. I read the excerpt in the New Yorker and declared that it was wretched. Then I obtained the book and read the entire book just to enjoy the Hemingwayness of it: the clean descriptions and the jokes (he had a quiet, mean way of jabbing people, i.e. his wife is talking about Look magazine, and speaks of the issue as "the number" the way a former magazine insider would. He repeats "...the number." You can hear the deflating nastiness in his voice.) The effect was delicious. At the same time, he painted Mary as a classy, fun woman who had a tiger by the tail. Hemingway's account of his Massai "wife" Debba was very fine. I could picture her, and I liked her a lot. The action writing is vivid. He paints animals beautifully, especially the hyena, which terrifies him. Finally, I enjoyed the shopping expedition while Mary was away. This is a very funny book. Would he have published it had he lived? I think he would have. His premise is sound : What's true at first light is a lie at noon. Well, it's the truth.

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Summary: This is research material
Review: If you like Hemingway don't read this book. If you want to study Hemingway as a man and a writer read this book. It will not give you pure entertainment but you might understand Hemingways writting processes better.

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Summary: Astonishly good even for non-hunters
Review: I prepared myself for choppiness, uneven dialog, and even boredom. I dislike hunters and hunting, would never go on a safari yet the book was fascinating because it was pure Hemingway genius in long stretches. Editor Patrick left enough of the raw , true thoughts about Africa and enough details of his father's weird ways with women. I was puzzled by Mary Hemingway's attitude toward Debba, the native "fiancee". However Mary was there for the lion hunting and that was made very clear. She loved the adoration of the natives and her role as Papa's hunting comnpanion. I thank Patrick for his work and don't think it was all for financial reward. He knows the value of his father's honest words.

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Summary: Parts of This Make Me Wonder. . .
Review: Hemingway deserved a better introduction than the one Patrick wrote for him in this book. Further, although Hemingway's voice is undeniable in parts of this novel, there are other portions which ring very "politically correct", and thus, for Hemingway, lack the ring of veracity. Papa was nothing if not scathingly frank and truthful, almost to a point of cruelty at times. What one finds here is a sort of African Utopia story. All the natives are charmingly happy and their interactions with the Europeans are flawlessly felicitous. I don't believe it. And I don't believe Hemingway actually wrote some of it. Pat: please leave your legendary father's unpublished works alone. If you must publish them, publish them in manuscript, unedited.