And that was the end of the beginning of that
14 Sep 2014 8:49 PM GMT
This short story by a Nobel winning literary giant pricks bang on the ultimate slumbered call – ‘what would I regret not doing if I were to die today… ?’, and although this tiny mighty Vintage 2004 publish winds itself in 24 pages, it leaves you in an odd ecliptic stance of full blown biographical story, which it isn’t! Rated as a masterpiece by Ernst Hemingway himself, the prose braids despair with idealism and leaves you feeling gnawed on tequila shot.
Second page into reading and you doubt whether Harry’s (protagonist of the book) thoughts are
purely fictional and by the mid of this story you wonder if this is about Hemingway's life(the thought made me research on his extremely eventful/colourful life), and you surely grow as confident as Harry’s wife Helen (played by Susan Hayward in the 1952 blockbuster film by the same name), in believing that the plane would come to his rescue – as he lay visiting all the places, people and instances for he equates death to the hyena’s whimpering at his tent in the remotes of Africa, near Arusha.
Harry’s severely infected, thorn pricked leg wound has turned into a gangrene with no access to medical help. He blurts acid to feel alive and distance himself from the fear of death, ‘Love is a dunghill. And I’m a cock that gets on it to crow’. His immobility puts him on a thought whirlpool as he objectively reminisces various instances from his life which he saved for writing about and he lets you in his regret ‘But, in yourself, you said that you would write about these people; about the very rich; that you were really not of them but a spy in their country; that you leave it and write of it… But he would never do it, because each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally he did no work at all’.
The author’s forte is to put sharp images in your mind with respect to people, their lives/background/thoughts as well as death. ‘It was not her fault that when he went to her he was already over… it was not so much that he lied as that there was no truth to tell’.
With his imagery still going strong, it turns out that the plane does arrive and Harry gets rescued to grandeur of hills of Kilimanjaro. In 1933, 34 year old Hemingway and wife, Pauline went on safari to East Africa, out of which came his work, Green Hills of Africa, as well as the short stories The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Around this time, Hemingway contracted amoebic dysentery that caused a prolapsed intestine, and he was evacuated by plane to Nairobi, which explains his perfect description on being air lifted to the whiteness of Kilimanjaro, at the end of this story.
But does Harry survive? Thats where this suspense jerker of a dynamic passage culminates. It is by all means anybody’s couple hours of juicy read and it goes without saying that you should only be admiring Hemingway’s craft in this classic.
Second page into reading and you doubt whether Harry’s (protagonist of the book) thoughts are
purely fictional and by the mid of this story you wonder if this is about Hemingway's life(the thought made me research on his extremely eventful/colourful life), and you surely grow as confident as Harry’s wife Helen (played by Susan Hayward in the 1952 blockbuster film by the same name), in believing that the plane would come to his rescue – as he lay visiting all the places, people and instances for he equates death to the hyena’s whimpering at his tent in the remotes of Africa, near Arusha.
Harry’s severely infected, thorn pricked leg wound has turned into a gangrene with no access to medical help. He blurts acid to feel alive and distance himself from the fear of death, ‘Love is a dunghill. And I’m a cock that gets on it to crow’. His immobility puts him on a thought whirlpool as he objectively reminisces various instances from his life which he saved for writing about and he lets you in his regret ‘But, in yourself, you said that you would write about these people; about the very rich; that you were really not of them but a spy in their country; that you leave it and write of it… But he would never do it, because each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally he did no work at all’.
The author’s forte is to put sharp images in your mind with respect to people, their lives/background/thoughts as well as death. ‘It was not her fault that when he went to her he was already over… it was not so much that he lied as that there was no truth to tell’.
With his imagery still going strong, it turns out that the plane does arrive and Harry gets rescued to grandeur of hills of Kilimanjaro. In 1933, 34 year old Hemingway and wife, Pauline went on safari to East Africa, out of which came his work, Green Hills of Africa, as well as the short stories The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Around this time, Hemingway contracted amoebic dysentery that caused a prolapsed intestine, and he was evacuated by plane to Nairobi, which explains his perfect description on being air lifted to the whiteness of Kilimanjaro, at the end of this story.
But does Harry survive? Thats where this suspense jerker of a dynamic passage culminates. It is by all means anybody’s couple hours of juicy read and it goes without saying that you should only be admiring Hemingway’s craft in this classic.
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