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3.0étoiles sur 5
Disappointing Posthumous Finale, Janv. 20 2004
This book was published to coincide with what would have been Hemingway's 100th birthday. Unfortunately, it's not much of a tribute. Fortunately, it is supposed to be the final Hemingway work, so maybe the "picking at Papa's bones" has finally come to an end. Posthumous publications always raise the question of what would the author have wanted. Would Hemingway have wanted this book to see publication, particularly given the fact that it is need of heavy editing? I have my doubts that he ever intended for this book to see publication. He had shelved this project himself prior to his death and nothing I've read indicates he had any desire to see it to completion. The book is characterized as "A Fictional Memoir," and, rather than seeming to have been intended as a complete novel in and of itself, the book appears to be more of a collection of material out of which a novel might have been constructed. Hemingway began work on it in 1954, and it essentially describes Hemingway's trip to Kenya with his fourth wife, Mary Welsh. The line between what is fiction and what is memoir is fairly ambiguous throughout. Fans of Hemingway, such as myself, will be disappointed. There is no real plot or dramatic structure and what suspense there is, e.g., will Miss Mary kill her lion?, is disposed of before the book is half over. The book, which is reputed to have been edited down from over 800 pages, is in severe need of additional editing. Hemingway, who was famous for his self-editing, probably would have sheared off at least another quarter of the book. Still, there is enough of the old master present here to make it worth reading if you are a fan.
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3.0étoiles sur 5
Not his best work, Oct. 29 2003
This blend of autobiography and fiction, written when Hemingway returned from Kenyan safari in 1953, was edited into shape by the author's son years later. It focuses on Hemingway living in Kenya spending most of his time hunting, when not developing his burgeoning self-developed religion and talking with 'the natives'. He balances his personal life between Mary his wife, a petulant woman who highlights her insecurities whenever she denies them; and Debba, his native girlfriend.There is some glorious prose in this book, and some genuinely entertaining episodes, especially when Hemingway develops his own religion incorporating the Baby Jesus, animism and the Happy Hunting Grounds for a heavenly afterlife. But it is hard to feel for any of the characters - the whites come across as arrogant and mocking, the black Africans as comical and childlike. Much is made of Mary's 'need' to shoot a lion before Christmas, but even when it happens, she still complains. It is hard to believe the supposed respect of animals with the amount of killing included in the story. Isak Dinesen's published letters give a much more vivid and thought provoking portrait of Kenya, with a much less sentimental and condescending veneer. If it is vintage Hemingway you are after, try 'The Sun Also Rises' (also known as 'Fiesta') to read a great writer at his best.
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2.0étoiles sur 5
Only for the aficionado, Oct. 8 2003
A Hemingway aficionado will read this book anyway, so this review is for those who are new to Hemingway. If this is the first Hemingway book you read, it is liable to put you off Hemingway for good, which would be a loss. For you, I would recommend "A Farewell to Arms," "The Old Man and the Sea," "The Sun Also Rises," or any book of his short stories. As for "True at First Light," only a diehard Hemingway fan will be able to put up with the endless and pointless dialogs, the truly pathetic jokes, and the way a group of adult people can act like eight-year-olds about the shooting of a lion. And at the way Miss Mary (Hemingway's wife) constantly reminds her husband about how open-minded she is about his having an African mistress in the Shamba, and about how much fun they're having, and that she really doesn't mind about his mistress in the Shamba, but if the mistress were white, it would be quite a different story, and so on. And on. And on. Come to think of it, even for aficionados, this novel is an embarrassment. The only thing to be said for it is that it is a cut above "Across the River and Into the Trees." But that's like saying that horse unprintable is superior to bull unprintable.
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