Customer Reviews

True at First Light

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

As a longtime Hemingway fan, I approached this unfinished work with both hesitation and skepticism: like "The Garden of Eden," the whole idea of this book seems wrong -- it smacks of disturbing the dead. If Hemingway had wanted this published, he would have finished it, right? The poor guy was in deep artistic decline when he wrote it, right?

Well, after reading this "fictional memoir," I'm no longer quite sure.

Perhaps I read too much of the lukewarm, pre-publication hype -- my expectations were very low. But upon reading it, "True At First Light" struck me as astonishingly strong. I didn't find it very rambling, or half-baked as some have charged. Nor did it seem racist: It is certainly a book of it's time -- the mid-50's -- but its treatment of Africa and Africans seems eminently respectful and somewhat sad. He compares the faded glory of these post-Colonial peoples to that of the Native Americans in the wake of the settling of the U.S. -- a mortally wounded people, struggling to preserve a history and tradition mostly destroyed by European warriors, profiteers and missionaries.

The writing is clearly an early draft -- but what a fine early draft it is! There are flashes of brilliance that only the greatest living writers could hope to match in their most "finished" works. And I personally like the less-guarded qualities of late Hemingway. His early work is clearly more innovative, and carries more historical and cultural importance. But that's not really the point, I'd argue.

For too long, Hemingway has been either lionized or condemned as a larger-than-life celebrity icon -- and of course, in many ways that's what he was. But let's not forget that under all the dated, off-putting bombast, he was also a skilled and sensitive artist -- and this work is well worth the time and close attention of anyone who loves that oft-forgotten, oft-obscured soul: Hemingway, the writer.

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.

... and it's worth its weight in shillingi. Kudos to E. Hemingway and his son, Patrick, for being such a (semi-posthumously) talented pair. If you haven't read much (or any) Hemingway, this book makes for a beautiful foray into his works. True at First Light is a gorgeous, tantalizing description of his time as a game warden, with phrasing so rich and narrative so taut, one can barely refrain from booking a one-way flight to Kenya. Hemingway deftly transforms what one American reader may consider the somewhat mundane business of hunting, washing and drinking into an extraordinarily attractive life; the allure is in the escape from this complicated and hectic society. Perhaps his connection with the reader is best explained in Hemingway's own words: "Everything had been taken out of my control and I welcomed, as always, the lack of responsibility and the splendid inactivity with no obligation to kill, pursue, protect, intrigue, defend or participate and I welcomed the chance to read."

Probably the least successful of Hemingway's posthumous works, this fictional memoir, as it is called in the sub-title, existed in an incomplete manuscript form in Hemingway's papers at the Kennedy Library for years. Called "The Africa Book" by scholars, it is the last of Hemingway's posthumous works to be published (probably because of its overall poor quality).

This work certain lacks either the adventurous spirit of Islands in the Stream, the humor and aesthetic value of A Moveable Feast, or dark tension of The Garden of Eden. It holds interest for the reader because it shows how post-war Hemingway attempted to remake himself as a writer, as a man, and as a public figure. He does this in a decided post-modern way, using himself as a character in a largely fictional setting (much as some heavy hitters like Philip Roth would do in a few decades).

This book was pared down from a large manuscript, so has suffered the same fate as other posthumously edited works: this is not Hemingway's work. But reading it, there are all the tell-tale signs that this is indeed his effort, although he did not quite reach his high water mark.

True at First Light an incomplete posthumous novel by Hemingway is better than Iexpected. The novel os not have a strong narrative drive and at times is rambling but the descriptions of Africa, the story of Marys obsession with killing a black maned lion and how the narrator interacts with the Africans are all compelling.Hemingway's style is something I have always admired and it is strong here. If I could give the novel just 3 and a half stars I would because of the earlier mentioned weaknesses but since I dont have that option I give it 4

The reviews on the back of my copy of this book describe it as 'a celebration of real living' with 'a feeling of real joy.' That wasn't quite impression I got from it. Mechanics of the very un-eventful plot aside, the 'novel' seems to have at its heart the idea that our lives as human beings are just big fat lies. Writers are liars, the narrator says, 'congenital liars.' He drinks heavily with his friend GC because he needs the `purposeful dulling of receptivity' - the ability to lie to himself - to get through the day. In marriage, he says, `fidelity does not exist nor ever is implied except at the first marriage.' His career is a lie. His marriage is a lie. He is a liar. We are all liars.

Not exactly a message of hope. But then, the novel's narrator (oh, and don't fool yourself into thinking that this narrator named Ernest, a writer with depression and alcoholism who is on safari in Africa and is married to a woman named Mary, is in any way meant to represent the REAL Ernest -- no, no, this memoir is a work of 'fiction'!) claims that he's `not hopeless because I still have hope,' and then adds: `the day I haven't you'll know it bloody quick'. Since we all know how that worked out for Hemingway, we can't help but read that comment in the context of his real life, which suggests that even the statement 'I still have hope,' was at least half-lie when he wrote it.

So, with that, I won't give the story away, just the frustrating idea that drives it: you can only approximate some kind of truth during rare moments in life, and much more time is spent preparing for those moments and recovering from or misremembering them than is spent in their actual experience. When those moments of truth, of 'light' arrive, they're unbearably fleeting. The truth is fleeting, love is fleeting, life is fleeting. The good thing about this book - and what isn't fleeting - is the beautiful cadence, terse as ever, of the language in which Hemingway conveys this empty half-true and despairing view of the world.

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.

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 not 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.

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.

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.