Letting some hot air out of Robert Ruark

[Russ16]

If you read through the lines one get more understanding about what he saw or went with . All the tough work days and war in the convoy escorte .

Sad but about the smoke and booze which took so many good people in his profession .

Sadly no meeting between him and Truman Capote is recorded , that would been a good one . ( as Ann Woodward would understood what he meant with the tiger shoot in India )

Terry Wieland's biography of Ruark "A View From a Tall Hill" is very good.

 

[Red Leg]

I actually love Hemmingway but think his best writing is not his hunting related books.

The only "hunting book" that he published during his lifetime was "Green Hills of Africa."

Two others were published posthumously long after his death, and one can understand why he never let them see the light of day - "True at First Light" (99) and "Under Kilimanjaro" (05). He also wrote two short stories that were published during his lifetime - "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."

I suppose "Green Hills" isn't "The Old Man and the Sea" for which he won the 1952 Nobel Prize, or "For Whom the Bell Tolls" which was his greatest commercial success, but I think it is a pretty extraordinary work and so different from what usually emerges from the keyboards of modern writers like Boddington and his ilk - most of which I find unreadable.

 

[DrBob]

Well, this will likely sling a skunk into the room, and not saying that Ruark did not exhibit a masterful use of the English language, but what I am suggesting is that he had not earned the right to the use of such language in Horn of the Hunter!
Just keepin' it real, as they say:
Ruark admits that he had never so much as fired a rifle, especially HIS rifles prior to the safari. Abomination!
He has zero grasp of the basics of marksmanship when firing upon his first animals, striking one antelope in the foot! Disrespectful of game.
His choice of a 220 swift is not explained, but he abandons it after seeing dismal results in blowing a ham off a warthog.
He gets talked into immediately going after a lion and "places the shot right behind the ear" a low odds horrible first shot choice, especially given the sloping skull, topped by hair.
He turns down a free leopard! (Should he have been properly prepared to hunt, this alone would constitute a reason to commit him to asylum)
He talks about how incompetent hunters place the PH at risk, while himself embodying said incompetent hunters.
He idol worships his PH as ALL first timers do when they come back as instant experts.
He proceeds to give us all sage advice, written like a thriller, while he is still wet behind the ears, and repeating good advice he's heard/just learned.
He describes armchair bullshit like facing buffalo stampedes by shooting one, then standing on it while the others stream by, really? (does he know just how rare an actual oncoming stampede is--not just the jostling forward to see whats of danger? Or how hard it is to instantly "drop" a buff?)

Entertaining reading, written about others level of experience/expertise which he adopted, as any learner should, but not authoritative. Colorful description of a beautiful land and experience which doubtlessly helped the safari industry then and now by evoking wonder and appreciation.

Still, beginner gushing, all dressed up. Your comments?

So Ruark wasn't a rifleman going to Africa. I am certain he knew his way around a shotgun. But pause for a minute..... how many of us would have given their eye teeth for the on the ground immersion tutilage by Harry Selby?

 

[Tiger2001]

I attended an SCI fundraiser once and the person who was giving a video presentation used the term "stoking the campfire" and credited people like Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Ruark, and Peter Hathaway Capstick with keeping interest in African hunting safaris alive in the larger public mind--by stoking the campfire with their writings. Ruark was definitely a couple of generations before me (I grew up reading everything I could from Capstick) but his writings on Africa are a great snapshot in time. If anyone gets a hold of the book "The Fabric of Terror" Ruark wrote the foreward for it. That book is something else!

 

[Russ16]

The only "hunting book" that he published during his lifetime was "Green Hills of Africa."

Two others were published posthumously long after his death, and one can understand why he never let them see the light of day - "True at First Light" (99) and "Under Kilimanjaro" (05). He also wrote two short stories that were published during his lifetime - "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."

I suppose "Green Hills" isn't "The Old Man and the Sea" for which he won the 1952 Nobel Prize, or "For Whom the Bell Tolls" which was his greatest commercial success, but I think it is a pretty extraordinary work and so different from what usually emerges from the keyboards of modern writers like Boddington and his ilk - most of which I find unreadable.

I like True at First Light much better than Green Hills. The longer unedited Under Kilimanjaro is ok.

For Whom the Bell Tolls, Sun Also Rises, Farewell to Arms are all superior to Green Hills in my opinion.

 

[HankBuck]

Well, this will likely sling a skunk into the room, and not saying that Ruark did not exhibit a masterful use of the English language, but what I am suggesting is that he had not earned the right to the use of such language in Horn of the Hunter!
Just keepin' it real, as they say:
Ruark admits that he had never so much as fired a rifle, especially HIS rifles prior to the safari. Abomination!
He has zero grasp of the basics of marksmanship when firing upon his first animals, striking one antelope in the foot! Disrespectful of game.
His choice of a 220 swift is not explained, but he abandons it after seeing dismal results in blowing a ham off a warthog.
He gets talked into immediately going after a lion and "places the shot right behind the ear" a low odds horrible first shot choice, especially given the sloping skull, topped by hair.
He turns down a free leopard! (Should he have been properly prepared to hunt, this alone would constitute a reason to commit him to asylum)
He talks about how incompetent hunters place the PH at risk, while himself embodying said incompetent hunters.
He idol worships his PH as ALL first timers do when they come back as instant experts.
He proceeds to give us all sage advice, written like a thriller, while he is still wet behind the ears, and repeating good advice he's heard/just learned.
He describes armchair bullshit like facing buffalo stampedes by shooting one, then standing on it while the others stream by, really? (does he know just how rare an actual oncoming stampede is--not just the jostling forward to see whats of danger? Or how hard it is to instantly "drop" a buff?)

Entertaining reading, written about others level of experience/expertise which he adopted, as any learner should, but not authoritative. Colorful description of a beautiful land and experience which doubtlessly helped the safari industry then and now by evoking wonder and appreciation.

Still, beginner gushing, all dressed up. Your comments?

@steve white - so RURAK is like most other Authors? He writes in an interesting and entertaining way AND slips in some authenticity when the opportunity arises. Isn’t that the same (or very close) to how Hemingway, Capstick, etc… write ? I don’t disagree with your points - I think they are accurate, I’m just not surprised to hear that Outdoor Writers embellish and make up some stuff “color” for a more interesting story. A PH has a lot more knowledge but can they write a book that anyone (except some of Us) would buy and read? If I want to read something No nonsense & informative about Hunting - I can review AH Hunt reports….sometimes a little entertainment with just a “few facts” mixed in makes for better reading.
But I agree with you and would prefer both: well written, entertaining AND factual, accurate, & True———does that even exist?

 

[Doug3006]

At the risk of hijacking the thread (without much regret) I’d like to ask. Several of us have compared the big 3 hunting writers. Hemingway, Ruark and Capstick. Shouldn’t Faulkner be included? His book Big Woods contains several great hunting stories. The Bear being one of his very best works.

 

[Red Leg]

At the risk of hijacking the thread (without much regret) I’d like to ask. Several of us have compared the big 3 hunting writers. Hemingway, Ruark and Capstick. Shouldn’t Faulkner be included? His book Big Woods contains several great hunting stories. The Bear being one of his very best works.

As a literary figure, Faulkner occupies a pedestal with room at the top for a select few American authors like Hemingway, Clemens (Twain), Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Morrison. As a proud and largely unreconstructed Southerner, I worship at his feet. I think my father gave me a copy of "Absalom, Absalom!" when I was 12, and I probably finished it when I was 16 (those unending sentences were a challenge for a teenager.) But, I have likely read it three or four times since. He also was a passionate hunter, and you are correct "The Big Woods" collected in an anthology his outdoor related short stories of which "The Bear" is the classic. However, he never wrote an auto biographical hunting book describing such an adventure in which he participated. And of course, he never wrote about Africa.