The Snows of Kilimanjaro

The Snows of Kilimanjaro is just what you’d expect from Papa, top notch writing that strikes you right between the ribs and the eyes at the same time. This book is a collection of Hemingway’s best short stories, the finest of which are set in the Dark Continent. We see the eponymous story, which has a writer dying in the African bush with the woman he loves, a woman of immense wealth who’s fallen for him and is destined to be his last lover. In his dying moments, he sees things lucidly, perhaps more lucidly than ever. Fathers and Sons talks about places you knew as a kid, which are forever indelible in your mind, but can never be really explained to others. How can one truly convey the sights and smells of childhood to someone else, except by banking on the fact that they too had similar experiences and thus can share a little iota of empathy.

The Killers is a fly trap of helplessness and despair. Hemingway captures the plight of a man who knows his executioners are in town, and he sits in his room all day waiting to die. The Short Happy Life is the best story in this compendium, being in some way the epitome of what you expect Hemingway to be like in Africa. The rich couple that goes to Africa to shoot a lion, consisting of the woman who is so beautiful but so cold, and the man who is under the uxorial thumb. The big white hunter is immune to their connubial troubles, but is not averse to bedding the woman when she desires a man who is not a suburban coward. The ending is what you’d expect, but that doesn’t reduce the impact of the tale.

A great read, one that should grace your shelves.

ISBN: 978-0-0684-80444-6