As an English major, I have read other works by Hemingway, but hadn't read any of his nonfiction. This book was sort of an assignment for a class I took this summer. The writing was clear and I was able to visualize the situations and the setting well, but overall this wasn't something up my street, as they say. It's all about hunting, which I am not a fan of, and hunting circa the 1930s, which was all about blowing away as many animals as possible, which I am not a fan of, not to mention the rather racist and sexist "norms" of that era, which I am not a fan of. Of course, Papa somehow anticipates my reaction by including a paragraph toward the end of the book about how he justifies hunting because the meat gets eaten, the skin and etc. are valuable and kept, and that we all die anyway, etc. etc., and he isn't wrong; I was actually impressed by this paragraph, since it seemed so modern there among all the 1930s attitude and social norms. So that stopped my grumbling to some degree, ha ha. So overall my impression was... well, not overly enthusiastic, I guess. Writing = great, topic = meh. This book did make me want to fill in the gaps on Hemingway's fiction someday, though, if I ever clear the TBR pile.
As a bonus, this book counts for the Color-Coded Reading Challenge - hooray!
I will now resume reading the books that make up my Everest-size TBR pile. I think I will try to focus on some challenge reading for the rest of the month, since I am behind - wish me luck!
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