General Information
===================
 Title.................: True At First Light
 Author................: Ernest Hemingway
 Read By...............: Brian Dennehy
 Copyright.............: 2001
 Audiobook Copyright...: 2001
 Publisher.............: BBC Audiobooks America
 Abridged..............: No

Original Media Information
==========================
 ISBN..................: 0-7927-2931-5
 Media.................: CD
 Number................: 9
 Source................: Library
 Condition.............: Used

File Information
================
 Number of MP3s........: 211
 Total Duration........: 10:34:33
 Total MP3 Size........: 291.31
 Parity Archive........: No
 Ripped By.............: Orion
 Ripped With...........: Exact Audio Copy
 Encoded With..........: LAME
 Encoded At............: CBR 64 kbit/s 44100 Hz Mono
 Normalize.............: no
 Noise Reduction.......: no
 ID3 Tags..............: Set, v1.1

Posting
=======
 Posting Plan..........: As time and connection speed allows.
 Reposting Rules.......: Depends on my mood and how you ask.

Book Description
================
Ernest Hemingway's final posthumous work bears the rather awkward designation 
"a fictional memoir" and arrives under a cloud of controversial editing 
and patching--but all of that ends up being beside the point. Though 
this account of a 1953 safari in Kenya lacks the resolution and clarity 
of the best Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms) it is 
"real" Hemingway nonetheless. Let scholars work out where memoir leaves 
off and fiction begins: for the common reader, the prose alone casts 
an irresistible spell. 
In True at First Light the glory days of the "great white hunters" are 
over and the Mau Mau rebellion is violently dislodging European farmers 
from Kenya's arable lands. But to the African gun bearers, drivers, 
and game scouts who run his safari in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro, 
Hemingway remains a lordly figure--almost a god. Two parallel quests 
propel the narrative: Mary, Hemingway's fourth and last wife, doggedly 
stalks an enormous black-maned lion that she is determined to kill by 
Christmas, while Hemingway becomes increasingly obsessed with Debba, 
a beautiful young African woman. What makes the novel especially strange 
and compelling is that Mary knows all about Debba and accepts her as 
a "supplementary wife," even as she loses no opportunity to rake her 
husband over the coals for his drinking, lack of discipline in camp, 
and condescending protectiveness. 

As usual with Hemingway, atmosphere and attitude are far more important 
than plot. Mary at one point berates her husband as a "conscience-ridden 
murderer," but this is precisely the moral stance that gives the hunting 
scenes their tension and beauty. "I was happy that before he died he 
had lain on the high yellow rounded mound with his tail down," Hemingway 
writes of "Mary's lion," "and his great paws comfortable before him 
and looked off across his country to the blue forest and the high white 
snows of the big Mountain." 

Passages like these--and there are many of them--redeem the book's rambling 
structure and occasional lapses into self-indulgent posturing. Joan 
Didion dismissed True at First Light in The New Yorker as "words set 
down but not yet written," but this fails to acknowledge the power of 
these words. The value of True at First Light lies in its candor, its 
nakedness: it provides a rare opportunity to watch a master working 
his way toward art. --David Laskin 

From Publishers Weekly
More a curiosity than a major contribution to his oeuvre, this fictional 
memoir of a 1953 safari in Kenya, edited by Hemingway's son Patrick 
from a first-draft manuscript and published to celebrate the 100th anniversary 
of Papa's birth, is a sometimes entertaining, sometimes trying read. 
Hemingway narrates the rambling story in his own voice, and others, 
including his wife, Mary, are identified by name. More humorous than 
most of Hemingway's novels, the narrative also contains enough hunting 
scenes for Hemingway and others to show the requisite grace under pressure. 
The old Hemingway magic flashes sporadically, like lightning, but not 
often enough. There are a series of sentences intoning "I wished..." 
reminiscent of his earlier linguistic triumphs, and some dialogue, crisp 
and to the point, like the stichomythia of Greek tragedy. Lines like 
"So I carried her in and she weighed just what a woman that you love 
should weigh when you lifted her in your arms...." still resonate. The 
Kenyan setting is atmospheric, but the promising elements of the plotAa 
possible Mau Mau attack on the camp, Miss Mary's determination to kill 
a lionAtoo often stagnate for lack of action and dramatic tension. Some 
uneasiness occurs between Hemingway and Mary over Hemingway's attraction 
to an African woman, Debba, but even this is pretty tame. A supporting 
cast of African characters are not distinct individuals, and the prolific 
use of Swahili words is often confusing in spite of a glossary. Yet, 
as prose by Hemingway, no matter how distanced and imperfect, the book 
is still worth reading. Perhaps it will inspire new readers to delve 
into Hemingway's true legacy, the novels and stories like "Cat in the 
Rain," and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." BOMC main selection; 
first serial to the New Yorker; rights sold in Denmark, England, France, 
Germany, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the Czech 
Republic.

