True at First Light
Hemingway, Ernest ,Patrick Hemingway
Language: English
Published by William Heinemann, 1999
- First Edition
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: Alpha 2 Omega Books BA, Southampton, HANTS, United KingdomAlpha 2 Omega Books BA
AbeBooks seller since March 22, 2010
Condition: Used - Very good
US$ 21.21
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
VGC.William Heinemann,1999.First UK edition-first printing(1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2).Black hardback(gilt lettering to the spine,small nick on the cover) with Dj(a couple of creases and small nicks on the Dj cover),both in VGC.Nice and clean pages with ink mark,nick and slightly tainted on the outer edges,two small pencil marks impressions on the edge of the first blank page of the book,a couple of small nicks on the edges of the pages.The book is in VGC with light shelf wear.319pp.Price un-clipped.
Seller Inventory # 4857
- Title
- True at First Light
- Author
- Hemingway, Ernest ,Patrick Hemingway
- Publisher
- William Heinemann
- Publication year
- 1999
- Condition
- Very good
- Dust jacket
- Very good
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 043400832X
- ISBN 13
- 9780434008322
- Edition
- First UK edition-first printing.
- Seller catalogs
- Fiction
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review
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 candour, its nakedness: it provides a rare opportunity to watch a master working his way toward art. --David Laskin
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Alpha 2 Omega Books BA
Southampton, HANTS, United Kingdom
AbeBooks seller since March 22, 2010
Shipping rates from United Kingdom to U.S.A.
| Item | 7 to 21 business days | 7 to 18 business days |
|---|---|---|
| First item | US$ 31.15 | US$ 33.86 |
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Alpha 2 Omega Books: We are an independent online bookseller, based near Southampton, Hampshire in the South of England, with approximately 9,000 books - first editions, scarce, hard to find, out-of-print, as well as brand new. We specialise in biographies, autobiographies, literature & fiction, rare and collectable books. We have been in business for more than 22 years with many satisfied customers. We are a member of The Booksellers Association.
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Rare & out of print books, General, Literature & Fiction, Autobiographies, BiogarphiesSeller's business information
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