Green Hills of Africa - Literary Analysis

Literary Analysis

The foreword of Green Hills of Africa immediately identifies this as a work of nonfiction that should be compared with similar works of fiction:

Unlike many novels, none of the characters or incidents in this book is imaginary. Any one not finding sufficient love interest is at liberty, while reading it, to insert whatever love interest he or she may have at the time. The writer has attempted to write an absolutely true book to see whether the shape of a country and the pattern of a month's action can, if truly presented, compete with a work of the imagination.

The book is well known today for a line that has nearly nothing to do with its subject. This quote is frequently used as evidence that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is The Great American Novel:

The good writers are Henry James, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain. That's not the order they're good in. There is no order for good writers.... All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. If you read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating. But it's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.

One episode in Green Hills of Africa is Hemingway's conversation with the Austrian Kandisky, whom Hemingway stops to help when Kandisky's truck breaks down. After initially trading opinions on German writers like Rainer Maria Rilke and Thomas Mann and disagreeing on their views of hunting, Hemingway and the Austrian later discuss American literature over dinner, and it turns out that one of the few American writers Hemingway approves of is Henry James, whom he mentions twice.

Specifically, Hemingway says: "The good American writers are Henry James, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain” and adds later that “Henry James wanted to make money. He never did, of course”. Intermixed with these comments on James, Crane, and Twain are Hemingway’s views of American writers in general, most of whom, he says, came to a bad end. When Kandisky asks about himself Hemingway tells him, "I am interested in other things. I have a good life but I must write because if I do not write a certain amount I do not enjoy the rest of my life.” When asked what he wants, Hemingway replies, “To write as well as I can and learn as I go along. At the same time I have my life which I enjoy and which is a damned good life."