doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Peter Hathaway Capstick

Interesting in the Wiki biography that Capstick started writing about his adventures in the late 1960's . . . but made his first trip to Africa in 1968. No disagreement that he did a lot to promote hunting in Africa, or a resurgence of interest in "classic" books by people like Bror Blixen, Karamojo Bell, etc.

He was a very good writer. I read the entire set of his books years ago. My only issue with him was that he would make the presence of a spider sound like a full blown attack by an enraged bull elephant. Mambas chasing kids down and biting them, using a suit of homemade armor made from linoleum floor tiles to flush leopards out of the thick stuff, etc. I'll always wonder if he didn't "embellish" a lot of his exploits a great deal.

SRH

PHC was fun to read. He brought an entire generation stories about hunting in Africa. If those stories were all ab out him or about others who cares. Good copy is still good copy and he did not claim to have saved lives or invented an new cure for some dreaded disease. We have a Vice president who plagiarized others works and a President who did not write his own autobiography and has been to all 57 states. I think the bar has been lowered all around these days.

All history is revisionist, written by the winners or survivors. I enjoy his stories thoroughly regardless. That is all that matters to me. As for the rest, whatever.....

Hey, there's an L. Brown in Wisconsin that writes a lot like you do!

I read a great Capstick story about testing an air rifle--some varmint, maybe a rat, that he'd baited with a chunk of hamburger, made it sound like he was sitting for a leopard. Great books, no matter how far up they peg (or don't) the truth meter.

Good writing is . . . well, good writing. But if I want to read about Jim Corbett's exploits, I'd much rather read Corbett on Corbett rather than Capstick (or anyone else) on Corbett, even if Capstick was a better writer. George Bird Evans, in one of his anthologies of stories by other writers, used the categories "writers who hunted" and "hunters who wrote". Corbett was a hunter who wrote, Capstick a writer who hunted. Not that there's anything wrong with the latter category, which would also include Hemingway--among others.

Kirk, I could certainly sell more articles if I wrote about deer hunting. But since I don't hunt deer, I don't write deer hunting articles.

It's all story telling. Canada's Farley Mowat never let the facts get in the way of a good story. History of any kind should be different, particularly military, but hunting and fishing always provided a wide berth for lying and embellishment---if it makes for a better story and doesn't hurt anyone. Good writing, of course, is the premium, like the good shot, the good hunt even if nothing is in the bag.

Not being a fan of creative nonfiction, I have to disagree with you, King, about not letting the facts get in the way of a good story. There is certainly room for fiction in the sporting world. Think Corey Ford's "The Road to Tinkhamtown", or for humor, his "Lower Forty" stories. But if I'm writing about something I did, or something some famous hunter did, I'm sticking to the facts. Otherwise, we start sliding famous hunters into the Paul Bunyan category--or maybe Davey Crockett/Daniel Boone, where it gets too hard to separate facts from legend. Let their deeds--which are likely impressive enough--stand on their own merits. Otherwise, someone who knows the facts is likely to pop up and say "I was there, and that's all a crock." We've seen that, to a certain extent, with Capstick in the above posts. If he was embellishing his own life, while that does not diminish him as a writer in my eyes, it does diminish him as a person.

Mr. Brown:
Well stated. As I said about 50 posts ago, one of the world's greatest REAL hunters, Jack O'Connor, considered PHC pretty much an impostor... "who fancies himself an Englishman."

Regardless of his story telling skills, PHC failed on one important virtue: disclosing that many of his adventures were actually those of others.

I believe you call that a "poseur."

So I guess after all's said n done "85...Sticks" doesn't cut it as an autograph, eh?
.I'll have to carefully pencil in Chap,n rub off the last s (for savings:)
I kinda knew there'd be some comments about his,,,er,authenticity.
But I,ve read most of his books , like many of you,& they are a
decent read.
cheers lads
franc