Memories of a Game Ranger by Harry Wolhuter

This book didnt really grab me, amounting to a series of selected anecdotes. I know I’m being a little unfair here, because it was very clearly advertised as such, but I would really have preferred a narrative.

You see, it is set in a fascinating period, covering the end of the 19th century. The author experienced life in a version of Africa that is largely gone, living in an undeveloped and unpopulated (to a western perspective) wilderness. He lived through the Anglo-Boer War (aka, South African War), the establishment of the first large scale National game park, and worked as the very first game ranger, at a time when they were shooting the carnivores to preserve the prey species (they don’t do this anymore).

But it reads very much like a man recounting stories around a bushfire (with none of the flare). My problem was that I didn’t get anything out of it that I hadn’t already experienced in Jock of the Bushveld. Near misses with lions are thrilling, but I wanted to know more about what it was like raising a family in such isolated conditions. I wanted a contextualisation of the establishment of the park. The perspective of a normal English South-African’s experience and thoughts of the war. Basically what I wanted from the book was more emotion, and more of what everyday life was like.

And we do have to acknowledge the racism. Wolhuter learned the language of, and spend most of his life with the African staff and local communities while a ranger, but his contempt for them drips off the page. He consistently uses the tern Native. Which, okay period context I will allow it, but he never refers to a person as simply a man or woman, even when recounting a story about a specific native person he uses the word every time. It gets excessive and unpleasant.

The joy of this book was in the descriptions of this lost and wild world and the many colourful characters it created. But it could have done with more flair and energy. However I want to emphasis that its a classic that has enchanted many people, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.