I just finished this book. I could not put it down. Peter De Vries is a brillaint comic writer. I put him up there with Woody Allen. His characters were so void of common sense yet "book smart". The situation with Tony getting his teacher pregnant in one passionate moment was the funniest thing I ever read. It never struck me as "dirty" or off color. The way the two of them handled the "delicate situation" was side splittingly funny. I have to say that when Tony starting reciting the "chief products of Venezuela" I almost fell on the floor laughing. I was also very taken by his father and the way the author described how he would read from books to his wife and Tony. The expression he would use in his voice could almost be "heard" by me because the author described it so well. My favorite line from the book was in the beginning. Tony's teacher had assigned "The Scarlet letter". The mayor being a "percursor to todays Moral Majority" said,"We're gonna tighten our Bible Belt! "We're gonna show'em we're the buckle of the belt". I live in a very conservative state and it would be something I just might hear and have to giggle. I highly recommend this book. It is a winner.

This book kept me laughing out loud all the way through. Even on re-reading, it's still funny. Very witting, very erudite. Great fun for anybody who's a bit on the bookish side. Without giving too much of the plot away -- an affair between an English teacher and a student, and they keep correcting each other's grammar & vocabulary & epigrams during intimate moments. Fun book!

Man, why is this guy out of print? This stuff is great! A truly humorous, satirical novel, this surpasses almost anything written in the last twentyt yuears that I have read in its wit and uncanny shenanigans.

Peter DeVries was a very popular writer who contributed many stories to the New Yorker in the fifties and sixties and who wrote several very funny novels. This autobiographical novel describes the growth to maturity of Don Wanderhope, member of a strickly Calvinist Dutch Reform family, whose brother becomes a heretic, whose father becomes addicted to drink and goes insane, and whose wife commits suicide after giving him a child whom he loves deeply. At age eleven, his daughter contracts leukemia, initially does quite well, but then succumbs to a staph infection in the hospital.
Wanderhope - I suspect the name is no accidental choice - in grief stricken anger rails against God and man. "I made a tentative conclusion. It seemed from all of this that uppermost among human joys is the negative one of restoration. Not going to the stars, but learning that one may stay where one is. It was shortly after the evening in question that I had a taste of that truth on a scale that enabled me to put my finger on it." The happiest moment of his life comes when the doctor lets him know that his daughter will be all right - a mistake as it turns out. "The fairy would not become a gnome. We could break bread in peace again, my child and I. The greatest experience open to man then, is the recovery of the commonplace."
The book has many humorous moments and profound insights, as Wanderhope struggles with religion as he tries to deal with the death of his only child.
"I believe that man must learn to live without those consolations called religious, which his own intelligence must by now have told him belong to the childhood of the race. Philosophy really can give us nothing permanent to believe in either. It is too rich in answers; each canceling out the rest.. The quest for meaning is foredoomed. Human life means nothing. But that is not to say that it is not worth living. What does a Debussy arabesque mean, or a rainbow, or a rose? A man delights in all of these knowing himself to be no more. A wisp of music and haze of dreams dissolving against the sun. Man has only his own two feet to stand on his own human trinity to see him through: reason, courage and grace and the first plus the second equals the third."

The book is moving, witty, involving, and wise. It is hard to believe that this was published way back in 1961. This book sits now on my most beloved shelf. There is wit and sex and social commentary here, but the book rises above that. It is ultimately a book with a message, about stoic courage and grace, although not everyone is ready for the wisdom here. The book's ultimate message is that we should appreciate the moment and cherish those whom we love while we can. That, as Marcus Aurelius said, life is just loaned to us and, we ought to be ready, at any time, to gratefully say, "Here, I return that which has been loaned to me."

Peter De Vries's *Blood of the Lamb* is a novel of singular depth and humanity. De Vries was America's greatest humorist in the fifties and sixties, but in this work, he deals, from autobiographical experience, with his young daughter's struggle against leukemia. Overflowing with love, wit, fury, energy, and human grace, this book goes to the core of things. It ranks with the greatest works of 20th-century American literature, and it will surprise you. De Vries is best known for his great work for *The New Yorker* and for comedic novels (many made into films) rich in puns, the anatomy of absurdity, and the depredations and joys of libido....but *Blood of the Lamb* is his transcendent work. It's out of print now, and used copies are often hard to come by. It's an exceptional and humanizing experience. It is a moving sublimation of irredeemable tragedy.

This is a much too abbreviated list of the hunters and trackers of East Africa and their wonderful lives. If you are expecting the adventure packed prose of Capstick, look to Capstick not here.
I did not find the book difficult to read or understand, but it was more a historical text instead of an interesting adventure.
This book would serve as a good primer for reading other works like Roosevelt's African Game Trails so the reader would understand who the characters were in that book better.

Considering the absolute wealth of characters and high drama Mr. Herne had to work with this book comes off rather dry and shallow.
For living the most exciting of lives, Mr. Herne does not seem all that excited about any of the people in it. So regrettably 3 stars.

First the negatives: basically, the list of white hunters comes at the reader in a blur of names and brief incidents, so that sometimes the reading takes on a repetitious feel. I found myself a bit overwhelmed at the onslaught of names and personalities, sometimes given no more than a few paragraphs of space. The information is arranged chronologically, beginning with the earliest white hunters like Cornwallis Harris and R.J. Cunninghame, and proceeds at a blistering pace through the 1970's, when Kenya outlawed all safari hunting. Brian Herne, the author, is a good writer, without being particularly inspired. If you are looking for the Peter Capstick (Death in the Long Grass) style of safari writing, you will not find it here. Herne is not the talented storyteller that Capstick is; yet Mr. Herne does have his own particular strengths. His style is very journalistic, in that he relays facts in blunt, swift manner. Take for Instance his concise description of White Hunter, Eric Rundgren's encounter with a charging buffalo: "During one pursuit a wounded buffalo charged, slammed hard in Rundgren, and tossed him over a riverbank. He landed in the gravel stream, but held on to his .450 double rifle. Above him on the bank was the buffalo looking down at him. Lying in the shallow river Rundgren shot the buff in the throat and it collapsed." End of incident. In a Capstick book, this mad charge by a buffalo would have taken a page or two, and by the end of it the reader himself would have felt covered in fear and sweat. Yet, despite the above, I heartily recommend this book for its many strengths: for one, Brian Herne has incredible credentials as a hunter, and one senses in his writing that they are being given the true deal. Maybe not as colorfully expressed as a Capstick, but frankly, more real. Also, there are many nuggets of breathtaking adventure that come jumping at the reader right through the factual prose of Mr. Herne. Nearly every hunter of any note is here, and the reader is given potraits of all the greats: Alan Black, Karamoja Bell, Bror Blizen, Charles Cottar, Bill Judd, and many, many others. Herne certainly can't be faulted for his completeness of the topic. What becomes clear when reading Mr. Herne's book is two facts. First, that big game hunting is an incredibly dangerous profession. It seems that nearly all the hunters were at some point gored or horribly mauled by big game, or suffered malaria, black-water fever, or one of the many diseases that float in the air in Africa. A fair number where killed outright, and these stories make the most gripping in the book, Two, conservation of big game was also an important role of these big game hunters. It was not the white hunters that decimated the rhino and elephant, but rather the various corrupt African governments themselves that allowed, and benefited greatly, from poaching. Herne makes a case for this in statistics that are irrefutable. By eliminating the safari hunters, the only group of individuals that had both the means and incentive to protect the region's wildlife for both personal and financial reasons, the corrupt government officials and poachers were free to roam, now hunting with AK-47 assault rifles and poisons. International prices for rhino horn and Ivory jumped up, as did the death toll for elephant and rhino. In short, this book is a great resource for the true story of white hunters. It includes a fabulous bibliography as well, for further reading.

I have always enjoyed reading about African hunting and looked forward to Hernes book. While it did deliver the information promised, I believe the book could have used a bit better editing. This is for a couple of different reasons. For one, Mr. Here identifies so many different hunters that it gets somewhat confusing keeping track of who did what. As noted by above reviewers, there are plenty of hair-raising anecdotes, and it is a quite thrilling book, but Mr. Herne just briefly touches on a few events of the lives of literally thousands of people that spent time hunting of working for hunters in Africa. It is sort of like a buffet where there are a multitude of courses, but you can only take a bit or two of each course. Secondly, Mr. Herne sometimes changes subjects, persons or topics, without notice. One paragraph you are reading about a particular hunter and another paragraph you read about some political aspects of hunting whose connection to the previous hunter is not always obvious. I think that a good editor, making a smoother transition between subjects, and perhaps eliminating a discussion of some briefly mentioned persons in order to focus a bit more on others who were more influential, could have made this good book even better. Those two criticisms aside, I really enjoyed the book. mr. Herne's recounting of life in pre-WWI east Africa was incredibly intriguing. His analysis of hunting's conservation effects make a powerful argument for the use of hunting as a game-management technique. All in all, I would heartily recommend this book to anyone desiring to learn about either the history of African history or arguments for hunting.

In my search for humorous narrative, I ran across a listing of various authors who, supposedly, wrote humorous books. I could tell from my familiarity with some of the authors on the list that it was somewhat of a scattershot, but that came as no surprise--what people find funny differs as much as their taste in music. I printed the list and visited the library, reading bits and pieces of the authors' work. The one true find from all that was Peter De Vries.

De Vries was a writer and editor for The New Yorker from the late 1940s through the early 1970s. In addition to his magazine duties, he wrote novels on the foibles of society, including satire on the suburban trend, free love, and bringing up babies. In this novel, the satire is directed at the pretensions of the well-heeled and their desires for artistic and community acceptance.

The Tunnel of Love is one of his earliest novels, and, while humorous, well written and entertaining, has only a fraction of the biting satire of his later work. I'm planning on trying to read his oeuvre chronologically, to watch the development of that wit.

It is a bit racy in the context of the late forties. A gentle satire on the self important, pseudo intellectual, white collar, martini guzzling, suburbanites living the good life in Connecticut while fooling around/making a living in New York City.
The story concerns essentially two couples, infidelity, sex, unwanted pregnancy & adoption. They deal with their problem in a seemly childish & ridiculous way ... by our modern standards somwhat dated. The author digresses several times going off on a tangent about some philosphical gibberish but very funny anyway. This is what passed for witty sophisticated humor 50 years ago.

Peter De Vries' novel "The Tunnel of Love" is a witty, entertaining comedy about love, sex, marriage, parenthood, and friendship. It is told by a first person narrator: married with 4 children, he is the art editor for a weekly periodical called "The Townsman" and lives in Avalon, Connecticut (40 miles from New York City). The narrator's life is complicated by his friendship with Augie Poole, a cartoonist who is more appreciated for his gags than his art. When Augie and his wife, Isolde, name the narrator and his wife as references at an adoption agency, the narrator becomes more involved in Augie's personal life.

"Tunnel" features gentle humor and likeable characters. I liked how De Vries juxtaposes the quest for parenthood with the quest to be taken seriously as a creative artist; it is a richly ironic pairing of themes.

De Vries has a wonderfully witty prose style. The book is full of great quotable quotes, like "We're the victims of our morality as much as our sins." There are some really funny bits, such as this description of an adoption agency representative (from Chapter 1): "Mrs. Mash was a tall woman with a mouth like a mail slot and eyes the color of soy sauce." De Vries masterfully mines humor from such settings as PTA functions or a church dinner.

"The Tunnel of Love" is a reflection on creativity, honesty, fidelity, and temptation. De Vries' talent speaks for itself; this is one writer who, I believe, deserves more attention.

Peckham is happily situated at the Garden of Disfunction. Hello! He meets the widow of the founder of the looney bin and makes her his own - until a greater foe approaches. Who's crazier? That's always been DeVries's forte, piano, mezzo, and other operatic jokes. But seriously folks, the man runs rings around the English language, dropping puns anywhere he thinks you're not looking.