The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
“Then his head started to become a little unclear and he thought, is he bringing me in or am I bringing him in? If I were towing him behind there would be no question. Nor if the fish were in the skiff, with all dignity gone, there would be no question either. But they were sailing together lashed side by side and the old man thought, let him bring me in if it pleases him. I am only better than him through trickery and he meant me no harm.” The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
This is the first Hemingway book (novella) that I’ve read off my list, but it’s not the first Hemingway piece I’ve read. My last semester of school I took a class solely about Hemingway’s short stories, which I think helped me read this with a little more understanding about his seemingly simple writing style and what could be beyond the words.
In this book, the majority of it follows this old man, Santiago (though most of the time he’s just referred to as ‘the old man’), as he tries to end his 84 day streak of coming back to shore empty-handed by catching a giant marlin. It might sound boring (and at times it may have been), but it takes a couple days for the conflict between him and the fish to be resolved, and then by that point he’s so far out from shore that it takes him about a day and a half to get back, and that part of the adventure is probably less boring than the trip out. Also, the novella is only 127 pages.
If you’ve never read Hemingway before, this might be a good place for you to start seeing as it’s not as long as some of his novels, such as A Farwell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises, but it’s also not as jam-packed with meaning as his short stories are (trust me, we’d spend at least a week talking about each short story in class. You can’t read those at face value). I know before I took my Hemingway class, I was worried that if I read any of his books they would go way over my head because I knew he was one of the literary greats (and they always seem intimidating), but Hemingway writes with short, declarative sentences and doesn’t use flowery language.
Overall, I’d give this novella an 8/10. I’d really like to get back to it again some day because one thing I learned from that class was that all his work deserves to be read at least twice if you’re hoping to get the full impact.
Read on!
Molly
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