The Old Man and the Sea

All alone....

It’s the story of Santiago, an old fisherman, who everyone thinks is unlucky because he doesn’t catch any fish. He has a little boy who is his best friend, and who believes that Santiago is the best fisherman there is. We find out for ourselves when Santiago finds himself far out to sea, alone, with a 1500 pound marlin on the end of the line...

FUNNNESS: X X X O O - X X X X O

GRIPPINGNESS: X X X O O - X X X X O

READABILITY: X X X O O - X X X X O        (THEY ALL DEPEND REALLY... ON CHAPTER, TASTES, PATIENCE...)

The clean, precise writing style.

Hemingway uses short, clipped sentences, and doesn’t drown the poor story in endless description, though there is description of course, of the effective, condensed type.

Hemingway does not waste time, if someone does something for a reason, Hemingway will tell you straight out. For example: “Once there had been a tinted photograph of his wife on the wall but he had taken it down because it made him too lonely to see it and it was on the shelf in the corner under his clean shirt.”

It's quite new, after a lifetime of detailed description, it's quite refreshing. Different writing styles are very interesting to discover - no one has the same writing style as someone else, everyone is unique.

yes.. clean writing style.....

The poignancy…

When the old man is fishing, or being towed away by a huge marlin, he had plenty of time to think and remember the past times. Once he remembers that once when fishing with the boy, they caught the female of a pair of marlin. All through the capture and the butchering the male marlin stayed with them, searching for his female.

           “Then, while the old man was clearing the lines and preparing the harpoon, the male fish jumped high into the air beside the boat to see where the female was and then went down deep, his lavender wings, that were his pectoral fins, spread wide and all his wide lavender stripes showing. He was beautiful, the old man remembered, and he had stayed.

           That was the saddest thing I ever saw with them, the old man thought.”

undying love!

The hidden emotion

With all that ‘short sentences’ and ‘clipped descriptions’ business, you could infer that perhaps, the book was devoid of emotion. You’re right – but only to an extent. Take for instance, this extract:

“He was asleep when the boy looked in at the door in the morning. It was blowing so hard that the drifting boats would not be going out and the boy had slept late and then come to the old man’s shack as he had come each morning. The boy saw that the old man was breathing and then he saw the old man’s hands and he started to cry. He went out very quietly to go to bring some coffee and all the way down the road he was crying.”

Hemingway doesn’t describe how the boy cries, or why. Perhaps to a person opening this for the first time at a random time wouldn’t know the reason. But we do – we’ve been through thick and thin with the old man, and his pain and exertion and bravery in catching the massive marlin. That is the reason why we too can cry with the boy. Relief that the old man is alive. Sympathetic tears for his terrible wounds. Regret that he had not been there with the old man to help him.

that night, the old man dreamt of the lions on the beach...

it is a book you should try, though many have mixed opinions on it. Tell me what you think of The Old Man and the Sea...