A review by octavia_cade
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

I would never have thought that I'd give such a high score to what is effectively a story of prolonged animal abuse, but here we are. Also, I don't know why I saw the sharks coming a mile off when the old man didn't - especially considering that fishing isn't high on my list of interests or marketable skills when it is both to him. Still, I'm prepared to take such selective stupidity as metaphor in this case, and as such it was was genuinely effective. Mostly, I think, because of the characterisation. I don't find the old man pleasant, really - mostly I just felt sorry for him, with a side of why-are-you-doing-this-to-yourself, but then I think that about a lot of Man vs. Nature stories - but there's no denying that he was finely drawn.

It's changed my opinion of Hemingway a bit as well, to be honest. This book has been on my to-read list for a while, but I've been putting it off because the first Hemingway book I read was The Sun Also Rises, back in 2017, and I didn't like it at all. I had another stab a year later with A Farewell to Arms, which I liked better, but even then I couldn't see why Hemingway had the reputation that he does. Now I see it. This was really good. Not always to my taste, but the skill is clearly apparent to me in ways that it wasn't before.

I'm tempted now to just never read any more of him ever again. Might as well go out on a high note. (I really did think Sun was awful.)