The Old Man and the Sea is not your regular book. It is written in a not-so-normal way. The book is written in terse sentences. (I heard that it is really the style of Hemingway.) It is hard at first to read. But you get used to it after a while.
This book is also quite simple. It is about an old man. It is also about the sea. But it goes deeper than that. The book talks about the man while the man goes through a fishing trip. The man is a fisherman, so that is why he goes on this trip. The trip is a rather usual one. Nothing out-of-the-ordinary seems to happen. It is realistic. It is simple. It is also somehow unexpected.
The book talks about perseverance. It talks about strength. It talks about love. It also talks about the fisherman talking to himself. But it is not because he is lonely. Or maybe it is.
Overall, the book is typical, but it is also not typical. It is a simple story. It is unlike other simple stories in that there is more to see beneath the simple story. Some may consider this boring. I think that it is interesting and awe-inspiring.
For me this was a nice read. Simple but not so simple. It is simply great.
PS: Writing in this style really takes the cake. It’s simple enough, but my poor imagination and flowery vocabulary are sobbing in a corner. *snickers*
PPS: I’ve heard of friendly discord between Fitzgerald (who I am, at the time of writing, reading – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button & The Beautiful and Damned) and Hemingway. Check it out.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
