T.E. W. (terez93) reviewed The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition on + 273 more book reviews
Books like this have admittedly seen their day, and will likely not be seen again, until the next iteration of civilization, at least. It's written in a different time, in a different world, from a perspective which has almost vanished, and the world is more vacuous for it. Tragically and increasingly, allegory is lost on newer generations of readers. I note from the reviews that it's one of the top items on the "love-it-or-hate-it" list, and I understand why.
I've read this book before, and from the perspective of the person I was in my intemperate youth, I understand where people are coming from when they say "just let the fish go and go home," but now, reading it again from solid middle-aged ground, I see it from a different perspective. Perhaps it's something that can only really be understood from the viewpoint of an older, rather jaded and cynical figure, as Hemingway was himself at the point he wrote this short novel. I think it was something of an expression of lost youth for him, in desperately seeking to "land" that one last titan, however one defines it, but finding it simply beyond his grasp, because life has taken everything from him. Or was it? as this book pretty much serves that laudable purpose.
Unlike the old man in the story, Hemingway landed his last big catch.
As with many of my other musings on enshrined classics, this can't really be considered a proper review, but just some thoughts on how his work made me think. Hemingway's entire sentiment in this short but poignant account speaks to doing something utterly meaningless to someone else, but which celebrates the notion that the whole point is the journey, not the destination. Like my dad always said about learning Latin, which he credited with saving his life in Vietnam: the benefit is in the process, not the final product. Landing the fish, or making the kill, doesn't matter all that much. What does matter is the strength of will, the tenacity, the character to finish the task you started, even if there is a loss in terms of return on investment. The value is in the effort; the glory is in the struggle, not the end result. I get that now.
It's clear that the subject matter was something Hemingway related to deeply. The novel could very well be written from the author's own experiences, as he himself was an avid hunter, sportsman, and, later, fisherman. As is reflected in the novel, he at least alluded to the point in a letter, writing "because the fish is worth plenty of money in the Havana market, you gaff him at the boat and bring him on board, but having him in the boat isn't the excitement; it is while you are fighting him that is the fun." Hemingway clearly embraced the adage that one does not hunt to kill, but simply kills to have hunted, as is clearly demonstrated in this deeply profound novel. It was also his last published before his untimely death by suicide in 1962.
Hemingway became acquainted with Cuba early in his life, but spent more time in the region when his wife's uncle purchased a house for his family in Key West, Florida, where he met several kindred spirits on fishing expeditions, especially for sport fish like Marlin. He had purchased a boat, the "Pilar" in 1934, to explore the Caribbean, first arriving in Bimini in 1935. He even invited the president of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia to Cuba, who stayed with Hemingway, after whom he later named a species of scorpionfish!
The novel's popularity was immediate, and it ultimately earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953. It also may have secured him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. As with most great works, there has been endless discussion regarding the ultimate meaning. Hemingway himself famously stated, however, that there was no allegory, no symbolism. It's just a story about a man, a fish, and the sea. I always wonder, however, that even if that may be the case for the author, especially one with the life experience of Hemingway, and the author is simply trying to tell a story, what else lies beneath, in those layers of meaning that they themselves may even be unaware of. I think this work can be read with those considerations in mind, as a subconscious expression of what lay beneath. What Hemingway was attempting to express, even covertly, may have been without even being cognizant of what he was ultimately writing and why, which I think is the case of many great writers, and artists, for that matter. Their thoughts come from some place within, one they are only vaguely aware of.
The novel has clearly resonated with readers, perhaps in a way Hemingway did not intend, making it all the more profound, in fact. Is the old man's battle with the fish a battle with death itself, and, thus, the subconscious travail of the aging author, trying for one more big catch (which Hemingway accomplished, with this novel): was the story the telling of the story of the story itself? Is it a statement about the nature of life itself, that, ultimately, all is futility? That man is just another link in the food chain, and that we are an element of nature, no different from the marlin, the sharks, the sea? Let the reader use discernment.
The novel is replete with juxtapositions and contradictions: Santiago's advanced age brings increased frailty and diminished physical capacity, but experience more than makes up for it, as does his hard-won patience, the latter of which is the bane of youth. Age has worn him down: his hands, once strong enough to remain locked in combat for an entire day, are starting to fail him, at a critical moment. His cut hand begins to cramp, just at the moment when he has an opportunity, forcing him to improvise,as life does. Just when you think you have the chance to do something great, and victory is within sight, life throws you a curve, and makes you fight for every inch. In the end, it seems, neither age, nor experience, nor physical strength, nor planning matter: everything boils down to the vicissitudes of fortune.
To that end, it also speaks to futility: despite overwhelming and even injurious effort, sometimes the only success is the knowledge that one did accomplish the goal, but irrespective of dedication, skill and determination, sometimes life robs us of any actual material benefit, which is all that is left to Santiago. No gain did he achieve other than the satisfaction that he had tenaciously dug in and completed the job, but perhaps that was reward enough. Hemingway said it best: "The thousand times that he had proved it meant nothing. Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past when he was doing it." The title is "The Old Man and the Sea," not "The Old Man and the Fish." The message is that the task is not what is relevant, but the setting - as I write this on Superbowl Sunday: the point is the field, the Game, not the players. The point is that a well-lived life means that whatever your pleasure, the game is well-played.
In that regard, the book itself is an affirmation of life, at the end of life.
---------------------------
"On the Blue Water" (1936)
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter. You will meet them doing various things with resolve, but their interest rarely holds because after the other thing ordinary life is as flat as the taste of wine when the taste buds have been burned off your tongue."
I've read this book before, and from the perspective of the person I was in my intemperate youth, I understand where people are coming from when they say "just let the fish go and go home," but now, reading it again from solid middle-aged ground, I see it from a different perspective. Perhaps it's something that can only really be understood from the viewpoint of an older, rather jaded and cynical figure, as Hemingway was himself at the point he wrote this short novel. I think it was something of an expression of lost youth for him, in desperately seeking to "land" that one last titan, however one defines it, but finding it simply beyond his grasp, because life has taken everything from him. Or was it? as this book pretty much serves that laudable purpose.
Unlike the old man in the story, Hemingway landed his last big catch.
As with many of my other musings on enshrined classics, this can't really be considered a proper review, but just some thoughts on how his work made me think. Hemingway's entire sentiment in this short but poignant account speaks to doing something utterly meaningless to someone else, but which celebrates the notion that the whole point is the journey, not the destination. Like my dad always said about learning Latin, which he credited with saving his life in Vietnam: the benefit is in the process, not the final product. Landing the fish, or making the kill, doesn't matter all that much. What does matter is the strength of will, the tenacity, the character to finish the task you started, even if there is a loss in terms of return on investment. The value is in the effort; the glory is in the struggle, not the end result. I get that now.
It's clear that the subject matter was something Hemingway related to deeply. The novel could very well be written from the author's own experiences, as he himself was an avid hunter, sportsman, and, later, fisherman. As is reflected in the novel, he at least alluded to the point in a letter, writing "because the fish is worth plenty of money in the Havana market, you gaff him at the boat and bring him on board, but having him in the boat isn't the excitement; it is while you are fighting him that is the fun." Hemingway clearly embraced the adage that one does not hunt to kill, but simply kills to have hunted, as is clearly demonstrated in this deeply profound novel. It was also his last published before his untimely death by suicide in 1962.
Hemingway became acquainted with Cuba early in his life, but spent more time in the region when his wife's uncle purchased a house for his family in Key West, Florida, where he met several kindred spirits on fishing expeditions, especially for sport fish like Marlin. He had purchased a boat, the "Pilar" in 1934, to explore the Caribbean, first arriving in Bimini in 1935. He even invited the president of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia to Cuba, who stayed with Hemingway, after whom he later named a species of scorpionfish!
The novel's popularity was immediate, and it ultimately earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953. It also may have secured him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. As with most great works, there has been endless discussion regarding the ultimate meaning. Hemingway himself famously stated, however, that there was no allegory, no symbolism. It's just a story about a man, a fish, and the sea. I always wonder, however, that even if that may be the case for the author, especially one with the life experience of Hemingway, and the author is simply trying to tell a story, what else lies beneath, in those layers of meaning that they themselves may even be unaware of. I think this work can be read with those considerations in mind, as a subconscious expression of what lay beneath. What Hemingway was attempting to express, even covertly, may have been without even being cognizant of what he was ultimately writing and why, which I think is the case of many great writers, and artists, for that matter. Their thoughts come from some place within, one they are only vaguely aware of.
The novel has clearly resonated with readers, perhaps in a way Hemingway did not intend, making it all the more profound, in fact. Is the old man's battle with the fish a battle with death itself, and, thus, the subconscious travail of the aging author, trying for one more big catch (which Hemingway accomplished, with this novel): was the story the telling of the story of the story itself? Is it a statement about the nature of life itself, that, ultimately, all is futility? That man is just another link in the food chain, and that we are an element of nature, no different from the marlin, the sharks, the sea? Let the reader use discernment.
The novel is replete with juxtapositions and contradictions: Santiago's advanced age brings increased frailty and diminished physical capacity, but experience more than makes up for it, as does his hard-won patience, the latter of which is the bane of youth. Age has worn him down: his hands, once strong enough to remain locked in combat for an entire day, are starting to fail him, at a critical moment. His cut hand begins to cramp, just at the moment when he has an opportunity, forcing him to improvise,as life does. Just when you think you have the chance to do something great, and victory is within sight, life throws you a curve, and makes you fight for every inch. In the end, it seems, neither age, nor experience, nor physical strength, nor planning matter: everything boils down to the vicissitudes of fortune.
To that end, it also speaks to futility: despite overwhelming and even injurious effort, sometimes the only success is the knowledge that one did accomplish the goal, but irrespective of dedication, skill and determination, sometimes life robs us of any actual material benefit, which is all that is left to Santiago. No gain did he achieve other than the satisfaction that he had tenaciously dug in and completed the job, but perhaps that was reward enough. Hemingway said it best: "The thousand times that he had proved it meant nothing. Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past when he was doing it." The title is "The Old Man and the Sea," not "The Old Man and the Fish." The message is that the task is not what is relevant, but the setting - as I write this on Superbowl Sunday: the point is the field, the Game, not the players. The point is that a well-lived life means that whatever your pleasure, the game is well-played.
In that regard, the book itself is an affirmation of life, at the end of life.
---------------------------
"On the Blue Water" (1936)
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter. You will meet them doing various things with resolve, but their interest rarely holds because after the other thing ordinary life is as flat as the taste of wine when the taste buds have been burned off your tongue."
