" 'But Man Is Not Made For Defeat,' He Said. 'A Man Can Be Destroyed But Not Defeated.' "

 When I was slightly over halfway through reading The Old Man and the Sea, I kept thinking to myself, "This?! This won the Pulitzer Prize?!" It's just an old dude getting dragged around the ocean by a fish. The language/writing isn't particularly impressive (in fact much of the early dialogue between the fisherman and the young boy is so choppy and oddly formal it didn't feel very authentic). But fortunately the book is short and I was able to breeze through the rest of it, and the remainder of the story definitely changed my opinion.

The story is that of an elderly fisherman in Cuba, Santiago, who has had terrible fortune and has not caught a fish for 84 days. A young boy from the village who used to fish with him abandoned him for better waters with other fishermen, so the man is on his own to make his own way (even though the boy still helps the old man by carrying his supplies, bringing him food, providing him with sardines for bait, etc). The man sets out one morning and travels far out to sea, hooking a giant marlin, larger than the size of his own boat. He spends 3 days being dragged out to sea by the fish waiting for his opportunity to finally kill and capture the fish. He manages to best the creature, but it does not necessarily mean success, as he still has to get the ~1500 lb fish back to land. Some obstacles follow the fisherman and his fish back to shore, leaving the man broken and devoid of emotion. 

While I was initially so annoyed with the basic nature of the book, there is definitely more there than meets the eye. It's really just a big ol' metaphor, right? About the determination and perseverance of man, about taking on tasks in which it may seem impossible to triumph (that even risk one's demise and death), and how to overcome the devastation of defeat. While I didn't necessarily identify with the man's journey and seemingly insane choices, I acknowledge his heroic struggle against something greater than himself. Throughout the book, I couldn't help but be reminded of Moby Dick, with the singular focus of Captain Ahab and this fisherman. And maybe part of my initial recoil from fully getting on board with the book was due to the elaborate descriptions of everything related to fishing that took me right back to the months and months spent reading Moby Dick...perhaps still a little repressed trauma there all these years later. 

So The Old Man and the Sea was a quick little read. I suppose enjoyable, but had it been much longer, I wouldn't have been too happy. It has been a long time since I've read Hemingway. I have only read A Farewell to Arms back in high school, so don't recall much of his writing style from such a long time ago and must say I'm curious to read more. Because while The Old Man and the Sea was certainly fine, I wasn't blown out of the water (pun intended) that I would have expected to be based on all of the hype around Hemingway. Perhaps is persona has made him as legendary (or more so?) than his actual writing. But I still have 3 other books of his, so I'll have plenty of opportunity to re-assess based on a wider sample size. Stay tuned for that. 

Up next is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. Another relatively short read, so I expect to get through this one in a pretty short amount of time too. Just gettin' 'er done here during pandemic quarantine time. 212 to go.