This is a short story. I believe the total run time is about 1.5 hours depending on your speed. It’s not the best book I’ve ever read, but word for word, it’s one of the most efficient injections of inspiration and thought-provoking material I’ve read this year.
I won’t bore you with a summary (which couldn’t do it justice) nor will I pontificate with my analysis. But let me just highlight my three favorite points from the book.
Grit. This is essentially a story about Grit. The Old Man (you never do learn his name) is a persistent fighter. You feel his pain, feel what he had to overcome the sweetness of victory and the exhaustion and meaning of defeat, but most of all the love of the fight. “But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
The hunter’s relationship. This one sounds weird on paper, but the book does a good job describing the relationship between the hunted and the hunter. It’s something I’ve been puzzling out for a long time and Hemingway does a good job of capturing it here. “Fish,” he said, “I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.”
Man and nature. This is a recurring theme in Hemingway’s work, having lived on the coast of Chile for two years, I can confirm that this is also my perception of how Latin American’s think of the ocean. “He always thought of the sea as ‘la mar’ which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money, spoke of her as ‘el mar’ which is masculine. They spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy. But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought.” Note I believe this perception roughly parallels the Polynesian concept of “Moana” and “Kai”. Both words for the ocean, one the light blue saltwater around the reef (“Kai” masculine) and one the vast open unpredictable ocean (“Moana”, feminine). You swim in kai, you sail on Moana.
It’s worth a read.