'The Old Man and the Sea'

For when the vibe is masculine, intimate, and resolute.

When people say that Earnest Hemingway did more than any other author to transform English literature, they are talking about The Old Man and the Sea. It's like he foresaw the short attention spans of the 21st century and developed both a writing style and a story that would satisfy even the most easily distracted Gen Zer out there. I told my brother (a Gen Zer) to read it and he got back to me in about a day raving about how good it was. Of course, when I say, "raving" I mean he sent a text that said, "I finished the old man and the sea. It was good". By comparison, he agreed to read both For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Aeneid with me and has yet to do either. He also admitted to crying at parts, although not at the same parts which made me cry.

For all its 140 or so pages, The Old Man and the Sea can be difficult to get though. On its face, the novel is a straightforward tale about an old Cuban fisherman fighting to end a streak of bad luck as he battles with a big fish, with the ocean, and with himself. Despite a deceptive narrative simplicity, it puts you through your paces emotionally speaking. The old man produces a potent cocktail of pity and awe: pity for his circumstances and awe at his courage and persistence. You think he’s suffering before he goes out to fish because of his poverty and his luck and his loneliness, but then you realize that he is doing what he was born to do. He is being a fisherman. He is embodying his craft and his calling, which happens to be a rugged way to live. Then you think he’s suffering through his fight with the fish as he mutilates his body for his prize and his livelihood and to get his luck back. Through this suffering, you come to appreciate what he has back on land – a friend in the form of the boy who is his apprentice and a community and safety and a place to sleep. But the old man, by striking out and embracing his vocation and enduring through physical and mental agony, finds triumph and satisfaction in finally besting the fish. Then you know he’s suffering when he must fight desperately to keep his fish, his brother, his prize safe from hungry sharks, and is utterly brutalized before coming into port. And the whole episode is washed away into the sea.

The book is a gem. You end up feeling like you owe it to the old man to read his tale, which speaks to Hemingway's mastery as an author. I would also say you owe it to yourself to go out on that boat with that old man and explore, in some small way, what you are made of.

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$10.35 at Amazon