[latepaul]

I've read this twice now. Both in the last couple of weeks. Basically I read it once at the beginning of the month, but because it was such a short book and I've read a few books in between I thought I'd re-read it so it was fresh in my memory.

Although I knew the book was a classic and that there was a movie, I didn't know the story. It was pretty obvious what was going to happen although I did wonder if after he brought the fish home he'd die.

So I hoped that after I read it the first time the second I'd be able to savour the language and imagery a bit more. TBH though it took a bit of effort to get into again*. By the end I did though.

I don't think it's ever going to be one of my absolute favourites but it is a good book and very well written.

I didn't see it as being about love. I thought it was more a metaphor for life. A musing on how it's the struggle against inevitable defeat that defines us. Also it paints that defeat, if fought against consistently, as a kind of victory. Conversely to not fight, to give up, is to die:

What will you do now if they come in the night? What can you do? “Fight them,” he said. “I’ll fight them until I die.” But in the dark now and no glow showing and no lights and only the wind and the steady pull of the sail he felt that perhaps he was already dead.

It's also about a certain ideal of manliness which is somewhat old-fashioned today but not completely extinct as an idea. A man defining himself by what he does (Fisherman) and therefore refusing to give it up past possibly the point of reasonableness.

I guess I'm old enough to have a little of those type of values instilled in me, and even though I am a bookish computer programmer with no aptitude for anything outdoorsy, I am fascinated by the Old Man's thoughts. It's interesting for example that on his way out, he thinks,

It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.

but by the end he is fantasizing about being able to buy luck. The idea that he's in conflict with his own left hand, and laterly even with his own thoughts, is striking too. It's as if anything that gets in the way of his goal, even parts of himself, is to be fought, mocked or repudiated.

His single-mindedness can be seen as foolish, especially if you do not like his goal, but it's also hard not to admire it. There's also an almost spiritual side to it:

It is silly not to hope, he thought. Besides I believe it is a sin.

I understand the kind of belief, faith, that thinks to not hope is a sin. I don't have it, and sometimes I feel it's dangerous to aspire to, but I have seen it and admired it in others.

Definitely a good book, definitely glad I read it. May not read it again for a while though.

*partly for reasons nothing to do with this book. I wasn't expecting to get the Making History loan so soon and it threw off my vague plan of when I might read what books, such that I considered not re-reading this at all.