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Originally Posted by Alohamora
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CRussel
Ah, that sounds do Hemingway!
I know of very few authors who claim they intentionally use symbolism, but at the same time, I think Hemingway was being seriously disingenuous.
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The concluding sentence of the quote ("What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.") is curious. Is it just me, or does this sentence effectively negate the sentences before it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookpossum
Good find Alohamora.
I didn’t think anything much of the names. The only thing I did note and then dismissed was the reference to the sound Santiago made when he hurt his hand as being the sound a man would make when a nail was hammered into his hand. I thought that Hemingway was wanting us to see Santiago as Christlike, and I thought it was a bit over the top.
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(Added emphasis mine.) That was my reaction. Same, too, for the fish feeding an implied multitude and that multitude not being worthy of it. (This thought shortly after "The fish is my friend too [...] But I must kill him." That Santiago kept telling us how much he loved the fish made me think of that line from
The Princess Bride: "I do not think it means what you think it means."
)
I get the impression that Hemingway didn't have a lot of imagination, that much of what he wrote was taken directly from experience. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it explains some of his lack of subtlety. It also explains some of the stiff awkwardness in his character interactions - they are too literal (for my tastes). You don't see it so much in
The Old Man and the Sea, but in
The Sun Also Rises a lot of the dialogue is almost torturous to read.