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Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel prize in 1954, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is regarded as the finest piece of literature that was ever written by the author. This short novel follows an old man as he fishes out in the sea for a large fish and then has to fight off a band of sharks, only to return home with nothing but the skeleton of his great catch in tow.
This book is perhaps in my “Top 10 Most Boring Books I Have Ever Read” list.
Hemingway is one of my favorite writers. I was introduced to him in college when I had to read his collection of short stories, In Our Time. I love this collection and the masterful, simplistic style that Hemingway employs in his writing. The stories, with the exception of two, were entertaining and compelling, and he wrote them in his 20s. The book made me respect Hemingway a lot.
The Old Man and the Sea is only the second book I’ve read by him. And I was disappointed. The book is nothing more than a description of a man floating around in the ocean trying to catch a fish as he ruminates on his thoughts. The plot doesn’t get exciting until the sharks start coming after him, which doesn’t happen till the end of the book. I had to speed read the last 30-ish pages, and I only decided to finish the book because it was such a short read (127 pages). If it had been longer, however, I would have thrown the book at the nearest cat.
Hemingway’s writing was not bad, mind you. The premise of his story was. I couldn’t care less about an old man who is floating around the ocean trying to catch a fish. There wasn’t enough conflict to make me care, and I’m not sure why this novel was awarded two prestigious literary awards. Though I can now say ostentatiously with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigar in the other that I have now read one of America’s finest novels, I don’t have much of a satisfied feeling about it.
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