[Originally published on my Medium page: link here]
If you’re looking for a book that its title can summarize, then you’re in luck. The Old Man and The Sea is basically what you get when reading this. The old man is actually an old fisherman, who has spent most of his life with the sea and has gone a while without catching a fish. From the moment he saw the giant marlin (type of fish), the reader goes along on an adventure that can be interpreted in millions of ways. The entire story works as an allegory and can connect towards various classical works, with similar one-man journeys. What I’d like to wrap the review on is that it is a very pleasant story to read. The beauty is in its simplicity, and when put under the microscope, it can hold its ground.
Read this book if you’ve always wanted to read Hemingway or you’ve heard his name a little over 5 times in your lifetime — this would be a great starter novel, plus it’s not that long.
Rate: 3.5/5
Time: less than 5 hours
Book-shelf Worthy: Great addition to a library
Quoteworthy
It is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.
I must never let him learn his strength nor what he could do if he made his run. If I were him I would put in everything now and go until something broke. But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able.
You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?
Fish, you are going to have to die anyway. Do you have to kill me too?
If you only know George Orwell as the dyspeptic, dystopian creator of Animal Farmand1984,you should absolutely pick up Rebecca Solnit’s new Orwell’s Roses,which takes the rose garden Orwell planted at a rented cottage in 1936 as a jumping-off point to explore all kinds of questions. “For example,” writes reviewer Ilana Masad, “What was 1936 like politically, socially, and economically in England? Where was Orwell in his career then? Or: What did his given name signify and what history did it carry? What significance lay in his chosen nom de plume that over time was used by friends and family as well? And even: What does it mean to plant roses?”
Paris é uma Putaria: após um ano de muito estudo e muito sexo [com senegaleses, marroquinos, nigerianos e argelinos], aquela cidade maravilhosa me devolvia aos meus braços, a minha doce namorada que saíra há poucos anos do interior do Rio Grande do Sul como uma menina estudiosa e namorada fiel e voltava agora como doutora em Ciência Política por uma das universidades mais prestigiadas da Europa e como uma adorável promíscua pelas mãos [e paus] dos homens mais bem-dotados do mundo. Merci, Paris.
It’s interesting to look at the canon and the headcanons through them.
Ω “I don’t want to be your friend, baby. I am your friend.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Ω “When you stop doing things for fun you might as well be dead.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Ω “This was a big storm and he might as well enjoy it. It was ruining everything, but you might as well enjoy it” ― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ω “ I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” ― Ernest Hemingway, Across the River and Into the Trees
Ω “Now I am depressed myself,’ I said. ‘That’s why I never think about these things. I never think and yet when I begin to talk I say the things I have found out in my mind without thinking.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Ω “Being against evil doesn’t make you good.“ — Ernest Hemingway
Ω “ To hell with them. Nothing hurts if you don’t let it.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Ω “Happiness is often presented as being very dull but, he thought, lying awake, that is because dull people are sometimes very happy and intelligent people can and do go around making themselves and everyone else miserable. He had never found happiness dull. It always seemed more exciting than any other thing and capable of as great intensity as sorrow to those people who were capable of having it.” ― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream
Ω “Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Ω “ There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Ω “I loved you when I saw you today and I loved you always but I never saw you before…” — Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ω “The first draft of anything is shit.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Ω “So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.” ― Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
Ω “There’s no one thing that’s true. It’s all true.” ― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ω “We could have had such a damned good time together.” “Yes,“ I said. "Isn’t it pretty to think so?” ― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Ω “Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Ω “ I love you for all that you are, all that you have been, all that you’re yet to be.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Ω “You may talk. And I may listen. And miracles might happen.” — Ernest Hemingway, The Complete Short Stories
Ω “You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Ω “He had always known what I did not know and what, when I learned it, I was always able to forget. But I did not know that then, although I learned it later.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Ω “There isnt always an explanation for everything.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Ω “You must be prepared to work always without applause.” — Ernest Hemingway
Ω “I’m not unfaithful, darling. I’ve plenty of faults but I’m very faithful. You’ll be sick of me I’ll be so faithful.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Ω “I may not be as strong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.” ― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Ω “Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?” ― Ernest Hemingway, Men Without Women
Ω “ Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Ω “ Show the readers everything, tell them nothing.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Ω “ Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with that there is.” ― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Ω “ If the others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy. But since I am not, I do not care.” ― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Ω “ Everybody is friends when things are bad enough.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Ω “As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.” ― Ernest Hemingway Ω “ I rewrote the ending of 'Farewell to Arms’ 39 times before I was satisfied.” ― Ernest Hemingway
Josephine Baker was a singer, dancer, spy, activist, paragon of beauty, and member of social circles that included luminaries like Langston Hughes, Pablo Picasso, and Ernest Hemingway. Not bad, eh? She wowed audiences in her adopted France, worked for the resistance in the WWII, and returned back to the States to integrate concert halls and fight in the civil rights movement. If you think she sounds like a busy lady, wait until you hear about her 12 kids! This Push Girl was simply amazing.
Tell your friend she’s got a little Josephine Baker in her. Reblog now to give her a little push.
Excited to announce Scribner Magazine! We’ve revived our classic literary destination featuring original writing and media by our staff and authors from the broader literary community including Stephen King, Miranda July, Ernest Hemingway, James Franco, Anthony Doerr, and many more: http://www.scribnermagazine.com/
