The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest HemingwayMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Well beauty must be in the eye of the beholder, as symbolism is in the eye of the reader! This was my second attempt at reading (and enjoying or understanding?) Hemingway and, while I found the tale of the old man's struggle interesting, I'm still not sure I enjoyed it. The most touching parts for me were the young boy's devotion to looking after the old man. Maybe you have to be a fisher of some description to get it? I'd have liked a lot more background information to really appreciate his reasons for pushing on to kill such a magnificent creature. As the saying goes: 'There's a lot more fish in the sea' - or at least there used to be!
I hoped at the end that the old man's claim to love the fish dead, just as much as when it was alive is a metaphor for his respect for the marlin fish. Unfortunately, I did not get Hemingway's 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' either. For me there is often too much of the king's nakedness, in his 'new' suit of clothes, posing as a need for symbolism in some fiction.
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