The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway – my previous take on this is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-old-man-and-sea-by-ernest-hemingway.html where I have a few thousand other notes - 9 out of 10

 

The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway – my previous take on this is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-old-man-and-sea-by-ernest-hemingway.html where I have a few thousand other notes

 

9 out of 10

 

Ernest Hemingway was a celebrated author – I have just finished Hitchcock/Truffaut and Hitchcock makes the joke where he says he was celibated, instead of celebrated – what with a few books of his included on major lists of best 100, on The 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read he has three, including The Old Man and The Sea…

 

Nevertheless, he was also part of a fantastic book about the dark side of luminaries, Intellectuals https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/06/intellectuals-by-paul-johnson.html by wondrous Paul Johnson, who exposes Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, Jean Jacques Rousseau…the latter left his children at the door of an orphanage –

When that meant nine of out ten would die, and yes, Ernest Hemingway is in there, not the Hall of Fame, but if you will, the opposite of that, even if we have to admit that somehow it makes sense that the very gifted in one department could be assumed to have big holes in say humanity shown to those around them

 

Whatever the case, I am sure I am biased, and when I say I am not crazy about For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms, it is in part because of this aspect of the life of the novelist, his thirst for blood, he was shooting large animals in Africa…notwithstanding that https://realini.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-snows-of-kilimanjaro-and-other.html

The Snows of Kilimajoro and other stories are among the books I enjoyed very much, but to return to The Old Man and The Sea there is a lot to like here, beginning with the size of it – The Economist had an article recently in praise of books you can finish in a day, and one was Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

 

Which is one hell of a read, and at only 128 pages, it can be consumed in what, less than three hours https://realini.blogspot.com/2022/09/small-things-like-these-by-claire.html and The Old Man and The Sea is 96 pages long, with that, I think it falls into the category of novella, not quite a novel, more than a short story

The aforementioned article in The Economist mentioned that editors suggest doing something about the creations that are between – what was it – 40 and 120 pages – which might have been to edit there and either take it to the size of the novel, or make it a short list, let me refer to Hitchcock/ Truffaut again:

And make a plug here – the note on the dialogue between the two major film makers is about to be posted, in just a couple of days – Hitchcock confessed he never read novels, because he would be distracted, thinking how he could adapt this, what it would look like on the big screen, so no novels for him…

 

‘The Old Man and The Sea received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and it was the only work explicitly mentioned when Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954’ and indeed, it is gripping, compelling, especially for yours truly, who will be 61 in February, and thus identifies somewhat with The Old Man

Which is not a good thing, a test has looked at what happens when people are exposed to words associated with old age, a group of participants have been told among usual things, about Florida, grey and other such cues, and another group had none of that, and the former would take twice as long to the door as the latter

 

‘Words create worlds’ was one of the mantras of Harvard Professor Tal Ben Shahar https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/08/happier-by-tal-ben-shahar-revolutionary.html who had the most popular lectures in the history of that Ivy League Institution, and you can check his course on YouTube, to be more positive

Santiago makes me think of myself and the battle with aging, which will ensue in some twenty years – ther is another research mentioned by Tal Ben Shahar, and it was managed by Ellen Langer, who placed men in their seventies – I think that was the age – and then made me ‘live in the past, a couple of decades earlier’

 

She took out references to the present from their premises, made me wear photos of their younger selves, talk about that period, newspapers were from that time, and there were other details that created the special atmosphere and you know what, at the end it was all a success, they took blood samples

The result should improved parameters and furthermore, when others were shown photos of the men before and after this experiment, they would estimate that the participants were a few years younger, after they have traveled in time like that https://realini.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-time-machine-based-on-hg-wells.html

 

Santiago is engaged in the mother of all battles with the big fish, and we could see in that the symbol of man versus nature, the fight for survival, the fittest make it, in this case it is the sharks, the man has respect for the prey, they are in this together, which could be translated as an ecological message avant la letter…

The Old Man and The Sea was -maybe it still is – among the most loved – Sadam Hussein liked it, and saw himself in the role of Santiago, battling against fierce enemies – and again, there is a lot a take from there…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”