The Old Man and the Sea [spoilers]

I don’t love this book with all my heart, but I can appreciate it. At the same time, I can see how some people fully hate the pointlessness of The Old Man and the Sea. I find that Hemingway’s writing is clear and calming, and it makes me feel like if my life were just to be existing, without anything else but just routine and breathing, waking up in a clean and well-lighted place, with a can of coffee and no other possessions, it would be okay.

The old man wants something big. He is patient in waiting. When the opportunity comes, he goes to retrieve it. He struggles, suffers and suffers, all alone in the open ocean, telling himself this is what he is born for. His perseverance is greater than anything else. He reaches the zenith, and he doesn’t prepare for the aftermath and then loses it all.

What is the point of the book? Hemingway writes calmingly, slowly, steadily. But in the end, nothing amounts to anything. The old man tires himself to the brink of death and pursues his catch with all his will, yet the suffering itself is his only reward. He converses with himself to a point of delirium, choosing between starving to lightheadedness or eating raw, nauseating fish, only to remind himself that he is a fisherman, and he must continue, it is what he is born for. His dignity and drive are crystal clear and unbendable, adamantine. There is no point, only do not go gentle. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Is there a reason to not go gentle? No. Yes. In a sense, the old man is whole now and completed something he always needed to complete.