The 306 Greatest Books #2 - The Old Man and the Sea

I am going back and posting all of my previous book reviews so that they are listed on my site in chronological order. The reviews are dated for the time when I read the book, hence the reason many of them will be listed for times before this website existed. 

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. This book can be found on the Sybervision and Norwegian Book Lists. 

The Old Man and the Sea was another high school book that was on my "adult re-read list", so reading it some-30 years later I revisit what I once truly loved. I said this about the book before and it still truly holds up, this is Hemingway's Moby Dick type story, however the titular "old man" of the book doesn't see the fish as his enemy but as his brother, one which he is destined by fate to either kill or be killed by. It is a sentimental story about aging, ableism, and the loneliness that comes as we age. A story where, more than half of, covers his battle with the fish, with the final quarter covering him trying to get home with his catch. Even though this is truly a fantastic story, I felt kinda bored by it. There was little desire to "see what happens next". It moved pretty slow for me, even while listening to it on audiobook, and was repetitive, although purposely so. So overall, while it is a short story, and a well written one with some great lessons, it still falls short of Hemingway's other works.