Book Review: The Old Man and the Sea

Genre: Tragedy
Title: The Old Man and the Sea
Author: Ernest Hemingway
Rating: 1.7/3
Read online here

Plotline (from Goodreads):

Ernest Hemingway took great pride in using an economy of carefully measured words and tightly wrought phrases in his writing. Nominated for Grammy, this recording of The Old Man and Sea is perfect example of Hemingway's precision and is read here in its entirety by Oscar-winning actor Charlton Heston.

A novella, The Old Man and Sea tells the story of an old fisherman, Santiago, and his long lusty struggle isn't so much over one fish, but the act of living—living fully, actively, robustly. Charlton Heston is marvelous in this recording with his voice adding a quality and texture to Hemingway's words that will engage listeners completely.

My take:

I'm starting to make a trend with all these classic novels, eh? I'm actually trying to increase my vocabulary and all that other super-cool stuff. Not sure if it's working; I tend to skip over the words more than actually read and learn them.

Have you guys ever read those books where you were sure you would be able to predict the ending? I had that kind of feeling with this book (It's safe to note that I'm usually wrong though...) I was so sure that at the end the old man was going to die, and that dreadful apprehension ruined the whole book for me. (Not that I'm going to tell you how the book actually ends... that would be just horribly inconsiderate of me.)

Just as a personal preference, I don't usually like books about elderly people or poor people, because I'm always constantly worried about their health and paranoid that they'll suddenly drop dead or run into some stupid-but-scary financial difficulty. And coincidentally, most of the old people books I have read have always had a sad ending.

Or maybe old people books are just like that.

The reason I rated the book so low is because I really hated the content. People read books for different reasons. I read them to help me escape from real life. So books about real life don't work for me so well. I much prefer those action-packed books (or romance-packed books hehe) where everyone is rich, good-looking and has bad-ass powers. So the realistic genre is a major put-off from the start. Add in the fact that there's old people (it's starring an old person for heaven's sake) and my rating for this book falls considerably.

There are probably going to be people who do enjoy this genre and find my rating hard to believe. Please keep in mind that this is the opinion of one person only.

Happy reading!