Okay, I admit to regretting all the classics I never read as a kid, or even as an adult. There were many I did read, but was “forced” to as a school kid. One of them was “The Old Man and the Sea.” As I kid, I thought it was an “okay” story, and I sort of enjoyed the film with Spencer Tracy, too.
But I recently re-read the novel and realized something had changed within myself. I could actually feel and understand the depth of Santiago, the old man, and understood his feelings about the sea, the marlin he caught, about the sharks, and about his life and the lives of others, as these things are depicted in the novel
And, I could truly appreciate the power and beauty of Hemingway’s prose in this novel. His descriptions are magnificent, and Santiago’s character emerges in great depth, and the meaning of his struggle with the sea, too; all of it comes out in relatively few pages at the hand of a master.
I guess it pays to re-visit some of the classics that were thrust upon us in school, but with the perspective we now have. It was an awakening for me–a realization of the power of time and maturity and how they impact on one’s perceptions.
A fine read it is-“the Old Man and the Sea”-even if you read it long ago when you were a different person.
