Title: The Old Man and the Sea
Author: Ernest Hemingway
Genre: Classic
Pages: 93
Rating: 3 of 5

I read this in literature class back in high school and hated it (“a man hooks a fish and it drags him for 50 pages” was my summary then). When it was selected as the read of the month for the Dewey Decimators book club, I decided to give it another shot thinking that maybe 21 years had changed my taste in literature enough that I’d enjoy it now.

This time around I didn’t hate it. I could appreciate some of the artistry in the vivid descriptions, and some of the Christ-figure imagery of the old man was interesting to spot, but it still wasn’t my favorite. I find Hemingway’s style of short choppy sentences and very basic vocabulary annoying after a while, and have never really been into “man against nature” stories (especially ones that end depressingly). Overall, I give it a “meh,” due primarily to personal taste.

Also, because I have been putting off reading anything Hemingway since a couple negative experiences in lit classes, I am using this for my “Classic that Scares You” category over at the Back to the Classics 2018 challenge.