I recently re-read The Old Man and the Sea. The book I read prior was not very tight in its prose, and I wanted the spare sentences of Hemingway as a palate cleanser.

This book is wonderful. One of the very best. Its simplicity is deceiving: an old man goes out fishing alone and battles himself and nature and catches The Big One and then loses it. How cliché!

But it’s not. The story is stripped down to such bare elements that you can layer meaning on it however you like: it’s a story of a fisherman’s respect for the fish that is his match — the fish he must kill in order to live. It’s a story of a writer struggling with his art. It’s a story of grappling with the thing you can see, that’s maybe in your reach, but maybe its not and what are you willing to do to get it? How far are you willing to go, how deep are you willing to dig? It’s a story that is alive and in the moment. It is a story of dignity. It is a story of reverence.

I love the old man. There is so much I can learn from him.

“I may not be as strong as I think,” the old man said. “But I know many tricks and I have resolution.”