'The Old Man and the Sea' by Ernest Hemingway – A Book Review

The ‘Old Man and the Sea’ is a classic, a 1953 Pulitzer winner contributing to Hemingway winning the Nobel Prize in 1954. It was Hemingway’s final published work during his lifetime.

The story is of old Santiago, a cheerful, strong willed fisherman, although an ill-fated one. ‘Salao’, they call him, meaning the unluckiest one since he hasn’t had a worthy catch since the last 84 days. His only companion, a young boy Manolin who looks up to him and probably the only person who cares for him, has to abandon him as his parents have ordered him to leave the doomed old man and find another worthwhile boat. Santiago goes out to sea on the 85^th day like all days with an undying hope in his heart, thinking it will be his lucky day this day and while he has purposefully strayed far into the sea and has made a great catch of a marlin, but alas, it is lost on the way to the brutal sharks.

‘Hope’ is a strong word! This is a simple yet great story of hope, of keeping it alive in the worst of times. Santiago’s solitary struggle and undying spirit in holding on to the huge fish symbolizes the hardships, the numerous insurmountable challenges faced by people from all walks of life. Whether it be a singer struggling to get his/her first break, an artist wanting his art to be praised worldwide, a youngster wanting to play for his country or a father wanting to do all that he can for his child's secure future, there is no end to the demanding situations and the bitter challenges of everyday life and what Santiago tells us like the Johnie Walker tagline is to ‘Keep Walking!’, to believe in oneself, to build a strong willed character, to pay no heed to the one’s laughing at you or your failures. And it takes a lot to earn respect, even though from a very few. Luck may change, upheave or bring down your condition in life but it is unlikely to change your character if it is unshakable and that is what will define you in the end.

It stresses on the fact that disappointment will come in every possible way and knock you down, but like the grass you have to stand strong with your grounded roots when the wind has calmed. The character Santiago reminds me of lines from a song written by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore which goes as:

‘Jodi tor daak shune, keu naa aashe,
            Tobe ekla cholo re...’

meaning

‘If nobody heeds to your call and refuse to accompany you, don’t give up...just            keep walking alone’

My Rating: * * * * * * * * * * - 7/10

Ernest Hemingway

Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey

            I somehow thought, when I had the book in my hands, considering the praises on its cover, that it would be a fun ride, a journey of guffaws and cunning smirks but alas, deceived and dejected! In a single sentence, I didn’t find anything great about the story.

So, Michael ‘Butcher’ Boone is an artist, a cranky profane one, is recently divorced losing a substantial count of his paintings and his child to the “Alimony whore” as he puts it. And Hugh ‘Slow’ Bones is his brother, slow in the mind and Michael is the one responsible to take care of him.

Marlene Leibovitz walks into their lives one fine evening as the divorced, devastated and exiled Michael is trying to get his career back on track painting one of his geniuses. And Marlene, whom the Boones discover, more so the elder Michael Boone, is a wily art authenticator, a crook, a lovely one though as they generally are. She is the wife of the great artist Leibovitz’s son.

 A ‘Leibovitz’ is stolen from Michael’s neighbor and somehow Michael knows that the sly Marlene is responsible for the theft. He is cognizant of her chicanery, yet indulges himself in the strength of her mind and beauty. And the more he discovers her through their closeness, the more he slips into her contrivances, the bigger and uglier get her deceptive and guileful plans, eventually leading to his grudging realization as she parts with him finally that a thick wad of cash always weighs heavier than the irrepressible pumping of the heart and the inscrutable feelings thus generated.

Peter Carey’s writing appears ostentatious and loud almost throughout the book. The carefree language didn’t go well with me, I guess, since I was more eager to finish it than to savor it.

My rating: * * * * * * * * * * - 4/10

Peter Carey

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry - A Book Review

          

          Oh what a wonderful story! And such a tragic one! And so beautifully composed!

Power! What the possession of it by some can have a horrendous effect on the lives of others. A priest is a man of God, the closest we can get to Him. So can he ever err, go wayward with his judgement? Oh no, never!

What is truth? Is what we see always the truth, what we hear always the truth, what we feel, what we believe – no, yes, perhaps? And what if one harnesses their impositions based on this ‘perhaps’? A possible destruction – maybe, surely? Isn’t there something between these hard drawn lines of truths and lies, rights and wrongs – isn’t that what we live as a life, don’t we?

Roseanne Clear was a beautiful lass, well she was, still is as can possibly be at the age of an approaching hundred. This is her story, her own rendition of a life of which the most part was spent in a lunatic asylum. Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital run by Dr. William Grene, is where she is at present and from where she pens down her life. And this hospital is to be brought down and it is put down to the doctor now to decide who stays in the new place and who is to be set free. Set free, ha!

The journey begins from Roseanne’s childhood, during the war, her happy days spent with her parents, her closeness to her father. And then one remorseful event after other strikes the family, her father being ushered spinelessly yet tactfully by the priest to lose his dignity till the day he is found hanging from the ceiling of a neighboring house.

As Dr. Grene is on this personal mission to dig out the aging Roseanne’s true story, he figures out the prominence of the priest, Father Gaunt’s intrusion in her life and the dear ones surrounding her. So which one is true, the account that Roseanne pens down in her sheets of paper or the asylum records where Father Gaunt has glorified his belief of the truth. What then finally caused Roseanne to land in the asylum or was it a planned plot to teach her the lesson for being bad. Bad? Married for years only to be told later by the man of God that there has been no marriage – oh! The Church has passed some law for which he had fought tooth and nail. Being seen with a person other than her husband, well, isn’t she rightly termed a nymphomaniac by the priest? Marooned, exiled, broken, oh what has each one of the McNulty’s done to her. She stays in a tin hut watering her roses. Some people are doomed in whatever they do or they don’t, Dr. Grene finds out.  As he digs deep and the people he meets put the last bits of the jigsaw puzzle in place, the truth, yes this time the truth, the real one shatters him; a tragic reality confirming what a small world this is!

The beauty of Sebastian Barry’s prose is in the fact that it is not his, it is Roseanne’s, and the words are hers, and the feelings are hers, and the sanity in the madness are hers as she talks to you, the helpless reader. Her beauty, her simplicity, her love are in those lines, her presence presides all over those pages of ‘The Secret Scripture’. 

And at the end, her's and everyone else's, when it is to come to an end, would it really matter to any of us, what was right and what was wrong, what was true and what wasn’t, when we or she has already lived the pain, borne those ugly rashes on the soul, had those non-healing deceiving strikes and cuts on the heart? It wouldn’t, I say, with an unforgiving smile coz I ain’t a priest!

My Rating : * * * * * * * * * * - 8/10

Sebastian Barry