TIME OUT

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway: a real man’s man; red wine, bulls and wrestling with fish were all central themes of a life of unremitting machismo. Having read a bit of Ernest in my time, I generally find that he spends a good deal of time droning on about death, impotence, torture and suicide. In this respect a quick dip in to one of his books is not dissimilar to spending the day in the office of Sailing Today. Anyway, The Old Man and the Sea is the only one of his books with any real nautical pretensions and at 109 pages, its sufficiently short and breezy to put down without considering shooting yourself in the meantime.

It’s actually a beautifully written book about one man’s relationship with a giant fish. Not a promising topic, I agree, but bear with me. Santiago is an ancient fisherman who cruises the coast of Cuba reeling in Marlin and suchlike. For some unknown reason he