The Old Man and the Sea p. 1-28

The beginning of this book sees the old man, Santiago, returning from a day out on the sea. He is a fisherman by trade, but has fallen into a rut of bad luck. He hasn't caught a single fish in 84 days. Most people would have given up by that point, but Santiago remains cheerful and undefeated. He remembers the time when 87 days passed before he caught anything and then went three weeks where he caught only large fish.

He used to have a boy named Manolin to help him on his boat, but the boy's father made him switch boats in order to bring in money for the family. The boy still takes care of the old man, and spends as much time as he can with him. He brings the man food, even though the old man keeps pretending he has food. They talk about baseball often. Joe DiMaggio is Santiago's favorite player in the whole league, and the two characters spend a lot of time talking about him.

Hemingway describes the man's hut/house in clear detail. The old man lives by himself because his wife died. He has only the bare necessities except for some religious pictures on the wall. He used to have a picture of his wife, but it made him sad to see it, so he took it down. The old man seems to be very lonely. It is a good thing he has the boy to keep him company.

They eat their dinner and the boy returns to his home. When Santiago goes to bed that night, he dreams his recurring dream about lions. The scene in his dream is a memory from when he was a young man on a ship traveling along the coast of Africa. In his dream, he sees the lions on the beach at sunset. The image brings him peace, and he loves his dream as much as he loves the boy. The dream makes him feel less lonely, much like the boy does. This sounds like a pretty awesome dream to me. It's even cooler that the old man actually got to witness something like that for himself when he was young.

After he wakes up, he goes and wakes the boy. They prepare the old man's ship and he heads out to sea.

I think this book is turning out to be a decent story so far, but I have an issue with Hemingway's writing style. His sentences are brief and choppy, and that makes the thoughts and speech seem disjointed. It makes me feel like I'm missing something.

Writing style aside, I find I'm enjoying this book more than I thought I would.