Ana V.

As much as Ernest Hemingway has been blamed for his short sentences, his rapid and sometimes empty style, there is no way you can deny that not many writers can do a hundred pages of almost solely fishing. I'm talking here about the mechanics of fishing, about the technical terms and the do's and dont's for such an activity.

But this book is not just about fishing. It's about a man who needs to feel useful again. He is old, and in so many years he has mastered fishing up to it being an art and a banality for him at the same time. And yet there he is, fighting the biggest fish of his little ocean, trying to conquer this immovable and stubborn animal that has much more brains than his species does.

It's amazing how the writing can be so simple, almost primitive, I might say, and still handle all the different aspects and feelings and represent the man in his old days, without putting much accent at all on his description or his past. Those are not important, it seems - what is, though, is what he does. And he, as man, doesn't fight just a fish - he fights nature.

It's beautiful and fluid and flawless. Yes, it's not complex. Yes, it's not descriptive up to the highest point. And yes it focuses on a single thing. But can't we all just take a break from all those flashy, complicated stories and find happiness in a hundred pages of simplicity? I think we can.