Andy Larson

As a kid, the Alex Rider books were pretty much the most perfect books I could ask for. It was non-stop completely over the top action and of course I liked to think of myself as Alex Rider.  So naturally I had a crush on his girlfriend in the books.  With a name that I now realize sounds kinda like a pornstar, Sabina Pleasure is basically the perfect girl.  I’m pretty sure her character was so one-dimensionally flawless that any guy would jump at the chance to take her to prom.  I don’t even remember any specific qualities about her, just that she was hot and nice and loving and basically everything you could ask for.  Because perfection like that doesn’t exist in the real world, I’d like to get a taste of what it’s like.

After exploring several different criticisms, I've had to scrap a few now because they didn't offer the type of analysis I need to be able to write my abstracts.  However, Google Books, a service I didn’t even know existed, has helped me immensely in finding critical writings.  The service has tons of critical books in its system, all with scanned pages yet totally searchable.  I was able to run a search for “The Old Man and the Sea” through all of its critical books on Hemingway in order to pinpoint the sections concerning my book.  It requires you to purchase most of the books, yet it somehow lets you “preview” the text, which was more than enough to get exactly what I needed.  I think this service could be of great help to future students on this project. 

With such a short and easy to read book like The Old Man and the Sea, it’s easy to take everything at face value.  Yet this is a book that is absolutely riddled with metaphor.  Reading through my criticisms, I've begun to see the symbolic value within nearly every aspect of the story.  I picked up on some of them, but reading about the ones that I missed has given me several “ohhhhhh, I get it now” moments.  Particularly interesting to me is the Christianity related metaphors that I completely missed at first, but can now totally see.  That’s something I’d like to explore in the abstract I write on that criticism.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, but I checked out the OU library with Mackenzie to get some criticisms.  When I got there, the two best criticisms on The Old Man and the Sea had already been checked out.  So I was left to search through every single critical Hemingway book there trying to find ones that discussed OMAS.  Many of them only concerned Hemingway as an author, or one of his many other works.  After flipping through literally every single one (there had to be a faster way to do that), I found two pieces of critical writing concerning OMAS.  After three dollars and a copy machine battle later, I had two of my three criticisms.  One of them is perfect, just what I was looking for.  The other is pretty concise and easy to understand which I fear might make it a little too simple to work with. 

So with my book finished, I want to reflect back on some of the things that really stuck out to me, and maybe pinpoint some of the themes that I'll want to address throughout my project.  One major motif is the old man's dreams about the lions.  They clearly have a symbolic meaning that I'll have to go back and connect to the rest of the book.  Another motif is the old man's thoughts about baseball, particularly Joe DiMaggio.  I see this one as a standard that the old man holds himself to, but it will take more careful analysis to determine for sure.  Lastly, his relationship with the boy seems really important.  I intend on exploring the moves intended by Hemingway within the viewpoint of both the old man and the boy.

Well, I was right.  The old man lost his fish.  After all that work it's just gone.  Wow, what a heartbreaker.  Even still, the old man never lost his spirit.  He fought to the very end and escaped haven given everything to his quest.  The boy cries for him but he does not.  His simple acceptance of all the "unluckiness" in his life is beautifully tragic.  I think the character of the old man is meant to be one without flaw, a true and pure protagonist.  The sea robs him of his very sustenance, yet he meets it with a calm understanding rather than an adversarial resistance.  His attitude is meant to be revered.

The great marlin has finally been conquered.  For a while I wasn't really sure if the old man was going to be able to catch the fish.  That would have been tragic, and I don't know what the meaning from that would be so I guess it makes more sense that he would accomplish his goal.  However, now that he has, I have a bad feeling that his success may be fleeting.  There really does seem to be a sense of tragic romanticism surrounding the man.  He works so hard and never complains, yet is so poor and so alone in life.  One of his greatest memories is winning the 24-hour+ arm wrestling match with the large, black man in the tavern.  That victory was fleeting as well, and he recalls the diminishing admiration from others after he accomplished the feat again.  For these reasons I can see him losing the fish, potentially his greatest accomplishment ever, and then observing the effects it has on his outlook.

The way the old man talks to himself throughout the book is fascinating to me.  The dialogue works seamlessly, even though there is no conversation being had.  This actually kind of reminds me of Their Eyes Were Watching God, in the way it almost has two narrators.  There's a third person omniscient narrator, but the old man's verbal thoughts progress the story in a unique way.  The man directly addresses the fish or his cramping hand in a way that makes the solidarity of the story special.  You might think a book that pretty much only has one character would be boring, but the man's dialogue makes it uniquely special in the way he applies his introspection to his quest to catch the fish.  There's just something that works about a story that focuses in so heavily on an individual.  It reminds me of the movies 127 Hours or Castaway, that largely feature a single character and a single setting.  I'm curious to pin-point more clearly what it is about these kinds of stories that makes them work so well.

Now that the old man has left on his boat I can see that the story is very much about the introspection of the man as he grapples with this great marlin.  It reminds me a lot of the story of Moby Dick or any great struggle between man and beast.  It is primal in nature yet layered with a meaning greater than the reputation or the money that would come with landing the fish.  The old man doesn't come off as one searching for these things, so it leaves me wondering why he risks so much to catch this marlin.  It must be that he needs to prove his worth to himself and grasp at the fleeting feelings of youth.  Another thing I noticed is the respect the man has for the marlin.  He calls it beautiful and talks about how sad it is that it must be killed.  This reminds me a lot of Native Americans and other tribal hunters that show a great respect to the animals they kill.  For them and the old man the hunt itself is where they derive meaning, not from the kill. 

So after an unexpected (but kind of expected) turn of events, I had to switch up my book.  Short on time, I settled on The Old Man and the Sea by Hemmingway.  So far it's quite the easy read, which allows me to focus my attention on all of the other details of which Hemmingway likes to include.  One of the first things I noticed is the avoidance of referring to the main character (the old man) or the boy by their real names.  Instead, they are simply called "the old man" or "the boy."  This isn't even a Kill Bill or Fight Club-esque intentional omission of names.  It's stated plainly in the beginning of the book that the old man's name is Santiago and the boy's name is Manolin.  So far these names have never been revisited, with even the boy Manolin calling the old man Santiago "old man" verbally.  I'm interested to see if by the end of the book I'm able to decipher why Hemmingway makes this choice and how it's supposed to affect me the reader.

One thing I wanted to address that didn't get brought up in the Harkness is the irony of the restrictiveness of former slave Nanny.  Nanny grew up in slavery and never had freedom to choose her own path.  She was required to have sex with the man of her plantation, resulting in a baby that wasn't born out of love and had to be stolen away in order to protect it.  Instead of encouraging Janie to be free with her discovery of love, Nanny wants her to be restricted to whatever man she deems is best for her.  This shows how deeply slavery affected Nanny so that she thinks structuring Janie's life is the best thing for her.

Yep, this is the one.  This is one I don't think I ever would have found without Kreinbring's incessant warnings on how dirty it was.  He originally suggested it to me under my request for funny books, and a few chapters in it's absolutely hilarious.  It's so sharp and so smart and written so unlike any of the other books we've had to read throughout high school.  I'm excited to decipher its humor and figure out how it works to achieve Roth's purpose.

So I started off like a lot of people, going straight to our resident book fanatic Kreinbring for advice on what to read.  This actually worked out great, because that man really knows his books. Really makes me realize how grossly under read I am and guilty of how many potentially great books I'm missing.  Anyway, I ended up with a long, long list of book recommendations that I slowly waded my way through.  I started out with a Ray Carver book of short stories, but that one fizzled out quickly.  It was then that I realized that I really wanted something funny, but I wasn't sure if I could find one that fit requirements and that I truly liked.  Then, I wanted something different, something unlike any of the other novels I've read in school. For this, I got another long list from Kreinbring.  Many Amazon reviews and free Kindle samples later, I narrowed it down to two books that I intend to choose from for my final project.

The first time I heard this song I wanted to forget it instantly. And so far I've been very good at it. I just can’t explain how I lobotomize myself to the one song out of thousands that I've pin-pointed as the topic of an essay about my “favorite song”. Maybe because it’s something I cherish as perfect, in a way that most everything in this world is not. Maybe it’s because I know its flaws as well as I know it’s strengths, and by repeatedly refreshing my brain to the song I can live out my “50 First Dates” relationship with this song forever. Except I don’t even want to love this song. I don’t want to imprint my emotions on it, but instead open myself to let the song imprint itself on me. I want to be haunted by the intro and punched in the gut by the guitar solo and close my eyes and enjoy the goosebumpy high I reach when the song hits its climax. I don’t lean on this song when I’m down or ride it when I’m feeling good.  I don’t associate it with any emotion in particular because that would trivialize it in a way that might ruin why it’s special to me. Instead I just feel it. I allow it to fill the holes in my mind and become a piece of me if only for a few minutes. Yet then I forget. The song is me at my most vulnerable, and I guess that’s something I can’t afford to be.

Try and tell me this song isn’t original. (warning: creepy video)

What first called my attention to this video was that it was about frogs, because frogs are sweet. The headline described something that seemed impossible. It also had a video, which is more fun than just reading an article. The video showed exactly what the headline described, instead of just talking about it, I watched a frog freeze itself into essentially a rock and then thaw back to normal within hours, and that's pretty "hmmm" worthy.