I was on vacation on the Black Sea coast. It was hot and boring. Perhaps the only salvation from the exhausting idleness was the small library nearby. By that time, I was already quite an educated girl and knew the names of great authors, though I hadn’t read all of them.
In search of yet another book to kill time under the scorching rays, I came across a little book by Hemingway. The title, “The Old Man and the Sea,” seemed quite romantic and attractive. I signed the reader’s card and set off to explore the contents of the book.
At that moment, I could not imagine what this work would be for me. It’s impossible to convey the feelings it evokes. The old man – it’s like me. The sea – life. And I’m floating in a small boat trying to catch the greatest fish in the whole wide world – happiness. I love symbolism and often give symbolic meanings to things that don’t actually have them, or aren’t even close. But if this happens to me, it must be necessary for something!
My favorite passage, which I copied from the book and carried with me during my vacation…
“…It was dark; in September, darkness always comes suddenly, right after sunset. He lay, leaning against the salt-eaten boards, and tried his best to rest. The first stars appeared in the sky. He didn’t know the name of the star Rigel, but seeing it, he realized that soon all the others would appear and those distant friends would be with him again.
– The fish, she’s my friend too, – he said. – I’ve never seen such a fish, and I’ve never heard that such exist. But I must kill her. How good it is that we don’t have to kill the stars!
“Imagine: a man tries to kill the moon every day! And the moon runs away from him. Well, what if a man had to hunt the sun every day? No, whatever you say, we’re lucky,” – he thought.
Then he began to feel sorry for the big fish, who had nothing to eat, but his sorrow for it did not hinder his determination to kill it. How many people he would feed! But are people worthy of eating it? Of course not. No one in the world is worthy of eating it: just look at how she behaves and with what great nobility.
“I don’t understand much,” – he thought. – “But how good it is that we don’t have to kill the sun, the moon, and the stars. It’s enough that we extort food from the sea and kill our brothers…”