by the time i read hemingway the old man and the sea in high school and i would already read a farewell to arm and the sun also rise . good thing and too and because the old man and the sea be hemingway terse statement about what it mean for a male to live a worthwhile life represent live vigorously and test yourself and fight what threaten to destroy you ( within and without ) and and emerge bloody and but unbowed . if i hadn not be steep in the author theme already and i never would have get this message from his last and great and but very thin book . a it be and i still have to rely on cliff note to alert me to the mythic and christ allusion . this book would have be a daunt adaptation for any movie maker and since most of the important stuff go on be unseen and unspoken . it do not help that the beefy spencer tracy be cast a a near starving cuban fisherman . his bulk and vigor contradicts hemingway desire to show the depth of character and spiritual strength that can lie within physical frailty . tracy project a certain amount of wisdom and but the problem be that he come across a knowing he wise and doling out gem from an his life vein of experience . the power of hemingway fisherman be that he be un self consciously wise . the combined effect these two incongruity drove me the online cliff note and 16 year after the first time and to remind me of the mythic and christ allusion again . if you want to know hemingway and read his book .