nouveau

visa-paperwork sanity review.

(waiting for various visa and tax forms to clear up... the life of the freelancer. can't leave the area, but can't settle down either.)

Ernest Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea" (1951) written in the author's fifty-second year is sort of a disquieting reminder that not all is peaches and cream in an author's life. from his "best work" of age 26 (literally beginning on his birthday) [b:The Sun Also Rises|3876|The Sun Also Rises|Ernest Hemingway|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1331828228s/3876.jpg|589497] to the follow-up smash Farewell to Arms, (age 29) Hemingway's nine novels (if you count all the post-mortem vulturing) show two real 20-something hits and then later in his life this beloved classic which invites sort of two responses from the true hard-edged bibliophile. first is that, "oh, you're one of those people who think Old Man was the best work," when, after all, it is a very simplistic and casually-written almost-allegory, but then the second "hey it's pretty readable and out of anyone but Hemingway, you would have thought it top-notch."

as I've been harassing Australia's number eight reviewer a lot lately, I figure I'll give him a break and just stealth link to his alternative take. the sign of a great personality: a completely self-contained and alternative take on something.

check out this goodreads celebrity.

okay enough meta - ing.

it's a good book. it has shades of cormac mcarthuer's world-weary voice. but it wasn't sun also rises. the complexity of a paris cafe society turning into a value-collapse into spain is real and fascinating and mixaholic. this was just "gold." gold is good.