The Young Boy and the Sea

“Luck is a thing that comes in many forms and who can recognize her?” — Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

Old Man and the Sea

Spoiler alert: I will be revealing parts of Hemingway’s novella The Old Man and the Sea. It is available for free (because copyright expired) at Project Gutenberg.

Hemingway used more figurative language than I expected, especially when describing the big fish. In Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, they describe how Hemingway writes in a terse and declarative way. That was partially true for this book, but according to some critics (I read this on Wikipedia), the book breaks with his original style, which I can understand.

However, I would say that it definitely demonstrates an easily understandable story. Of course, there are probably deeper aspects like themes and symbols hidden in the simple language and plot which I did not try to understand (they are more like bonuses to me).

Compared to Life of Pi, this book is less exciting because it doesn’t have a tiger and it is most a fight between the old man and the swordfish. I kept rooting for the old man on his journey back to sea, I sort of expected that the sharks would eat the whole fish, but I still felt sad. In that sort of moment, I wonder if Hemingway intended to demonstrate that the reader’s hope in that hopeless situation was still worthwhile.

I suppose it is up to interpretation. However, an extremely doubtful person might just shut the book in order to avoid seeing the shame of that outcome. Perhaps the lesson is that we should not judge events by their outcome, but by the process. As for me, I would much rather be a hopeful person.

The last pages were more lackluster than I expected. Hemingway wheeled out two tourists to demonstrate how the efforts of the old man were not properly appreciated by onlookers. Perhaps for all of us, our deeds will be unthanked and our labor will be unrewarded in the end.

Anyway, life goes on.

American Football

On Thanksgiving, I watched a live football game at my school for the first time. Every major analyst in the state said the away team (other school) was going to win. It would make sense because their school’s population is much larger than my school’s population, so they would have more potential players to choose from.

The match was super close for most of the game. However, even when the other team was ahead by one point with two minutes left on the clock, I never once thought that we would lose. Maybe I was influenced by the old man, maybe I was just feeling hopeful. The match was extremely entertaining, and was the first time that my school defeated the other school in around a decade.

Football

The World Cup seems to be the thing that everyone seems to be talking about, sort of like the weather, except the weather stays for longer. Two countries, the U.S. and China, despite being the “most powerful” in many ways, are not so strong in soccer.

There are many hypotheses, but I believe that it is a combination of many factors. In the U.S., the most popular sports are American football, basketball, and baseball. In China, it’s badminton and ping pong. For top athletes, why would they want to play a sport that people only care about every four years? In addition, few play sports to go pro; it’s mainly to get into college. In other words, there is always a cushion for those who want to exit. People don’t want to practice for hours a day when they can passively succeed.

For China, the theme is swapped. The accepted idea is that if someone does not do well on their exams, they have no chance at success. This is what the majority of parents believe, and thus millions of kids compete to score well on tests rather than goals. If exam season means students stay at school until bats go out to hunt, then they certainly have no time for practicing soccer.

Blue Lock

Blue Lock is one of the best sports animes that I’ve ever seen. There may be some spoilers that follow this paragraph, but as a brief explanation of the premise, a few hundred top male Japanese high school soccer players are given the option to stay in a facility called Blue Lock which has the goal of producing the world’s best striker (a soccer position), and all players who are eliminated through various events will be barred from ever playing soccer in the Japanese national team.

So, what makes this different from other shows like Haikyuu? Well, if a player is eliminated, they will never play again, so the stakes are much higher. Furthermore, the show centers on the idea of “ego,” meaning that the player with the most powerful ego will win out over his competitors. There is a minimal sense of teamwork because individual rewards are given based on the number of goals scored, not the number of passes made.

In a sense, it’s the same thing that makes Minecraft Hunger Games (and regular Hunger Games) so interesting. Actually, now that I think of it, it’s actually the idea of a battle royale within the structure of a team that makes it so interesting. Being on the same team, but not really? Just like being friendly in Civilization 6, if I need to get that banana tile, it’s time for war.

However, a major problem of the manga (this will not happen with the anime, probably), which is in black-and-white, is that the characters often have extremely similar silhouettes and hair colors. For example, it is very hard to tell apart two people who have white or black hair because there are always two people on the field who have those hair colors and the same body shape.

Conversely, one of the best parts of the show is how the eyes of the characters change when they go into “ego mode.” For example, some pupils dilate, shrink, or have fire and other effects coming off of them. That may not be exactly original to Blue Lock, but it certainly helps identify characters. Also, when characters become stronger, their faces and eyes change, which is very exciting to watch.

Overall, I rate it 9/10 only because the visual clarity causes confusion in some parts of the manga.

Recommending Series

Whenever I recommend things to people, they say they are interested and then don’t do it. There are two cases:

1. They actually want to watch it but forgot
2. They don’t want to watch it but are just saying they are interested to be nice

The first is acceptable, but the second one just causes more problems assuming I remember they were interested. How about a polite rejection? That would be better.

Projects

I am lagging behind quite a bit on my projects for my classes and my independent learning project. But, I think if I start this weekend, I can get back on track.