This Hemingway novella is the third out of four major works of his that I've read. His short stories are interesting and artistically innovative yet so much lighter when you think of them. There is a not so subtle metaphor to the work which funnily enough is the substance to the story. Of course the data on fishing and fish is substantive so don't think it's about the metaphor, not for one second. I like the shifting seamlessness in the point of view consciousness, small, random details, like the focus on hands and lines and the way he avoids using commas. It was a strangely dense and difficult work. Part of its success at publication was its relevance and seeming adaptation to modernist literary trends. So, if anything, this book is a statement of authorial identity without giving up personality just acknowledging relative irrelevance. Often this hurts, because essentially it's depression, and it's darkness, and sharks always win. On a somewhat unrelated note by the time this is published I will have unsubscribed from the New Yorker and cancelled their daily newsletter. For three weeks I read their fiction to see the other side, to access the society of contemporary literature, glancing at the unimaginative cinema takes, eventually realizing I'm better off not knowing what's all the rage nowadays. These three pieces weren't bad but they were all stifled by what's slowly developed to be mandatory expectations for short fiction. Rules broken as parents happily watch, everyone's identical in their depth of view, no one cares. At least in my personal hell I choose what I see.