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Title: Sentimental
Review: What do Saddam Hussein and the American reading public of the 1950s have in common? They both loved this book. Its easy to see how Saddam saw his own predicament in this sentimental story of an old fisherman landing and losing a legendary fish. Hemingway was not, unfortunately, a good novelist. Hemingway's best short stories are some of the finest in the English language but he doesn't seem to have been able to sustain character and plot development sufficiently to produce really good novels. Even this short novel displays Hemingway's weaknesses as a novelist. Even worse, it is sentimental beyond belief, without any of the clear-eyed irony or insight into human nature exhibited in the best short stories. This is a weeper for middle-aged men. See any of the great Nick Adams stories for comparison. While this book appears to have revived Hemingway's career, at least in terms of popular readership, it really shows the decline of Hemingway's powers.
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