Top 5 Memorable Moments!

The first step is to read the entire book and record the top five memorable scenes or impressions indicating why they stick out. After this don’t touch the book for a month and then come back to the blog. 

Why capture the top five? 

These scenes or impressions are likely the areas having the most impact and helps you zero in on some of the best writing within the corpus. 

Here are mine:

1. The early scenes with the boy and the old man. Why? This close and affectionate interaction with an old man who’s not a relative is alien to me and rarely occurs in my culture
2. The described spartan existence of the old man.Why? The words and images this section brings up are appealing. 
3. The scenes describing the hooking of the marlin and how the old man imagines the fish powerfully swimming deep beneath in the dark sea and the strength portrayed by the image of it pulling the skift along. Why? The beauty of the powerful fish and the image it conjures up
4. The killing of the sharks. Why? The words used and the images of their attack on the beautiful fish with the counter attacks of the old man and the images of the sharks killed drifting down into the deep, fading from sight.
5. The image of the skeleton on the side of the skift and the great tail moving to the harbour waves as the old man sleeps at home. Why? The image is very clear despite it being illogical but a necessity for the tragedy to be fully realized.