Is The Old Man and the Sea a great adventure book? Why is it so revered? Does it belong in the Dogwatch Library?

Today we have the great fortune to talk with Mark Cirino to help us answer these questions. Mark is the host of One True Podcast, along with Michael VonCanon, which is a show that considers Hemingway’s great sentences and his work in general. Mark is a Professor of English, a prolific Hemingway scholar, and his most recent book is One True Sentence: Writers & Readers on Hemingway’s Art.

In our conversation, we discuss The Old Man and the Sea and how that story fits into a canon of adventure, and whether it belongs in the “Dogwatch Library,” our own list of great books for and about adventure that is modeled after Theodore Roosevelt’s “Pigskin Library.” 

As we consider Santiago’s journey, we head all over the map, and touch on the “hero’s journey,” Ishmael and Moby Dick, The Red Badge of Courage, how adventure narratives are both external and internal, the idea that ‘the farther we go out the farther we go in’ in adventure narratives, and how Hemingway’s book can help us think about success and failure. At the end of our conversation we both choose our own “One True Sentences” from Hemingway’s work. Mark recommends further reading ideas from Hemingway including the short story “Big Two-Hearted River,” which he calls ‘Hemingway’s masterpiece,’ and the book Green Hills of Africa.

If you are not a listener already, you make sure you check out One True Podcast and Mark and Michael’s book, One True Sentence: Writers & Readers on Hemingway’s Art. They provide a readily accessible masterclass in Hemingway and how to access his work. They are the English professors you never had.