> In Aftermath of the Astor Case, How the Final Fees Piled Up
> By SERGE F. KOVALESKI
>
> The legal drama over the health care and finances of Brooke Astor,
> New York's legendary socialite and philanthropist, played out for
> nearly three months amid allegations and recriminations of financial
> duplicity, greed and outright forgery.
Yes. I read "Old Man and the Sea," last week, which is a good story despite Hemingway's affected primitivism. For those who haven't read the book: An old fisherman who is starving to death and surviving mainly through the help given him by a young boy, goes out to sea alone after a few months of catching nothing, and lands a fifteen hundred pound sword fish (?) whom he wrestles into submission after several excruciating days of struggle. He ties the fish to his boat and heads back home, but on his way home, the entire fish is eaten by sharks so that when he gets back to port, there is only the skeleton of the fish left tethered to the boat. So, this fine catch, that might have assured his livelihood for months, is completely lost.
I remember thinking that this story could only resonate in a capitalist culture because I could not fathom any other metaphysical sense to this plot -- except the obvious one where the results of a working man's labor cannot be realized by him as an individual and are gradually stripped from him (by capitalist scavangers) leaving him nothing but an exhausted and empty heroism.
It is quite a beautiful story, but I think Traven would have done a better job telling it. (Actually, he did write a sea story called the Death Ship, but I haven't finished it yet. So I can't say.)
Joanna