I had the occasion to reread Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (which won the bard of Key West, FL, and Havana, Cuba, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954). At first appearances, The Old Man and the Sea is a zero-sum game where an old, poor fisherman who’s had a string of bad luck for some 80+ days, hooks an incredibly large fish and tries to land it. Inevitably, he does win his battle with the fish. He hauls it in (after the fish tows him far out to sea) but finds his catch is too large; it would probably swamp his tiny skiff if he tried to bring it onboard, so he lashes it to the side of his skiff and begins rowing back to his home port. It’s a long way and at a certain point, he rigs a sail, but returning to port takes a long time.
The story from beginning to end is one of suffering; the book is told with extremely simple language which makes the suffering more painful. The man suffers from bad luck and a lack of food. When his 80+ days of bad luck finally relents and he lands the large fish, his days of suffering at first seem to be at an end but then the sharks, attracted by his fish’s blood, close in and one-by-one eat the old fisherman’s enormous catch, so that by the time he returns to his home harbor, the sharks have stolen everything worth eating—only bones are now lashed to the side of the old man’s skiff. Perhaps the story is making the point that life can be a zero-sum game with a twist. Life itself can cause us to believe we’re winning at points, but perhaps by the end, life takes away our winnings. Our power, our wealth and our health diminish. Perhaps in the end, like the old man, as we head for the grave, we’re left with nothing but bones. It’s the old man’s many-days-long struggle and his memories of how he suffered and survived that he has to live on now. Not much sustenance there.
Why am I discussing man-against nature stories? It should come as no surprise to you that a similar-yet-very different story appears in my novel, Charging the Jaguar. (By the way, this story I’m about to tell you is not the main narrative of my novel. In fact it’s a side-light story but because it appears early in my novel readers might assume it’s the central story. It’s not.)
As our story opens it’s 1967, and a FARC lieutenant whose first name is Porfirio is sent on an overnight “Provisioning Mission” by his commanding officer to “liberate” livestock because the FARC camp is about to run out of food. The FARC is a revolutionary army in Colombia. Porfirio has been a screw-up practically his entire life, but in these early-morning hours while on this mission (after rustling 2 mature goat males and 12 egg-laying hens) he decides his screw-up way of life is over; from now on he will refuse to let his screw-ups stand; he swears he will immediately correct each screw-up the instant it happens, or “die trying.” He’s had it with living the life of a screw-up. He wants something better.
That’s when, during a rain storm, a lightning strike sets a tree on fire, which, in turn, stresses the livestock, causing the 12 hens to scatter, and the two goats to climb two adjacent trees.
Porfirio knows if he doesn’t return to his FARC camp by sunrise with his livestock he’ll be in danger of being assassinated by his commanding officer for incompetence—for continuing to be a total screw-up. (When most of the story happens it’s nearly 4:00 a.m. Sunrise is around 6:00 a.m.)
In this case, technology has no role in the solution Porfirio works out. Sure, he knows he could easily shoot the goats out of the trees, but he also knows that in this case he’d only be creating another screw-up for himself. He has no way of transporting the carcasses back to camp, so they would simply rot where they fell.
Hey, if you’ve ever had occasion to climb a tree and emotionally relate to a goat that’s perched on one of the branches—if you’ve ever had to use all your persuasive skills to convince a recalcitrant goat to descend a tree and return to earth, you’ll appreciate Porfirio’s challenge, and what he does to ensure he goes on living one additional day.
