by Richard Subber | Oct 30, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Joys of reading
the fish isn’t the thing…
Book review:
The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952
127 pages
The old man has a name. Santiago. He is a perilously old fisherman. He has befriended a boy, a helper—but he fishes alone.
The Old Man and the Sea isn’t about the sea. You know what it’s about. It’s about the old man, a big fish, and the vicissitudes of life concentrated in one long, lonely, painful, heroic, unsatisfying, and redemptive fishing trip.
Santiago lives a life after he hooks a marlin that is too big for him to catch. He suffers, he marvels, he learns about himself, he lives a dire philosophy, he yearns for help as he endures the hours, he accepts again and again that he is responsible for his life that may end quickly.
Santiago unknowingly shares his boat with fate and chance. He gives up his illusion of control when the sharks begin to destroy his prize.
He returns to his solitary life ashore, and the battered carcass of the fish tells no tales.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Blithedale Romance
by Nathaniel Hawthorne, not his best…
–
As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Oct 28, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Tidbits
standing above the water
query
No one sees the old quarry
as darkness flees,
it’s there, it’s silent,
it doesn’t move,
may be a buzz
or twitter,
or one leaf falling,
the pond is still…
One man, solitary,
stands above the water,
urging his arms
into the air,
with some bending,
it seems like his routine,
does he care
that I see him?
July 20, 2025
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
–
Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Oct 26, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Books Commentary, Joys of reading
Spread the word
Book review:
History in English Words
Owen Barfield
Hudson, NY: The Lindisfarne Press, 1953
240 pages
I have found a beautiful book, and I want to share it with you. Indulge me.
Owen Barfield, an Oxford graduate who loves language even more than I love it, wrote History in English Words. In his Foreword, W. H. Auden calls this delicate, powerful work “a weapon in the unending battle between civilisation and barbarism.” All foes of barbarism should procure a copy immediately.
This is not an easy read, but it’s easy to keep reading it. Barfield brings his remarkable erudition to nearly every page; the reader learns much about words—in English, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and the Indo-European protolanguage—and learns much about history, philosophy, religion, literature, culture, mind, and the deep structures of consciously human society. I’m not kidding. This book is unique in my experience.
Here’s a casual teaser:
“…it has been said that there are more [new words] in Shakespeare’s plays than in all the rest of the English poets put together.”
Examples of the Bard’s imagination:
advantageous, amazement, critic, dishearten, dwindle, generous, invulnerable, majestic, obscene, pedant, pious, radiance, reliance, sanctimonious
Throughout 240 pages, Barfield implicitly emphasizes a dynamic point: new words are created continuously in all languages by all peoples, and old words continuously acquire new meanings in all cultures.
The way we think and express our thoughts and feelings today could not have been done—in the fullness of our modern meanings and understandings—as little as 100 years ago.
Take a minute and speak three carefully considered sentences about three topics that you think are important or exciting. Almost certainly, no human being has ever before experienced your exact thought processes and used precisely your words to express them.
Spread the word.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
–
My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 52 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Oct 23, 2025 | American history, Human Nature, Politics
good habits, bad habits…
Lincoln feared that
“democracy required habits of behavior
that people simply could not sustain.”
from:
Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment
Allen C. Guelzo
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024
247 pages
p. 142
Right now I’m not aware of a lot of good news.
* * * * * *
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Saint Joan
by George Bernard Shaw
–
many waters: more poems with 53 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Oct 21, 2025 | My poetry, Reflections
dancing is part of it…
one, two
I count the lives.
I count my own,
I will live another life today.
Future far is blank
and almost void,
today is near and full
and dances to new tunes.
Come dance with me,
we two can make one life
for at least today,
we count the steps,
we step to one more life,
we count the lives.
July 13, 2025
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
A poet is a “maker”
…and it doesn’t have to rhyme…
–
Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
* * * * * *
