A boomer Jack Reacher is an easy sell. The Old Man is
a gripping and entertaining read that delivers a relatively simple adventure
story centered on a capable yet unlikely action hero. I enjoyed the audacious
simplicity of the Old Man as a character. His actions feel believable because
of his clandestine background, and yet his age constantly works against
expectations. You find yourself trusting his skills while doubting his
endurance, which adds tension to even straightforward scenes.
At its core, the book is about how the Old Man evades
powerful forces determined to hunt him down. Like Lee Child’s Reacher series,
he lives off the grid. Unlike Reacher, who actively goes looking for trouble,
Dan Chase, also known as the Old Man, is trying to avoid it. His instinct is
not confrontation, but escape. The drama comes from his attempt to slip away
quietly rather than to dominate every encounter.
What stood out to me in books like Reacher and The Old
Man is a distinctly modern anxiety. How does one disappear in a world where
almost every action leaves a digital trace. Beneath the familiar adventure
tropes lies a simple but unsettling premise. In today’s world, disappearing
requires the training of a CIA operative, access to significant resources, and
often a willingness to use violence.
We often speak of anonymity on the internet as if it were a
given. Stories like this reveal the illusion behind that belief. The
surveillance state has emerged as a powerful counterweight to the anonymity
promised by the digital revolution. In many ways, the pendulum has swung
entirely in the opposite direction. With digital payments, digital identities,
and persistent online presence, it is increasingly reasonable to argue that
anonymity is no longer viable.
Another thread running through this idea is tied to
urbanization. In the twentieth century, as populations moved from small,
closely knit rural or semi urban communities to dense cities, a new form of
anonymity emerged. In villages, everyone knew who the troublemaker was, and
fugitives could rarely remain hidden. Cities, by contrast, offered loneliness
and obscurity. People could live for decades in anonymous apartment blocks
without knowing their neighbours. Yet the rise of digital surveillance, driven
by security concerns, has transformed urban centres into the most monitored
spaces of all. Cities may still allow one to blend into the crowd, but never to
step outside the digital panopticon.
That said, the book itself does not explicitly dwell on
these themes. They sit beneath the high adrenaline exploits of an aging
fugitive and his two dogs. Still, there is an underlying sense of lost
individual sovereignty, and a quiet lament about how difficult it has become to
truly disappear.
It is a strong and engaging read. I would be remiss, however, not to mention the television series adapted from the book. While it deviates significantly from the original plot, sometimes frustratingly so, it explores the difficulty of disappearing more directly than the novel does. I am still working my way through the episodes. The pacing is slow, but at times it feels more contemplative, and occasionally deeper than the book itself.
I strongly believe that fiction is one of the best ways to peer into the future. By placing us in imagined worlds, it allows us to explore consequences before we encounter them directly. The Old Man prompted me to think about a world where the balance between anonymity and convenience, and between privacy and security, continues to tilt in one direction. It also made me consider what that shift means for individuals, and for a society made up of individuals who have already accepted that trade-off.
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