The story is about Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman that heads out to the waters, farther then normal, to try and catch something after 84 days of nothing. Using very old methods, the “old man” hooks into an enormous marlin, but even he doesn’t realize how big it is until later. His fight seems to first end in triumph, but it soon turns to what the old man wishes was just a dream. read more
Description:Here, for a change, is a fish tale that actually does honor to the author. In fact The Old Man and the Sea revived Ernest Hemingway's career, which was foundering under the weight of such postwar stinkers as Across the River and into the Trees. It also led directly to his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1954 (an award Hemingway gladly Here, for a change, is a fish tale that actually does honor to the author. In fact The Old Man and the Sea revived Ernest Hemingway's career, which was foundering under the weight of such postwar stinkers as Across the River and into the Trees. It also led directly to his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1954 (an award Hemingway gladly accepted, despite his earlier observation that "no son of a bitch that ever won the Nobel Prize ever wrote anything worth reading afterwards"). A half century later, it's still easy to see why. This tale of an aged Cuban fisherman going head-to-head (or hand-to-fin) with a magnificent marlin encapsulates Hemingway's favorite motifs of physical and moral challenge. Yet Santiago is too old and infirm to partake of the gun-toting machismo that disfigured much of the author's later work: "The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords." Hemingway's style, too, reverts to those superb snapshots of perception that won him his initial fame:
Just before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by a dolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air.
If a younger Hemingway had written this novella, Santiago most likely would have towed the enormous fish back to port and posed for a triumphal photograph--just as the author delighted in doing, circa 1935. Instead his prize gets devoured by a school of sharks. Returning with little more than a skeleton, he takes to his bed and, in the very last line, cements his identification with his creator: "The old man was dreaming about the lions." Perhaps there's some allegory of art and experience floating around in there somewhere--but The Old Man and the Sea was, in any case, the last great catch of Hemingway's career. --James Marcus... (more)(less)
Manufacturer : Scribner Release date : 5 May 1995 ISBN-10 : 0684801221 |
ISBN-13: 9780684801223
"The first Hemingway novel I read and it bored me to tears.
Luckily we got it out of the way at the beginning of the year, and this nightmare will not repeat itself ever again."
"Man vs Fish. Really? That's the best you could come up with?
Next thing you'll tell me is there's a book with some guy going after a big white whale."
"Tää oli sit mun eka Hemingway ja vakuutti kyllä joo. Tarinan puitteet ei sinänsä oo mitenkään erityisen monimutkaiset mut kuitenkin tää sit onnistuu lyhyen pituutensa aikana kasvamaan älyttömän kauniiksi ja oikeesti liikuttavaksi kertomukseksi vanhan miehen viimeisestä varsinaisesta taistelusta valtavan fisun kanssa. Diggailin kyllä todella kovaa, ehodottomasti lisää Ernestiä nyt heti kohta."
Meropi added this to a list 2 years, 10 months ago
“The story is about Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman that heads out to the waters, farther then normal, to try and catch something after 84 days of nothing. Using very old methods, the “old man” hooks into an enormous marlin, but even he doesn’t realize how big it is until later. His fight seems to first end in triumph, but it soon turns to what the old man wishes was just a dream.
When I received my copy of this book (thank you BookMooch), I was surprised to see how short it really was. I knew the page count was low, but even the typeface in this edition was huge and double-spaced. It felt like a pamphlet compared to books that I have read. But oh what a pamphlet it is.
It is not overly written. The prose is simple. But much like Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”” read more
bassettmagnet added this to a list 4 years, 9 months ago
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