The Old Man and The Sea

Author - Ernest Hemingway ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Scribner was reviewed on 7-Oct-2008.

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1) Paperback Book The Old Man and The Sea by Scribner. This book is about an old man and the sea.
Actually, it is about quite more than that - I am just not sure what. I liked the book, and I love Hemingway; and that´s the attraction - the great appeal of this book for me is that it is Hemingway´s style and philosophy laid bare. Hemingway was famously agnostic - to the point of seeming despair. We see that theme and message over and over again in his writing: in Robert Jordan awaiting the shutting out of his lights in "For Whom The Bell Tolls," in Frederic Henry´s lonely walk away from the richness meaninglessly denied him in "A Farewell to Arms," and in the nameless, solitary old man who mumbles his rosary to nothing in "A Clean, Well Lighted Place." Your theological agreements or disagreements with Hemingway aside, his literary message was consistent, unsentimental, and stark - and always presented in the blunt narrative that he mastered and is so often unsuccessfully imitated.
In "The Old Man and the Sea" the theme comes through again, this time in the situation of a little old man alone in a little old boat in the big old sea. The man, for all of his humanness, is just another contestant in nature. Most of the book is devoted to his long struggle with the great fish - and of course we see him eventually become the prey, so to spoke, as the links of the cold, unemotional, and amoral food chain pay out to take away the fruit of his hard work.
I think that as an introduction to Hemingway, this book might disappoint. EH´s European novels are my favorites (like "The Sun Also Rises" and the other titles mentioned), and this plot prevents him from working through the human interactions that he did so well. EH was also a master at the short story - and this book isn´t one of those either.
Recommended - but I would direct the EH beginner to one of the other titles mentioned.
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2) Paperback Book The Old Man and The Sea by Scribner. "The Old Man and the Sea" was Ernest Hemingway´s last important work. Written in Cuba in 1951 and when published, it became one of his most recognize pieces. The work won him the Pulitzer prize in 1953 and the Nobel prize in literature in 1954.

*SPOILER*

This is the story of Santiago, a poor, humble Cuban fisherman who has been down on his luck for some time i.e. no catches lately. However on this day he ventures father out to sea than usual in his tiny skiff, and hooks the biggest Marlin he´s ever seen. Thus the real story begins; a battle of epic proportions, drawn out over several days, between man and fish, man and the ocean, and man and himself.

What really impressed me about this short novel was Hemingway´s ability to conjure a slowly increasing sense of foreboding and fear as his hero is dragged farther and farther off-shore by his immense ´prize´. With only himself to talk to and an ever dwindling supply of water and food there is something primordial about this situation that creeps into ones subconscious. In a great book the reader will usually identify in some way with the protagonist of a story, transferring some of the fears and anxieties of the hero into the reader, making for a more ´personal´ and intense experience; this book is no exception.

Conclusion:
A short, spelling-binding tale that is beautifully written.
5 Stars.

Ray Nicholson

P.S.
I originally read this work some time ago because, of all things, a crossword puzzle...The clue was, ´What book with six words in the title and each word having 3 letters, won a Pulitzer prize.´ From there it was a mere formality that I had to read this intriguing work.

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3) Paperback Book The Old Man and The Sea by Scribner. The Old Man and the Sea may very well become one of the true classics of this generation. Certainly, the qualities of Ernest Hemingway´s short novel are those which we associate with many great stories of the past: near perfection of form within the limitations of its subject matter, restraint of treatment, regard for the unities of time and place, and evocative simplicity of style. Also, like most great stories, it can be read on more than one level of meaning. On one it is an exciting but tragic adventure story. Sustained by the pride of his calling, the only pride he has left, a broken old fisherman ventures far out into the Gulf Stream and there hooks the biggest marlin ever seen in those waters. Then, alone and exhausted by his struggle to harpoon the giant fish, he is forced into a losing battle with marauding sharks; they leave him nothing but the skeleton of his catch. On another level the book is a fable of the unconquerable spirit of man, a creature capable of snatching spiritual victory from circumstances of disaster and material defeat. On still another it is a parable of religious significance, its theme supported by the writer´s unobtrusive handling of Christian symbols and metaphors. Like Coleridge´s Ancient Mariner, Hemingway´s Cuban fisherman is a character allowing the imagination of his creator to operate simultaneously in two different worlds of meaning and value, the one real and dramatic, the other moral and devotionally symbolic
The best sentence I like in The Old Man and The Sea is a man can be destroyed but he can never be defeated. I think the old man is very super.
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4) Paperback Book The Old Man and The Sea by Scribner. I was very surprised at how fast this order was received. The book was in excellent shape. I have made a note oif this vender for future book purchases.¤

5) Paperback Book The Old Man and The Sea by Scribner. For barely 100 pages long, this thing that enjoyed worldwide claim is hardly a page-turner. It is so dry and uninteresting, full of repetation, boring description. The author does lack of the ability of using dialogue to tell a story. The dialogue or monologue is, at best, pretty weak. The book is certainly over-rated. The reason that it won the Nobel Literature Prize is what it claimed politically.¤

6) Paperback Book The Old Man and The Sea by Scribner. The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway´s most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.¤

7) Paperback Book The Old Man and The Sea by Scribner. 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.

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 4-Nov-2008, 06848012219780684801223, 7X0-710-210-690-560-670-340-8

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