The Old Man and The Sea | 
 enlarge | Author: Ernest Hemingway
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $12.00
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Rating:  684 reviews
Sales Rank: 623
Media: Paperback
Pages: 128
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.2 x 0.3
ISBN: 0684801221
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780684801223
ASIN: 0684801221
Publication Date: May 5, 1995
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Amazon.com
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
Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 495 more reviews...
 Classic for a reason July 8, 2008
EMM (Long Beach, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book sums up the neverending challenge and struggle of the human condition in less pages than any other book. It may seem trite to read this beyond high school English but it has more impact as life progresses.
Defeat July 8, 2008
Ron Braithwaite (El Indio, Texas United States)
I'm bound to love this story. It's about big game fishing, marlin, sharks and a proud old man...and...it was written by Ernest Hemingway, a man who lived, or tried to live, by the "words he wrote."
The story is so powerful that it is a shame that it has wound up as a staple of High School and University literature classes. Books should be for those who enjoy them, not those who are required to read them. I also think it a shame that instructors who have never felt the strike of a great fish or the despair one feels when the line parts or the fish breaks the line should be the ones attempting to interpret this tale. Usually they read too much...and too little...into the story.
The truth is that Hemingway was a depressive and a fatalist. He was the one who wrote, "All true stories end in death" and "The Old Man.." is death in the form of total defeat. There is no glory for the old man. He is whipped by the sea, the marlin and sharks just as the old man, Hemingway, was ultimately defeated by life. He had predicted it in most of his stories, "The Short Happy Life of Francis MacComber"; "For Whom the Bell Tolls"; "The Snows of Kilamanjaro"; "A Farewell to Arms" and, to a very real extent, in his non-fiction stories: "The Green Hills of Africa" and "Death in the Afternoon." I wonder what Hemingway was thinking when he loaded his shotgun...?
Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico
One of the best short stories ever written July 6, 2008
Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States(cashbacher@yahoo.com))
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is without question one of the best short stories ever written. Santiago is an old Cuban fisherman whose luck has apparently run out. For some time, he has been unable to catch anything. The story begins with him talking with a young boy about his lack of success and major league baseball. Due to Santiago's lack of success, the boy's father has forbidden him from going with Santiago. Santiago then takes his boat out alone and after some time, catches a huge marlin.
The fish battles for hours, taking Santiago far away from land. His skills as a fisherman allow him to finally kill the marlin and it is the largest he has ever seen. It is too big to place in the boat, so he is forced to lash it to the side where it remains in the water. This attracts sharks and even though he battles them, killing several, they eat all the meat and he is left with the skeleton. Santiago arrives back at port and everyone marvels at the size of the skeleton and appreciates his accomplishment.
What makes this story exceptional is the descriptions of Santiago's thoughts as he fishes, battles the fish after the strike and then the sharks. He knows the battle with the sharks is hopeless, yet he never gives up. The story of struggle, attempts to make a living doing what you know and succeeding through failure is a timeless one, in this case told by a master.
Beautiful, stark...just like the author himself. June 11, 2008
C. Church
I use this book in an advanced ESL class I teach to refugees. It is a great introduction to great American Lit that isn't hampered by any superfluous language. To be fair, as a native speaker, I find the book to be just as gorgeous in its stripped down nature. It's all emotion and action--no discussion, description or digression. Just brilliant.
the Old Man and the Sea May 27, 2008
Pamela Palmer Pine College
This a great book for Advanced ESL students to read and comprehend. The book introduces students to Hemmingway ( great american writer) as well as initiate thoughtful discussions around tenacity and dreams.
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