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The Old Man and The Sea | 
 enlarge | Author: Ernest Hemingway
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $12.00
Buy Used: $1.94
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Rating:  686 reviews
Sales Rank: 902
Media: Paperback
Pages: 128
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.8 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 681 more reviews...
 Life is hard, but worth fighting for December 6, 2004
Zack Davisson (Seattle, WA, USA)
63 out of 73 found this review helpful
Aside from a few short stories, "The Old Man and the Sea" is the first Hemmingway book that I have read. Of course, I am familiar with his persona, and the idea of the "Hemmingway man," and was well aware as his stature as one of the greatest writers of modern times. But I had never read his books.
Wow. I mean, really. Wow. With "The Old Man and the Sea," it is so easy to see why Hemmingway was awarded the Nobel Prize, and why he deserves all of his accolades. This short novel is fierce, full of vibrant energy and humanity, all the while being a slave to the realities of finite power, of the inability to struggle against something greater than yourself. Of course, this is the standard "man against nature" story, but it is told with such craft that even cliches ring true.
Santiago is a fully-realized character. His strength of will is all that holds together his failing body. The great marlin that he struggles with is like a true fish, lacking personality or anthropomorphism, but just a powerful beast that does not want to die. There is no Moby Dick animosity, and the fish is under the water for the majority of the struggle. All of it, the sharks, the flying fish, the small boat and the ocean, each is what it is, lacking metaphor and saying that life itself is enough. No need to wax poetic.
I never knew a story a little over 120 pages could pack such a punch.
What Is Life Really About? . . . Enjoy . . . Enjoy . . . May 6, 2000
Donald Mitchell (Boston)
31 out of 49 found this review helpful
The Old Man and the Sea lets us see our own lives more clearly, by experiencing the challenge to and empathizing with the fisherman in this classic tale of man versus nature and man versus himself that explores the true nature of human nobility. Even if the story was not so compelling and universal in its appeal and themes, the book is worth the trip just for the writing. Simple words, simple sentences, and metaphors on top of metaphors make for a magnificent experience for you. Seldom has so much complexity been portrayed with such simplicity. What's even more astonishing is how short this novella is. Amazing! Just to let you know how much I love this book, The 2,000 Percent Solution was designed to draw on many of the novel's elements to convey important ideas. Communication is what people have the most trouble with in cooperating with each other. Any time you run into that stall, think about how Hemingway would have solved the problem. Tell a story like this one that makes the point you want to share. Read this book, reread this book, and enjoy ... enjoy ... enjoy!
The Human Spirit Soars. September 24, 2001
R. Shaff (USA)
25 out of 33 found this review helpful
What an incredible story. I read this in less than two hours (it is a novella) and upon completing this simple story, I had a incredibly overwhelming satisfaction toward the ferocity of the human spirit. Yes, this book is all story but the main idea is all spirit. Those that can't see the incredible battle within are not READING the story, just the words. As a simple by-product, this book led directly to Ernest Hemingway's receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1954. This story features three main characters: the old man (Santiago), a young boy (Manolin), and the human spirit. Santiago takes on the once-in-a-lifetime catch of a prize marlin which is described and portrayed in a manner to draw out the challenge facing each individual, both physically and emotionally. Santiago hasn't had a catch in 84 days. On day 85, he decides that, no matter what, he'll not return with a catch. Indeed, that was his fate. Santiago experiences physical pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain, and the pain of being alone with the elements. Yet, he continues on, creating hope where there is none. Before this story reaches it conclusion, getting right with life, Santiago decides it is he or the marlin. This story is incredible. It deserves(d) all the critical acclaim received. Once again, those who didn't find this story touching their soul didn't read the story.
A remarkable final outburst of genius November 10, 2002
Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA)
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
When Hemingway wrote THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, he was no longer the writer he had been twenty years earlier. His talent was declining, he had over the past ten years written far more bad books than good ones, and was very much the worse for wear from the hard life he had lived. But somehow, he managed at this late stage in his life to produced one final masterpiece, and one of his very finest novels. The story is one of Hemingway's simplest. All of his books are simple on the surface. THE SUN ALSO RISES is very simply told, but it contains a wealth of psychological and interpersonal complexity beneath the simple narrative. THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA is truly simple, a story about a simple man, with simple ideas, with a simple life, with a simple, elemental encounter with the natural world: he catches a massive marlin that he battles unsuccessfully to bring to market. It is a tale of success in the midst of failure, of quiet stoicism and courage, and refusing to give in to the challenges the world throws at him. Most of all, it is a story about courage. The tale that is told is so clearly told that a very young child can understand it. It is so marvelously told that an adult can marvel over it. When my daughter was six, I read this to her, and he loved it (even developing a child's fascination with Joe DiMaggio). Although the Nobel Prize is given to a writer for his or her work as a whole, and not just one book, it may well be that without this book Hemingway would not have won the Prize. His best work had appeared in the 1920s, and much of his work of the 1930s and virtually all of his work in the 1940s had been far, far below the quality of the early short stories, A FAREWELL TO ARMS, and THE SUN ALSO RISES. THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA was his great comeback, and it is quite likely that it was the book that made the difference in his being chosen as the recipient of the award.
 Oh, the humanity! August 30, 2003
15 out of 34 found this review helpful
Okay, so I was forced, by way of caring about my grades at the point, into reading this book for freshman HS English class. Ten years and some 3,500 showers later, I still can't get the stink of this fish off me. I promise you, I still have fits when I see it on bookstore shelves. The only redeeming quality about this book is Unca Ernie's name on the cover (although, being in the middle of "The Sun Also Rises" at the moment, I'm not sure that qualifies as redeeming, at that). Sure, it's different, it's simple, it's simply brimming over with symbolism. But in my opinion, this is the sort of symbolism writers use when they don't really have anything to say. Yeah, Jesus, the cross, whatever-- we know the story, thanks. You can only read so much about how the moon is the brother of the fish and the lion is the brother of the man and the lion is also the brother of the moon and therefore the man is the brother of the fish and therefore Donnie Osmond is the brother of Marie Osmond before you want to stick your head through a plate glass window and slice your jugular open on a shard. As a matter of fact, I have a suspicion that shame over writing this book is the reason Hemingway killed himself. I speak three languages, and none of them have negative words strong enough for how I feel about this book. Would I be writing a review ten years after the fact if I didn't have strong feelings? As a last note, I do not tell friends to avoid this book, I encourage them to read it (but just checking it out at the library, don't give the sods anymore money!), because the utter badness of this book truly has to be experienced to be believed.
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