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127 of 142 found the following review helpful:
 Life is hard, but worth fighting forDec 06, 2004
By Zack Davisson
"japanreviewed"
Aside from a few short stories, "The Old Man and the Sea" is the first Hemingway book that I have read. Of course, I am familiar with his persona, and the idea of the "Hemingway 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 Hemingway 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.
48 of 55 found the following review helpful:
A remarkable final outburst of geniusNov 10, 2002
By Robert Moore
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.
16 of 17 found the following review helpful:
Some positive remarksMar 14, 2002
I feel compelled to write a few words for Hemingway here after reading some of the negative reviews here. It seems that many of the people got bored of the book because there are no sucessive excitements throughout the story; and many just thought that this was merely one of the many books which has murmurred throughout on a boring theme---fishing. But I think some of the commentators here have missed some important points. Firstly, Santiago is an Old Man as well as an experienced fisherman. It will be quite absurd to expect such an old experienced fisherman to become over-excited and hyper-sensitive because of some petty wounds or expected struggles with the fish. And as we all know one of the most important quality of a fisherman is to stay calm whether one has been waiting in idle for many hours or one is trying desperately to deal with a struggling fish. I think it is just unjust to expect Santiago to behave in a way that a younger college boy would do to make fun of himself and cheer up the audience in a Hollywood comedy. Anyway, you would not really expect to read some exaggerated sensational treatment of the theme by Hemingway, hear Santiago screaming because a few bloods came out of his slightly hurt right hand, or whine helplessly because the big fish was chopped off bit by bit by the sharks, would you? Furthermore, some remarked that, despite whatever they have said negatively, they were still inspired by the theme, that if you persist on pursuing something, even if others think you are unlucky as well as incapable to achieve that, at the end of the day you will achieve that very goal. But in my opinion that is not the real inspiration of the story; the true inspiration comes from the dramatic plot towards the end that the big fish was eventually totally torn off and eaten by the sharks when Santiago finally came back to the shore. And I think this is where this story of Hemingway has distinguished itself from many of the other petty attempts by others to encapsulate the same theme. The message is that even if one has won something for a while, one may not be able to hold it for long and soon it will reduce to nothing. But one should not be discouraged by that. For the highest virtue and courage lies in doing something purely for something's sake instead of for its other rewards. Even if one fails to achieve something at the end, the very process that one has ever tried and persisted till the last minute alone is enough to justify one's effort. It is this 'attitude of a true man' that has driven us to build up what we refer to as the human civilization. And it is also this attitude that has embodied some of the most admirable elements of humanity. The crying of the boy also showed that Santiago did not achieve nothing; at least he has inspired a boy, who was obviously much more 'valuable', if one wants to speak in this way, than the big fish. So, by changing one's perspective, one can see that Santiago's 87 days attempt was not futile at all; it has brought about a heart as passionate and courageous as his in his younger friend. Material treasures will not last, and it will have to go anyway when one moves his leg into the grave; But spiritual transformation can endure, and be spread from one to another and yet another, as through Hemingway's account of it, eternally from generation to generations to come.
12 of 14 found the following review helpful:
Triumph of the Bare NecessitiesJun 09, 2004
By Garry L. Morey
This book is a triumph of the bare necessities. The old man goes far out to sea in a flimsy wooden boat, fishing with only a hook, line and bait. Alone, he manages to catch a thousand-pound, eighteen-foot marlin. A life and death struggle ensues as the old man works the fish for days trying to bring it in, but his struggle has only begun as he has to battle the sharks in order to keep his prize. Like the old man in his story, Hemingway uses only the bare necessities. This is a textbook example of how to write a short story--not one wasted word. The conflict of man versus nature is a timeless one, but Hemingway's is a classic because he does so much with so little. Could a story like this one be written today? And if it were, would any publishing house print it? What--no sex, no violence, no angry young men showing how tough they are by threatening and swearing at one another, no liberal idealists purveying an underlying political message, no sorcerers, magic or monsters. Where's the entertainment in that? The beauty of The Old Man and the Sea is its pure and simple realism. No fluff, no filler material, no publisher's formula fiction, just a timeless classic told by a master of the short story.
9 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Excellent. A masterpiece.Jun 16, 2001
By Hilde Bygdevoll
I only started reading Hemingway last year, yet he's become one of my very favorite authors. In this book, "The old man and the sea", he writes about a lonely old Cuban fisherman, Santiago, that goes out fishing, desperate to catch a big fish. A fisherman's crusade for final glory. Santiago, the fisherman, is poor and his only friend is a young boy. The young boy used to be his fishing-buddy, but as the luck left Santiago, the boy's father asked the boy to go out fishing in someone else's boat. We enter the story as Santiago has gone 84 days fishing without catching any fish. On the 85th day, alone in the boat, he manages to hook a huge Marlin, the biggest he's ever seen. A fish that is much stronger than himself. Santiago's effort and suffering are brought to us in such a way only Hemingway could do. Hemingway uses such a simple language, yet one feels it as the richest ever. We follow Santiago's fight with the huge Merlin, and his return to town after days of fighting, catching the fish. What happens on his way home is just heartbreaking... He succeeds, but only to lose it in the end. Hemingway writes in such a way that you feel the pain of the fisherman struggle yourself, and you can nothing do but to love the old fisherman. "The old man and the sea" is a moving story, of a man with great persistence, and with a message to never give up. Very highly recommended! (If you like this book, I suggest you read Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" too...)
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