is one of my favourite Hemingway books ever, The old fisherman has the catch of his lifetime and loses everything in a hard struggle to nature, Only bits and pieces of the great Marlin remain, What a book and what a powerful prose, A book to take with you on a deserted island, You seldom find so much symbolism condensed in one single and relatively short book, Very emotional and moving. One of my alltime favourites, a timeless classic! Recommended I would say this is an absolute must read! A masterpiece,
Like a fable, this has become a part of our cultural consciousness, Santiago's simple heroism is a benchmark for all who persevere and endure,
My big fish must be somewhere,
Many years ago when I read The Old Man and the Sea I thought it was going nowhere, that it was too simple and ordinary to be of any consequence.
On a second reading, however, my view changed and I ended up loving it, What I mistook for repetition was a literary device for emphasis and the boat, like the story, that I judged to be unmoving in the rolling seas was caught in a whirlpool churning the waters in its depth so that the boat and the old man at the sea were never at rest till the end.
Although grounds for comparison do not exist, reading this novella, sitelinkOrhan Pamuk came to mind, It's their ability to weave the many similar threads of narrative into a stunning improvisatory whole that turns a small, and prima facie simple, scenario that might be covered in a few pages into an expanded mass of words that transcends the boundaries of its immediate context to inform on larger human struggle.
Repetition or artistic improvisation, when done well, is fascinating and here Orhan Pamuk and Ernest Hemingway appear brothersinarms, You start with a pin prick of a view that widens and opens out into a wide vista giving you a clear view of the clutter of human ethos.
Like his so many stories it's a tale of a heroic struggle but only inasmuch as a fraillegged ant suffers to get a tiny lump of sugar to its colony to claim its superiority on the lesser types.
A knackered old man dreaming on the seas of a big catch in a boat fit for the axe of a lumberjack with a young boy for a helper do not evoke the romantic world of heroic battles fought by the gunwielding machismo of Hemingway's other stories.
This is something simpler in its setting yet more profound in its humanistic import,
A piece
of writing a prose story or a poem becomes great because it has no single, fixed, literal meaning that forbids imagination.
It is the reader who picks up the idea consistent with the subjective conditions of his own worldview, interpreting the text, changing it, and then getting changed by it in turn.
This novella lends itself to interpretation on multiple levels and, for its rich imagery of natural elements and human emotions, remains one of the very best Hemingway offered us.
OctoberCzytałam tę książkę w gimnazjum była moją lekturą i choć teraz zrozumiałam ją nieco lepiej, to i tak cieszę się, że zdecydowałam się na audio.
W papierze mogło być ciężej,
Styl Hemingwaya jest świetny i bardzo dobrze mi się z nim obcuje, ale uważam, że nie powinno się wymagać od czytelnika przeczytania opracowania, aby w pełni zrozumieć historię.
Brawa dla lektora Krzysztofa Gosztyły, My children and I were crossing a bridge in Rome, Our senses were acutely sharpened, We were aware of each minute spent in this capital of human storytelling, of the neverending drama of human culture and nature in interaction and in occasional clashes.
Looking out over the river, my son and I spot the sorry remains of a boat, just the bare metal frame without any "flesh", and we instinctively say at the same time:
"Hemingway's old man!"
We look at each other, smile at our simultaneous association, and start arguing whether or not one can see the fish in the same way as a boat, or whether the destruction of the boat is a more definitive loss.
While we are arguing, my younger children are enquiring about the story we discuss, and we give them the details,
"Losing something means you really had it!"
That is their conclusion, and while my eldest son and I start pondering whether or not the younger two are ready for the old man and the sea in Hemingway's own words, we continue walking, and life goes on, and a new generation of Hemingway readers find sense and meaning in his parable on the human struggle.
We feel like saying: "I'm sorry, boat!", in the same way the old man said: "I'm sorry, fish!"
But the fact that it lies there showing its naked metal ribs tells us it truly existed.
That's more than nothing. And it is not a bad place for a boat to rest, Just like the old man and the fish are in good hands between the covers of a Hemingway novel,
Nothing's lost as long as we can tell stories about it,
Brilliant parable of man's struggle with nature and himself, Beautifully written. One of my favorite Hemingways,
PS: And a Pulitzer that I don't find disappointing, Oh, my good lord in heaven, Cut your line, land your boat and go to McDonald's! Just as in the case of The Great Gatsby, I understand the book.
Yes, I know it changed the way American writers write, I also understand that it celebrates the ridiculous American idea that you're only a REAL man if you've done something entirely purposeless, but really dangerous, in pursuit of making yourself look like the bull with the biggest sexual equipment.
Get over it, already! Go home and clean out the refrigerator, or wash the curtains, or vacuum under the furniture, Pick your kids up from school or take your daughter bra shopping, THAT would impress me. Being too dumb to cut your fishing line Not the mate I would pick, . .
The only bright spot about the book is if you think of it on a metaphorical level: there is a point at which ALL of us must grit our teeth and hold on in the face of despair.
That is the definition of life, However, if that's the point, then the plot situation needs to be one of necessity like the shipwreck in Life of Pi, instead of stubbornness.
It's been a while since I wrote this review, and there's a lot of amusing speculation in the comments people have attached.
I have to say, they crack me up, Here's my final word on reviewing on Goodreads or anywhere One of the most important elements of reading is that it allows each of us to react in the way we need to react, without judgment, as we experience the book.
This is how I reacted to The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway is dead, or I wouldn't have been so upfront with my opinion, He's not insulted, I understand that we all need goals in life, and I've been happily married for a LONG time, Now take a deep breath and smile, Life is too short to be anxious about picayune stuff like this,
I believe The Old Man and the Sea reflects Ernest Hemingways own life crisis
Any fishing feats, even picturesquely portrayed, dont sound like some heroic doings
The sun was rising for the third time since he had put to sea when the fish started to circle.
He could not see by the slant of the line that the fish was circling, It was too early for that, He just felt a faint slackening of the pressure of the line and he commenced to pull on it gently with his right hand.
It tightened, as always, but just when he reached the point where it would break, line began to come in, He slipped his shoulders and head from under the line and began to pull in line steadily and gently, He used both of his hands in a swinging motion and tried to do the pulling as much as he could with his body and his legs.
His old legs and shoulders pivoted with the swinging of the pulling,
If the caught fish, however big, is mans greatest achievement then his life is frittered away The wolves will come.
. .
I started this in high spirits as my updates show: "fifth reread, how thrilling it is to plumb new depths in old wells of wisdom.
. . "
But, as I read on towards the last few pages, I couldn't shake the feeling that this is sitelinkMoby Dick set in an alternate universe.
In this alternate universe:
The Giant Leviathan is a noble, unseen fish steady and without malice.
Captain Ahab is transformed into a gentle, wise old zen master, Santiago a humble fisherman with no legendary crew to command and only his frail body instead of a Pequod to do his bidding.
Ishmael is a young boy, who instead of being a "end is nigh" Nostradamus is a loving, weeping young boy who cares deeply about the world.
Queequeg is probably the dolphin which was the old man's only hope against his foe, his brother,
Now Moby Dick for me was the grand struggle of an obsessed genius with his destiny in fact, about the creative struggle it proves that life is a tragedy and in the grand conclusion, you go down with a mighty confrontation and your ambitions take you down to the depths of the sea no trace left of either you or your grand dreams except a mist of madness propagated as a halfheard story.
This was profound and it moved me to tears but it was still grand, was it not The great struggle, the titanic battle and the heroic capitulation! It was operatic and it was uplifting even amidst the tragedy, the mighty bellow of man's cry in the face of the unconquerable that gave me goosebumps.
But sitelinkHemingway and his Old Man has turned the story on its head,
It takes you beyond the happilyeverafter of Moby Dick ! and as always those unchartered waters are beyond description, This alternate universe is much more cruel and much more real, There is no grand confrontation that ends in an inspirational tragedy,
It turns it into a battle of attrition you are inevitably defeated even in success and life will wear you down and leave no trace of your ambitions.
It makes you battle to the last breaking point of every nerve and sinew and lets you win a hollow victory that you cannot celebrate as life has worn you out too much in your pursuit of your goals and the destiny, the destiny too now seems more and more unreal and you ask yourself if you were even worthy enough to start the battle.
And as you turn back after that jaded victory, then comes the sharks, inevitably, inexorably, And then begins the real battle, not the grand epic, but a doomed, unenthusiastic battle against reality with the knowledge that no grand ambition can ever succeed.
And the old man tells it for you "I never should have gone out that far!"
The alternate universe is depressing and it is Zen at the same time, I do not know how.
I probably have to read this many more times before any hope, any secret light in it comes to illuminate me for today, for this reading, Hemingway has depressed me beyond belief and I cannot remember how I always thought of this as an inspirational fable!
The scene in which the restaurant lady sees the bones of the once great fish sums it up for me In the end you give up hope of success and only wish that at the very least you might be able to bring back a ghost of the fish so that people can see how great your target really was but all they see is the almost vanished skeleton of your idea your grand dreams are just so much garbage now and who will have the imagination to see the grandeur it had at its conception
“They beat me, Manolin,” he said..
“They truly beat me. ”
“He didnt beat you, Not the fish. ”
“No. Truly. It was afterwards. ”