The Old Man and the Sea [Hardcover]

Ernest Hemingway (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 127 pages
• Publisher: Demco Media (May 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0606002014
• ISBN-13: 978-0606002011
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (792 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,015,506 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ernest Hemingway ranks as the most famous of twentieth-century American writers; like Mark Twain, Hemingway is one of those rare authors most people know about, whether they have read him or not. The difference is that Twain, with his white suit, ubiquitous cigar, and easy wit, survives in the public imagination as a basically, lovable figure, while the deeply imprinted image of Hemingway as rugged and macho has been much less universally admired, for all his fame. Hemingway has been regarded less as a writer dedicated to his craft than as a man of action who happened to be afflicted with genius. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1954, Time magazine reported the news under Heroes rather than Books and went on to describe the author as "a globe-trotting expert on bullfights, booze, women, wars, big game hunting, deep sea fishing, and courage." Hemingway did in fact address all those subjects in his books, and he acquired his expertise through well-reported acts of participation as well as of observation; by going to all the wars of his time, hunting and fishing for great beasts, marrying four times, occasionally getting into fistfights, drinking too much, and becoming, in the end, a worldwide celebrity recognizable for his signature beard and challenging physical pursuits.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

122 of 137 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life is hard, but worth fighting for, December 5, 2004

By 

Zack Davisson "japanreviewed" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Old Man and The Sea (Paperback)

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 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A remarkable final outburst of genius, November 10, 2002

By 

Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Old Man and The Sea (Paperback)

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.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some positive remarks, March 14, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Old Man and The Sea (Paperback)

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.