The Old Man and the Sea in Reading with Style

Nov 25, 2015 ☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ rated it it was amazing

I loved this one to pieces... many many years ago!

I reread this one with trepidation: what if after all those years I no longer liked it? Thank God, no, this is not that case.

There are so many symbols to be seen in here. Each reader can see something pertinent to their inner world.

Hemingway himself wasn't big on giving up the inner working of this story:
'

Then there is the other secret.
There isn't any symbolism [sic].
The sea is the sea.
The old man is an old man.
The boy is a boy and the fish

...more

67 likes · Like · see review

Mar 19, 2015 Hajir Almahdi rated it liked it

Shelves: classics, american-literature

*spoilers* This has been on my to read list since forever, but then again what's not on my to read list? The Old Man and the Sea is a simple plotted novella about a proud old man who tries to prove to the world that he still has some fight left in him despite his old age. He refuses to give up or break down throughout three days, Santiago fights with the big marlin, he hooked after 84 days of no fish, he says :
"I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Oct 05, 2013 Shirley (stampartiste) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-classics, golden-girls-book-club

I first read this book for a Literature assignment in 10th grade. At that age, I was young and impatient and thought the book was long and pointless. I hated it. Many years later, I have just completed a re-reading of it as a book club selection. It’s amazing how the ordinary struggles of life have changed my perspective about this “long and pointless” book. As hard as life is for people now, few of us have probably struggled to survive on a daily basis as Santiago (the Old Man) did. And yet, Sa ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 10, 2021 Andrew rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, 1001-books, guardian-1000, usa-american-lit, abject-garbage

Eh...it was alright.

It is laborious and overdone (paradoxically, for both its length and writing style). Despite the brutally simplistic way Hemmingway writes (which frankly, at the very beginning beginning hard to get used to, it read like that of a 5 year old) it turns out there are moments of genuine beauty in the writing. Small little flashes of creative brilliance do occasionally pop out, and if anything the simplistic, word after word after without any punctuation marks or grammar way of w Eh...it was alright.

It is laborious and overdone (paradoxically, for both its length and writing style). Despite the brutally simplistic way Hemmingway writes (which frankly, at the very beginning beginning hard to get used to, it read like that of a 5 year old) it turns out there are moments of genuine beauty in the writing. Small little flashes of creative brilliance do occasionally pop out, and if anything the simplistic, word after word after without any punctuation marks or grammar way of writing actually probably enhances the moments of descriptive brilliance.

There's an interesting comparison one could make between this and Moby Dick. One is immensely overwritten, piling detail upon detail, cascading its text with awe inspiring imagery, staggering metaphor work, beautiful lines of near poetry, and producing a canvas so broad it manages to convey the entirety of mid 19th American modernity, with all its social, racial and economics divisions, across the vast plain of the seas. In Melville's work, implicitly and explicitly, the sea is a kind of mirror world for our world, Ahab's madness and monomania being reflective to Moby Dick's relentless monstrosity (and ultimately, looks worse in comparison to the whale). Melville wrote a modern epic, a humongous tale bursting with life, displaying the whole human story, and all its really about is a bloack failing to catch a whale.

Hemmingway is the opposite. As mentioned, the text is stripped back of excess or flourish with the meticulous ruthlessness of a new world Puritan church. It is sparse, the text seemingly grounded out like through a pressing machine, each line and sentence conveying exactly what it needs to do (buy, as also mentioned, managing to still convey a sense of beauty despite its limits). Here too, a man obsseses to catch a fish. Here too, made explicitly, the dialectical nature of the sea, friend and deadly foe, source of immense beauty and immense terror, simultaneously below us and yet easily able to overwhelm us, is conveyed here. I guess maybe Moby Dick is a macro tale conveying macro themes, while Hemmingway's novella is an acutely micro tale conveying macro themes? I dunno, as i can't really see what precisely he was conveying, neither can I be bothered to put much effort in thinking of one.

The book was ultimately very boring, and not a little pretentious, but short enough to put up with reading. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 31, 2015 Shaina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: high-school-college-book-tour, classics, audio

Check out the full review at Shaina Reads!

Hemingway tells the story of the old Cuban fisherman Santiago. Having come up empty for the last three months, most believe his luck on the water has run out, but he has a feeling that change is coming. That change arrives in the form of the most massive fish anyone in Havana has ever seen. The bulk of the story revolves around Santiago being towed along by this mega-fish in his skiff, all the while reflecting on a life spent at sea, his failing body, an ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Dec 13, 2016 Ale Thomas rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2016

I usually hate this type of books, where everything goes wrong for the main characters. This book, however, taught me there's beauty in effort even if it leads to failure.
I loved this book and it brought me to tears as it made me realize most of us might end up in a similar position later in our lives. It's on us, though, whether we face this self-decay with honor or defeat.
...more

Like · see review