The Old Man and the Sea

I have read this book many times and it will always remain a favourite. This is probably the purest novel Hemingway wrote, concentrating as it does on one man doing the only thing he can do, trusting in himself while maintaining a deep respect for the world around him, and facing up to the hardships the world throws at him.

If you only read one Hemingway novel, it should be this one.

Hemingway puts on paper a tragedy that many of us go through, or at the very least, think about: how many acts of heroism go unseen? Why does man go through the pain he goes through, and what is its meaning if nobody is there to recognize it? A thoughtful weekend read.

My first Hemingway! Turns out he's good, who knew!

My boyfriend and I read this book out loud together, and I wish we didn't. Neither of us was excited about this book, though so short and by a well known author we felt compelled to finish it. Honestly, If I read this myself I think I would have enjoyed it a bit more. Think of this as a 2.5 star, I really liked tenacity of getting the fish and in the end his hard work [ gets eaten by sharks! (hide spoiler)] unrewarded, and he is left with just his pride in the end. ~Ashley

Not my writing style

A book about an old man and his obsession with catching a fish. Pretty sad chain of events. His fish gets pwnd by sharks. Then, they dump the carcass in the bay and people look at it. It's about epic failure, and it's pretty depressing. I don't think I'll read it again.

I was really looking forward to getting into this piece. I was partly disappointed and partly “learning for life”.
I don't like very detailed descriptions, and fishing doesn't really do anything for me, but I found Hemingway's detailed descriptions quite entertaining as well. I did have a little trouble getting through the beginning, though. Being a thin book of a few pages, I spent perhaps more time reading it than I needed to.

This is what Moby Dick wanted to be.

Not my cup of tea. Even though this is quite a short story, I tried to enjoy it, but there were many passages that felt boring and tedious to get through. For example:

1. The whole baseball subject
2. The old man talking to his hands
3. The overly detailed description of the fishing process

That said, I understand the moral of the story, which I believe is:

1. You can't stop yourself from growing old, no matter what
2. Aging makes you realise how fragile and limited you are
3. Life doesn't always have a happy ending, so you should try to make the best of it

I get why some people love Hemingway's works, but his style just isn't for me.

I have a vague memory that a high school teacher assigned this out of one of those big Literature textbooks. Maybe the one with the teal spine and black cover. I remember loathing it and finding it dreadfully boring. I think a lot of the texts assigned in high school literature classes are stupid things to assign people with very little life experience. And I say that as someone who adored The Great Gatsby and would only find in later years just how deeply parts of it spoke to me. The Old Man and the Sea did not speak to me in high school, because the parts of my spirit that it could speak to were still under construction and had yet to grow ears.

I know that Hem did not love ideas of theme or symbolism in his stories and routinely mocked critics for thinking about them. In a letter to Bernard Berenson he wrote:

Then there is the other secret. There isn't any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.

“Take a rest, small bird” he said. “Then go in and take your chance like any man or bird or fish.”

It is silly not to hope, he thought. Besides, I believe it is a sin. Do not think about sin, he thought. There are enough problems now without sin. Also I have no understanding of it.

I have no understanding of it and I am not sure that I believe in it. Perhaps it was a sin to kill the fish. I suppose it was even though I did it to keep me alive and feed many people. But then everything is a sin. Do not think about sin. It is much too late for that and there are people who are paid to do it.

* p50 - That was the saddest thing I ever saw with them, the old man thought. The boy was sad too and we begged her pardon and butchered her promptly.
* p55 - “Take a good rest, small bird,” he said. “Then go in and take your chance like any man or bird or fish.”
* p60-61 - The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea.
* p64
* There are three things that are brothers: the fish and my two hands. It must uncramp. It is unworthy of it to be cramped.
* I wish I could show him what sort of man I am. But then he would see the cramped hand. Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so. I wish I was the fish, he thought, with everything he has against only my will and my intelligence.
* He was comfortable but suffering, although he did not admit the suffering at all.
* p66 - “I told the boy I was a strange old man,” he said. “Now is when I must prove it.” ¶ The thousand times he had proved it meant nothing. Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past when he was doing it.
* The page made me think of Hamlet. “...to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them...” Hamlet holds a special place in my heart and I suppose I see it in many things.
* p88 - I must hold his pain where it is, he thought. Mine does not matter. I can control mine. But his pain could drive him mad. (TB: were it so easy.)
* p103 - “But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
* p104-105 - It is silly not to hope, he thought. Besides I believe it is a sin. Do not think about sin, he thought. There are enough problems now without sin. Also I have no understanding of it. ¶ I have no understanding of it and I am not sure that I believe in it. Perhaps it was a sin to kill the fish. I suppose it was even though I did it to keep me alive and feed many people. But then everything is a sin. Do not think about sin. It is much too late for that and there are people who are paid to do it.
* p110
* “I wish it were a dream and that I had never hooked him. I'm sorry about it, fish. It makes everything wrong.” (TB: feeling like you've ruined something in the seeking of it or the attainment of it, or of its vision, anyway.)
* Now is not the time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.
* p115 - What will you do now if they come in the night? What can you do? ¶ “Fight them,” he said. “I'll fight them until I die.”
* p117 - I hope I do not have to fight again, he thought. I hope so much I do not have to fight again.

Suddenly I understand that Simpsons episode so much better.

Thoroughly entertaining. I like Hemingway’s way of writing.

Beautifully written, well plotted, and wise. A joy to read.

There was an old man, the sea, and big fish.

This has been on my to-read list since 2011, so I thought I'd better knock it off. I was surprised at how slow and put-downable a 99-page book could be, but it got its (fish) hooks into me in last third.

Listened to the audiobook read by Donald Sutherland. Perfection.

I remember we were given this book to read for school over Christmas vacation, but I never actually read it until now, 15 years later.
I was stupid back then... this story was great!

Fish.

Although the book is decent as an allegory, the themes discussed here are obsolete and dangerous, to be honest. In conclusion, it did not age well.
3/5 stars

I read this for a summer challenge. I've never read it and I've never much wanted to, but my husband had it on his shelf and it's a short book, so I thought I'd finally read it.

Most of the book I didn't much care what was happening. I didn't care if he caught the fish or not, it didn't seem to matter. I talked to my husband about it and it was interesting to hear his view, but I still wasn't attached. And then the sharks came and I was invested! I was suddenly so heartbroken for this poor old man. And when the villagers saw the fish carcass strapped to the skiff and were measuring it I actually started crying. I was in the car reading while my husband was driving and he had to hold my hand because I was just sobbing.

This has happened to me before with classics. Much of the story drags on, but it comes together into something powerful and I'm glad I pushed through to the end.

literally it's welcome to discovery channel for the first half, then afterwards it's deliberately fitting in “reflective” and perhaps “philosophical” context in the old man's monologue to himself, yet, in fact mostly they are just imageries of the sun and the moon, the tortoises, fish, etc. i had high hopes for its simplicity in tackling the topic of life and death, and the fighting spirit, but no it just doesn't live up to the supposed height of thinking and reflection it should equip, and it stays on the surface only.

4/5

I realized quickly why I never finished reading this when it was assigned in school. I simply had no interest.

Old man goes fishing
has a lingering hand cramp
unlucky geezer.

Why did it break my heart so much???