Sad book. Read it, but know it is sad.
This is probably written at about a 4th grade reading level, and the audience is at least that broad.

I'll spare you the christ imagery chit-chat.

Why did Ernest Hemingway cross the road?

To die. In the rain.

n  The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.n
-Tom Wolfe




Loneliness of human existence is omnipresent, perhaps that is what human existence is condemned to and that is what has haunted human beings most since the early days of civilization. Though loneliness is an unavoidable condition of our humanity, it resides in the innermost being of the self, expanding as each individual becomes aware of and confronts the ultimate experiences of life: change, upheaval, tragedy, joy, the passage of time, and death. Loneliness in this sense is not the same as suffering the loss of a loved one, or a perceived lack of a sense of wholeness or integrity. Existential loneliness is a way of being in the world, it is an ontological condition, a way of grasping for and confronting one's own subjective truth. And perhaps that’s where, the man uplifts himself against seemingly odds and defines his life and thereby stick to truth of life- truth which he has defined for himself or his life per se.


I struggle to put my thoughts into words about this little gem by Hemingway, it is exactly like fishing- just when you think you have grabbed the ideas and put them in assorted order, and you believe you would pull it away, it disappears in the depth of chaos and you lost it. This is what it is- a condensed prose written with the precision of a minimalist who can portray great ideas about human existence beneath the simple tales. The Old, Santiago has been going for fishing for 84 days now without success. In the first forty days a boy-Rogelio was with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents had told him that old man was now definitely and finally salao. Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated. Perhaps that’s what kept him moving despite all not getting success for a longtime. Probably it was his experience too with life- for he would have been in such situations before- which provides him strength and motivation to move forward. How easy it to lose grip of life when things are not going as you want to be, and how difficult it is to get your act together to move forward even when you ‘believe’ things are not going as you like them to be. Perhaps not so difficult, probably it is all about mindset but is it really that easy- probably not, for had it been so, there wouldn’t have been no prophets, enlightened men throughout our history. Probably it requires high degree of meditation of soul to cultivate your mind in such a way that it may act as you wish- and a few have been able to do so since the outbreak of human civilization. At one level it is the tale of a man and a fish, at another, a story of man versus nature, at yet another, the story of the culture of manhood, courage, bravery in the face of existence, and at yet another a history of what life was like when individuals were more the central actors on the human stage and not groups or organizations.



The Old man no longer dreams of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. He has stood up from petty details of life and hope to sustain through punishing life keeps him moving forward. Better to sail an ocean of hope than a sea of despair. The Old man is a dreamer, though his dreams may not have been ordinary, scuffed and sanded down by decades of fishing the Gulf Stream: no longer does his sleeping mind drift to the great events throughout his life but instead just to a place, a childhood memory: lions playing on an African beach. He is reverent but not pious, wary of devotion, although he could waver. He is a symbol of an attitude toward life. He often thinks and talks poetically and symbolically and so artificially.His relationship with nature is not usual- unusual in the sense that he thinks of sea as most people do not:-

But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favors, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought.

”Fish,” he said, “I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.”




He has been victim of worst form of luck- Salao, the fish may remain allusive for 84 days from him, but he sets out 85th day with hope of life, forgetting the burden of last 84 days- as one should do in life. May be today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready. He gets lucky too this time and his quarry hooked and a big fish from the hope of sea struck in his fishing net. But then true test of life begins for him, Day becomes night becomes day, and with little or no sleep the old man loses track of time and islands of Sargasso weed drift by. Eating raw bonito and dorado to maintain strength, while slowly sapping the marlin’s will, Santiago regrets his poor planning: I will never go in a boat again without salt or limes. Santiago symbolizes courage, gut and perseverance- which are perhaps most important of the traits required to live the life. He will win the battle but lose the prize, and rue the desperation that carried him beyond practical bounds. He laments the ruins of his lionheart dream, and yet he remains unbowed: “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” He is not only courageous. He is humble and gently proud, aware of beauty and filled with a sense of brotherhood with nature. And he has a loving heart. These attributes have not been common in Hemingway characters in the past. Since they are admirable and Mr. Hemingway admires them, the moral climate of "The Old Man and the Sea" is fresh and healthy and the old man's ordeal is moving.




The book reflects upon some of the basic parameters of human existence- which are loneliness and recognition. Here, it builds upon Sartre’s The Other, when the old man is fishing right in the middle of sea, the loneliness of human existence strikes him- a man may achieve insurmountable feats but he needs to someone to share the very feat; solitude may be a bliss but you need someone to discuss that it is. He looked around for the bird now because now because he would like him for company.. He develops psychological association with ‘the fish’ over a period of time as man generally becomes attached even with inanimate things if put in exile. But he is the symbolism for entire humankind, and he realizes how laws of nature work and any sort of unrequired affection may be futile in the struggle for existence.

I wish I could feed the fish, he thought. He is my brother. But I must kill him and keep strong to do it.



The Old man and The Sea may come across as a simple fable about an unlucky fisherman to a naïve reader, but it is what it conveys beside simple arrangements of words and it is exactly the beauty of Hemingway that how he has been words with minimalist approach to portray profound subjects of humankind. The book, to me, may be said as bible of human existence, the Old man symbolizes the human attitude towards life in general; it is the tale of civilized human life and exactly what does it take to live such one- courage, love, faith, hope, and clarity. And the prose of Hemingway provides indefinite possibilities to the readers to interpret it according to their own world, how rare it is to find a piece of art which can be interpreted in every probable way, which holds true in every era, and that is what exactly Hemingway offered to the mankind.

n  n    5/5n  n

So, reading this book was my personal penance for reading a rather silly YA fantasy freebie, Obsidian. If I read something particularly shallow and brainless, I try to balance it out with a classic or something that makes me actually use my brain cells.

At first Hemingway's typical simple, spare prose and his testosterone-fueled values were getting on my nerves. Digression here: one of the funnier things I've read was a piece on McSweeney's titled "Toto's 'Africa' by Ernest Hemingway". If you know 80s pop music you'll enjoy this. It reads in part:

His head spun from whiskey and soda. She was a damned nice woman. It would take a lot to drag him away from her. It was unlikely that a hundred men or more could ever do such a thing. The air, now thick and moist, seemed to carry rain again. He blessed the rains of Africa. They were the only thing left to bless in this forsaken place, he thought—at least until she set foot on the continent. They were going to take some time to do the things they never had.

He stood on the tarmac and watched as the plane came in for its landing. He heard the sound of wild dogs crying out into the night. The man thought the dogs sounded desperate, perhaps having grown restless and longing for some company. He knew the feeling.

Anyway, I'm reading sentences in this book like "They sat on the Terrace and many of the fishermen made fun of the old man and he was not angry," and I'm thinking, I'm just going to have to make myself power through this. But gradually this story sucked me in, and I could feel the nobility in both the old man and the immense fish. I had sympathy for old Santiago and his physically and mentally excruciating battle against the marlin and then the heartbreak of the hopeless fight against the sharks.

The Christ imagery toward the end was interesting, if not subtle. For example:

He started to climb again and at the top he fell and lay for some time with the mast across his shoulder. He tried to get up. But it was too difficult and he sat there with the mast on his shoulder and looked at the road.

There's a lot more (his poor hands!), and it was moving even if I'm not completely buying everything Hemingway is selling. It's clear that the old man has gone through a shattering experience and has come through it, if not having defeated the forces of death, still with a huge personal victory.

I'm going to digress a little here again, and get a bit personal, but I'm reminded as well of an old poem, "Gethsemane" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, that ends:

All paths that have been, or shall be,
Pass somewhere through Gethsemane.
All those who journey, soon or late,
Must pass within the garden’s gate;
Must kneel alone in darkness there,
And battle with some fierce despair.
God pity those who cannot say,
“Not mine but thine,” who only say,
“Let this cup pass,” and cannot see
The purpose in Gethsemane.

We all have our personal hardships, whether they be giant fish, sharks (I've met a few in my life, mostly human), jobs, physical problems, relationships, or any number of other trials in our lives. Not giving up, enduring with dignity, doing your best, reeling in that fish, battling those relentless sharks -- how we handle our troubles makes a huge difference, both to those around us and, perhaps mostly, to ourselves.

On the first glance, The Old Man and the Sea is a very simple story about a Cuban fisherman fighting against a giant marlin. On the second glance ... it is still a very simple story. You won't find any complex characters in this story, you won't find even the smallest trace of complexity. One can try to find symbolisms in this story (and will most likely succeed), but as Ernest Hemingway said himself:

"There isn't any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The sharks 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."

What remains when you take away the lack of complexity? A powerful tale about the efforts of a human being to achieve a certain goal and about how easy it is to lose what you have won. And powerful it is indeed. I was familiar with Hemingway's writing style and his tragic life due to preparing a school presentation about him years ago and reading some of his short stories, so I was able to direct my expectations to the necessary direction, ultimately finding - as surprising as this may sound - a lot to enjoy in here.

I don't know if any other author would have been able to spend 140 pages on a subject as simple as this (although Dickens probably could), but Ernest Hemingway succeeded in the attempt, creating a timeless classic. The language is not very demanding - sometimes even poor, if you look at the way he repeats himself unnecessarily at passages every writing adviser would cringe at. And yet there is something powerful, endearing behind those words, something which lures you in without you even realizing it. It is impossible to describe the atmosphere within this tale. Read it for yourself if you are open for classics without a lot of action going on - and this is a short one, a story I read in the course of two hours with interruptions - or don't if you need your complex plots. For everyone else, I'd highly recommend it.

After eighty-five fishless days, Santiago hooks more than he bargained for. Can he battle everything the sea throws at him to land his prize?

In the interest of reading a wider variety of things, I snapped this up like an eighteen-foot marlin bites a baited hook. It was definitely worth a read.

The Old Man and the Sea is the tale of an Old Man. And a Sea. It's man vs. nature at its finest. Hemingway's language is spare but very powerful. I felt every wound and heartbreak along with Santiago and was nearly as worn out as the old fisherman by the end of the tale.

If you haven't already had the ending spoiled for you, do yourself a favor and steer clear of introductions, reviews, and Wikipedia summaries. I knew the ending before I got there due to reading an excerpt in middle school and the experience would have been much better going in cold.

What else is there to say? It didn't win a Nobel Prize for Literature for nothing! For years, the only Hemingway I'd read was The Sun Also Rises and I wasn't overly fond of it. However, The Old Man and the Sea has made me a believer. Four out of five stars.

I really really hate Hemingway's writing. And this book epitomizes every element of my hatred. At least it is short. It's got that going for it.

زیر کتابخانه و کنار میز کارم خوابیدم. اول شهریوره، ولی از پنجره باد پاییزی میاد. کتاب آب‌خورده‌ی چروکیده‌م رو بالای سرم گرفتم و به صدای دونالد ساترلند گوش می‌دم که کتاب رو می‌خونه. به صفحه‌ی آخر و جمله‌ی آخر که می‌رسم کتاب رو نمی‌بندم. این همیشه نشونه‌ی خوبیه. می‌خوام فقط چند لحظه بیشتر اونجا زندگی کنم

یاد روز اولی می‌افتم که این کتاب رو از کتابخونه‌م برداشتم. قبل از اینکه برم دکتر اومدم و جلوی همه‌ی کتاب‌ها ایستادم و گفتم امروز کدومتون با من میاین؟ شیرازه‌ی قرمز و باریکش چشمم رو گرفت. برش داشتم و تمام مدت تو اسنپ با اینکه از اضطراب حالت تهوع داشتم خوندمش. اونجا هم زیر سقف شیشه‌ای دو دستی چسبیده بودمش و وقتی دکتر گفت «خب بگو چرا تصمیم گرفتی بیای» به شیرازه‌ی قرمزش زل زده بودم که ثانیه‌ی آخر انقدر هول کرده بودم تو کیفم درست جا نشده بود. بعد از اینکه من داستان این یک سال کابوس‌وار رو ردیف کردم و اون هم قرص‌ها رو، من و «پیرمرد و دریا» رفتیم کافه و اونجا چند ساعت با هم نشستیم

پیرمرد رفت دریا و از ماهی خبری نبود. پسر از پیرمرد مواظبت کرد و من درگیر پیوند عجیبشون شدم. پیرمرد رفت دریا و یک ماهی بزرگ گرفت. خیلی بزر��. اونقدر بزرگ که بین پیرمرد و ماهی جنگ مرگ و زندگی شروع شد. من قرص‌ها رو خوردم و جنگ من شروع شد. پیرمرد از ماهی بیشتر صبوری می‌کنه یا ماهی از پیرمرد بیشتر استقامت؟ قرص‌ها من رو رام می‌کنند یا من قرص‌ها رو؟

از کافه پیاده رفتم تا نشر جنگل. با فروشنده‌ی خوش اخلاق مشغول انگلیسی حرف زدن بودم که دیدم «پیرمرد و دریا» توی آب بطری آب معدنی غرق شدند. همراه با نسخه‌م و هرچی توی کیفم بود‌. همینطور که داشت کمکم می‌کرد خشکش کنم دختر فروشنده گفت من اگر کتابم اینطور شده بود دیونه می‌شدم. خندیدم. می‌خواستم بگم من شش ماهه زندگیم مثل این کتابِ آب‌خورده‌ست. از اون مهمتر، این کتاب‌ حالا کاراکتر داره. حالا کاغذش هم داستانی برای تعریف کردن داره، نه فقط کلمه‌هاش. تازه من و این کتاب شبیه هم شدیم

پیرمرد شیفته‌ی این ماهی بزرگه‌. ماهی‌ای که روزهاست او رو در دریا به دنبال خودش می‌کشه‌. پیرمرد بلند بلند با خودش حرف می‌زنه تا مشاعرش رو از دست نده. با خودش حرف می‌زنه یا با پسر که اونجا نیست؟ وقتی بالاخره ماهی رو می‌گیره می‌دونه که نمی‌تونه سالم برش گردونه. می‌دونه که کوسه‌ها منتظرند، ولی تلاش خودش رو می‌کنه. چرا؟ چرا انقدر تقلا برای چیزی که می‌دونی از دست میره؟ شاید فقط ماهی رو گرفت که بتونه با پسر ماهیگیری کنه؟ من ماهی رو گرفتم یا نه؟ من که می‌دونم نمی‌تونم برش گردونم به ساحل، چرا دنبال گرفتن این ماهی بزرگم؟

شاید به خاطر پسر، شاید به خاطر اون یک لحظه‌ی آرامش بستنش به کنار قایق، شاید به خاطر اون خواب آروم آخر

کتاب و صوتیش رو می‌تونید از اینجا دانلود کنید
Maede's Books

۱۴۰۱/۶/۴

I feel sunburnt and tired – like I spent days at sea – yet only ventured within the pages of this classic. Hemingway certainly knew how to paint a vivid picture with the bare minimum of words.

n  “Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same colour as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.”n

The Old Man and the Sea possesses a timeless, universal quality - which is probably why people are still devouring it. The plot is simple – an old man goes fishing. He is considered salao – the worst form of unlucky and hasn’t caught a fish in eighty-four days. There’s a boy, Manolin, who helps him, despite now working on a different fishing boat. And there’s a large marlin.

I admired Hemingway’s ability to cast well-developed characters with minimal words. I enjoyed the old man’s heartwarming relationship with the boy, and the deep, spiritual connection shared with the marlin – a strong character itself.

n  “Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother.”n

It’s a quick read, yet one I took my time with. There’s a hypnotic simplicity in the prose. Hemingway transported me onto that small skiff with the old man - practically tasting the salt air and disappointment. Scenes on land were just as effective – like I was dropped into the shack, talking baseball with the old man.

n  “Once there had been a tinted photograph of his wife on the wall but he had taken it down because it made him too lonely to see it and it was on the shelf in the corner under his clean shirt.”n

There was much happening beneath the surface. It’s a story which demands reading on multiple levels. The more I reflected, the more layers I found. Perhaps that’s the joy of art – it’s open to interpretation. Knowing where Hemingway’s life and career were at while writing this added further poignancy and symbolism which enhanced my enjoyment of the story. You can’t help but think he could be writing about himself.

It gets you reflecting on life – the marlins and sharks and lions. For such a fleeting story, it continues to have a remarkable impact. I enjoyed my time with the old man, and I’m looking forward to reading more of Hemingway's work.

n  “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.”n

Nobody makes me realize how parched my literary sensibilities can get like Hemingway does; always a drink of cool, clear water to reset the palate.

My backlog of unfinished reviews is growing to unmanageable levels, but at least I’m getting a fair amount of reading done in my limited free time.

Review to come, surely.

The plot is pretty much known. The old man - Santiago, a fisherman, poor and with wife either gone or dead - goes to the sea one September in early 20th century Cuba to catch a fish, a marlin, and is gone a long time. His best supporter in his home town is Manolin, a young boy who wants to become a fisherman too, and who helps him get by when not at sea. And the fish - "my big fish" - is the challenge, a 18footer, that surfaces first time right in the middle of the story, which I feel was written to happen so.

I figure this is Cuba from the mention of Havana, and the Hatuey beer. The old man and the boy also discuss baseball here and there, including DiMaggio. The old man is made fun of or pitied, mostly, though at the end when he comes back with the fish eaten right down to skeleton by the sharks, he might be viewed differently for a while.

I observe him as he spends time on the boat, thinking about his past life's moments of glory and witnessing the natural beauty moments while working (especially the lions). I witnessed the toughness of the chase: hand cramps, cord burns, cuts, the tiredness, the varying levels of consciousness (and perhaps the breaking of a rib, which could've been the reason for blood-spitting?).
The moment when he finally gets to harpoon the marlin was almost close to feeling it for this reading, very intenese. And then the sharks made me feel the intensity again, even though the loss would be inevitable - no chance of pulling the marlin on the boat *sigh*. I almost expected there to be a storm among other things, but that didn't happen XD

But at the end, when he's back home, the despair of loss is in my opinion somewhat averted, as the man and the boy already start making plans for more fishing, even if the old man's experience, and desire to catch a similar, tough-to-get fish might be gone. It seems the boy is more motivated to be a fisherman. And the slightly amusing moment at the end with the tourists and the 'shark' skeleton is very fitting, and makes for a perfect ending for this great experience of a story.

The tail, excuse me, The tale of an elderly fisherman and his not so good friend , a 1,500 lbs. marlin. They meet for lunch and immediately fight over the menu (he wants the fish , as the main course). This disagreement causes some friction. Boys will be boys. So eventually, the two, decide to take a long leisurely voyage , to cool off. What harm can happen? Imagine, Cain and Abel , without the renowned brotherly love..................Either you dislike this modern classic and think it's pretentious or believe the material is sublime...are you being manipulated or is the narrative a heartfelt rendering of an ancient man struggling to tell the world he is relevant, a useful human in an indifferent society that looks at him as worthless, however the surface may not show the truth. The final judgement is yours.

The metaphor of this tale escaped me when I read it (I was undoubtedly too young), but today, it is luminous; for ordinary people, work offers barely enough to live on, given the harshness and risks it represents. So, sharks will regret an essential goal before enjoying it.
Still, the writing (and the time translation) is a model of simplicity and sensitivity.