The Old Man and the Sea is a deeply personal and inspirational little tale about an old man against nature.

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

This classic is still as effective today with a simple message, whenever you feel beat down, get up and face your fears. However, if you feel your ego is driving you, step down or you will be doomed. Of coz, there is more to be taken.

Recomended: If you've read and loved The Old Man and the Wasteland by Nick Cole - read this one, and vice-versa. Nick Cole got inspiration from this magnificent classic by Hemingway.

A part of my personal challenge for 2023 is to read classics. It's not what I usually read, but I want to try.

I got a paperback copy of The Old Man and the Sea from my library late last year from their "discard" pile

The wolves will come...

I started this in high spirits as my updates show: "fifth re-read, 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 Moby 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 half-heard 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 Hemingway and his Old Man has turned the story on its head.

It takes you beyond the happily-ever-after 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 didn’t beat you. Not the fish.”

“No. Truly. It was afterwards.”

- الشيخ والبحر، احدى افضل القصص التي يكون ظاهرها متيناً وباطنها امتن فعلى سبيل المثال فرواية مثل "مزرعة الحيوان" ظاهرها جيد وباطنها او مقصدها إبداع. اما "الشيخ والبحر" فجمال على جمال...

- قبل الشروع في الرواية لا بد ان اذكر شيئاً شخصياً، فأنا اكره صيد السمك، لأنني لا امتلك الصبر المناسب لذلك رغم اني حاولت: ففي المرة الاولى غفوت في القارب وفي الثانية تركت الأصدقاء وغادرت اما في الثالثة فذهبت الى مينا ابو ظبي واشتريت الأسماك والروبيان العماني وعدت مسروراً :)، لكنني اقدر "صيد السمك" كمهنة واحترمها جداً رغم عدم تفهمي او استيعابي لها كهواية، لكنها تبقى امور شخصية.

- القصة بظاهرها عن صياد سمك هرمٍ، يعاكسه حظّه لأكثر من 80 يوماً، لكن بعدها يحالفه الحظ بأكبر سمكة قد اصطادها يوماً بالإضافة الى قتله عدة أسماك قرش بطريقه. الوصف والسرد والحوارات الداخلية التي اقامها همنغواي كانت رائعة ودقيقة وترجمة منير البعلبكي كانت جيدة جداً.

- رغم ان "الصبر" يلوح كثيمة للرواية، لكنني استبعد ذلك كلياً، فحسبما ارى ان الثيمة هي "الكفاح" وليس الكفاح في سبيل الرزق او الربح المادي بل الكفاح من اجل اشباع الغرور الذاتي واثبات المثبت بالنسبة للصياد نفسه قبل اثباته امام الآخرين! وهذا يتضح في عدة اماكن حيث يصرّح الصياد بذلك. فالصياد الهرم الذي يمتلك بجعبته العديد من الحيل والتقنيات في مواجهة البحر اولاً وكيفية اصطياد السمك ثانياً اراد ان يثبت لنفسه انه لا زال ذلك "البطل" الذي عهده في شبابه وان السنين لم تضعفه وان المسألة من اولها لآخرها مجرد حظ عاثر لا بد ان ينجلي!

- الثيمة الثانية هي "الصداقة" وقد ابدع همنغواي في نسج هذه العلاقة بين الغلام وسانتياجو، علاقة المتدرب بالمدرب والصغير بالكبير، العلاقة التي تتأرجح بين المحبة والشفقة والإقتداء والثقة.

- القصة بباطنها أبعد من صياد واوسع من بحر! وتحتمل العديد من التأويلات: فهي قد تكون قصة الحياة ذاتها، حيث الصياد هو الإنسان بالمطلق، والسمكة-السيف هي الهدف المنشود، والقروش هي المصاعب، والسكين والحربة هي المعرفة والقوة وأدوات المواجهة. قصة الكفاح الإنساني واذا فقد الإنسان سلاحاً (فقد الصياد حربته، انكسر سكينه، فقد الهراوة لاحقاً) عليه بإبتداع حل جديد حتى يصل الى برّ الأمان.

- قصة مميزة أنصح الجميع بها.

i just know Hemingway would be so proud of those boys posting pictures of themselves with a fish in their hands on Instagram

anyway it was just boring and it lacked everything i like in books : a good plot ( or simply a plot because this book barely had any ), symbolism and interesting characters.

and it's not a matter of not enjoying classics, i really do love the majority of them but this one was just meh

This 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!

پيرمرد و دريا كتابي درباره تلاش هاي يك پيرمرد ماهيگير كه هم سنش و هم دورانش نزديك به پايان رسيدن است. وي در طول 84 روز نتوانسته حتي صيد كوچكي بكند.روزي تصميمش را مي گيرد و بر عكس سهراب منتظر ساختن قايق نميشود. با هرچه دارد دل به دريا مي زند.دور مي شود از شهر ها و مردمانش در پي بدست آوردن بزرگترين صيد دوران ماهيگيريش

همينگوي كتاب هاي زيادي نوشت و در همه آنها مرداني مي بينيم كه شجاعت شان مهمترين صفت بارز آنهاست . در اين كتاب ،وي مبارزه انسان در زماني كه هيچ كس اميدي به وي ندارد را موضوع اصلي داستان قرار داده و شايد به قول "ماریو وارگاس یوسا" این پیرمرد خود همینگوی می باشد كه ديگران استعداد اورا رو به خاموشي مي دانستند ولي كتابي نوشت كه براي هميشه ماندگار ماند

یکی از بهترين ويژگي اين كتاب، نشان دادن قدرت شكست ناپذيري انسان در شرايطي است كه هيچ اميدي به پيروزي وجود ندارد.همینگوی از زبان سانتياگو ماهيگير پير مي گويد
(( آدمي نابود مي‌شود اما هيچ گاه شكست نمي‌خورد))

ارنست همينگوي اين كتاب را در كوبا نوشته و شخصيت پيرمرد برگرفته از يك ماهيگير كوبايي به نام گرگوريو فوئنتس است
اين ماهيگير پير به علت بيسوادي نتوانست اين كتاب را بخواند
همينگوي خود عاشق ماهيگيري بود و شايد اگر اين اثر رو نمي نوشت باعث تعجب مي شد

La novela se titula «El viejo y el mar» como podría titularse «El hombre y la vida» (déjenme utilizar el masculino genérico).

Nos sorprende tanto como nos admira el escalador que sufre lo indecible por llegar a la cima, el que da la vuelta al mundo en soledad pilotando una pequeña embarcación, Forrest Gump recorriendo sin motivo aparente más de 30.000 km. ¿Por qué hacemos estas cosas? ¿Por qué el empeñó de Santiago en atrapar ese pez? Porque no podemos hacer otra cosa, porque El viejo es pescador.

n  “Lo mataste por orgullo y porque eres pescador. Lo amabas cuando estaba vivo y lo amabas después. Si o amas, no es pecado matarlo. ¿O será más pecado?”n

Santiago además de pescador es viejo, así lo llamaban en el pueblo, y su lucha en soledad era doble, la del hombre y la del que quiere demostrar que sigue siéndolo.

n  “El hombre no está hecho para la derrota. Un hombre puede ser destruido, pero no derrotado”n

A todos nos llega el final, nada nos llevamos de esta vida, únicamente el convencimiento, en el mejor de los casos, de que hicimos todo lo que estaba en nuestra mano.

" وأجال بصره الى البحر وأستشعر مدى الوحدة التي تكتنفه،، ولكنه ظل قادراً على أن يرى مواشير الضياء في الاعماق المظلمة،، والخيط مندفعاً الى الامام،، وتموجات الماء الساجي العجيبة،،
وأدرك الشيخ أن المرء لا يمكن أن يكون وحيداً.. وحدة كاملة،، في (عـــرض الــبحــر) . "




حياة الصياد عبارة عن حياة شاقة مليئة بالتحديات في كل لحظة، مليئة بالفشل والخيبة والعجز، يصارع الصياد البحر والسمكة والطقس والخوف والمجهول والصبر، هذه الحياة التي ينقلها همنغواي إلى قارئه بكل تفصيلاتها الملحمية، بكل ما فيها تجربة إنسانية خالصة لأجل الصراع ولأجل البقاء على قيد الحياة ولأجل سمكة يصارعها بكل من أوتي من قوة وصبر وتحمل، الرذاذ المتطاير من البحر كالشلال، السنارة التي ترتجف وكأنها في حالة صرع دائم، الجوع والعطش والتعب والسهر ، الخيوط التي تأكل اليد ، والسمكة العنيدة التي تقامر على حياتها بكل ما أوتيت من قوة، صراع يحدده الطرف الأكثر صبراً، الأكثر ثباتاً، صراع ملحمي مع كل سمكة، سحب البكرة والحفاظ على الخطاف عالقاً في فم السمكة، والبحر الهائج يتقيء شلالات من الماء والعدم..

تمثل هذه الرواية الصراع الأكثر جمالاً بين الإنسان والطبيعة، يتجول همنغواي بحرية وطلاقة في النفس البشرية ليستخرج النفسية المحمومة في هذا الصراع الدائر، لحظات الخوف والضعف والانهزام، لحظات الاشتباك أو التراجع، هذه الثغرة النفسية التي تتولد في أماكن صعبة كهذه، يحاور الصياد نفسه بلغة يفهمها هو والسمك والبحر، يصبح صديقاً للسمك والبحر، يحاول أن يقتنص الحياة من فوهة الخطر، بعد أربعة وثمانين يوماً من عقم الصيد، يخرج في صباح إحدى الأيام وكله أمل بالتقاط سمكة ووضعها على القارب، سمكة مجنونة وصراع طويل ومحنة الإنسان المتصاعدة والتفكير بالفشل والتراجع، ثم صراع سمكات القرش الأكثر وحشية في هذه الرواية، همنغواي أفضل من أقتنص حياة البحارة والصيادين وعالمهم المظلم ونفسياتهم وظلالهم الداخلية والمصاعب والتحدي المستمر الذي يعيشون فيه..


أحب حكايات البحارة والصيادين، أحب البحر وكل ما يتعلق به، وأقدر ما يقوم به هؤلاء الرجال من تعب وتضحية في سبيل كل سمكة، والقتال من أجل لقمة عيشهم، حكايات البحر هي من أجمل ما يحكى لغرابتها وعنفوانها ولطبيعتها التي تشبه السحر..

No, this book is not a smooth read.
It will probably not give you a good time. You might not read it again in the future.
You will simply keep living your life and nothing will change.

But you will find yourself thinking about this book time and again. Nothing really specific or significant, no. You will probably think about the old man or the boy or the sea or sharks. But this will surely come back to you.

And life will go on, yours and the old man's.........

"لماذا يستيقظ من تقدمت بهم السن مبكرا !! ألكي يفوزوا بيوم أطول عن الآخرين"

والجملة السابقة من الرواية, تلخص شعور ارنست همنجواي في سنين كهولته .

**
هناك الكثير من الكلام يدور عن الرواية والرمزية التي بها, والحقيقة أنا لم أحست بأي رمزية فيها أبدا, هي قصة حلوة جدا عشت فيها كل لحظة مع "سانتياجو" وصراعه.

**
دكتور جابريال وهبة ملخصها مع تحليل نقدي رائع, وأقتبس منه:

"أما الرمز في قصص همنجواي فلا يدخل وعي القاريء كرمز أبدا"

و هذا تقريبا السبب لعدم إحساسي بالرمز, و لما اخذ نوبل للآداب عنها كنموذج للعمل الأدبي الناضج في العصر الحديث,


**

"لكني أؤثر إذا عملت عملا أن أتقنه, حينئذ إذا جاء الحظ يكون المرء متهيأ لاستقباله"

وهذه الجملة أحسست بعدها بنشوة كبيرة, لأني تقريبا وصلت لنفس هذه الحكمة, من تأملي للحياة من حولي. وهذا هو نص الحكمة بصياغتي الأولى لها:

"البس, البس واجهز دايما عشان لما تيجي الفرصة تكون جاهز ليها ومتضيعش منك"

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves.” Oscar Wilde

Bloodsports

This is not sport. This is real fishing. For survival: his, and those who buy his catch. But it can be bloody.

As a small town omnivore, shopping for sanitised meat and fish - neatly plucked, gutted, washed, and butchered - it's easy for me to forget whence it came. Hemingway plunges me into the raw reality of what I eat, and of those who do the dirty, and sometimes dangerous work to supply it.

More importantly, he pulls beauty from the jaws of the primal, visceral battle between man and beast.

Not Plot

Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman, has not caught anything for 84 days - until he hooks an enormous marlin. It will require great strength and stamina to land it, and he is alone, a long way from land or other fishermen, with limited drinking water, and no radio or shelter from the sun. The marlin could stay hooked for days, then break free. As he waits, he ponders the sea, fish, and birds, reminisces about his childhood, thinks fondly of the boy he taught to fish, and wonders about the baseball results.

Poetry

If the plot sounds dull, it’s because this novella is not about plot. That is just the canvas on which Hemingway daubs his deceptively simple, strikingly plain prose.

This is a poetic meditation of one man’s relationship with his environment and with Manolin, the boy who tenderly ensures that he eats, drinks, and has the equipment he needs - even though his parents now make him go out on more successful boats.

It is lyrical, multi-sensory, and at times, almost liturgical, especially the conversations with Manolin, which remind me of those between the nameless father and son in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, reviewed HERE. Both relationships focus on survival, and find comfort in reciting shared hopes they secretly know to be futile (and both are conveyed with minimal punctuation).

Identity, Destiny, Morality

“Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman… But that was the thing I was born for.”

As he faces fish, birds, jellyfish, porpoises, and turtles, Santiago anthropomorphises them, anticipates their thoughts, and talks to them. He talks to himself too, addressing “old man…”.

He has no scruples about killing sharks, which scavenge, kill, and wound, even when not hungry. He harpoons one “without hope, but with resolution and complete malignancy”.

But to the marlin, he speaks reverently, prey though it is: “Fish… I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you before this day ends.”

The marlin was so exceptionally large and beautiful, he is haunted by its death. “Do not think about sin… 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… There are people who are paid to do it… You were born to be a fisherman as the fish was born to be a fish.” Then again, “You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman.” and “I killed him in self-defence… And I killed him well. Everything kills everything else in some way. Fishing kills me exactly as it keeps me alive.”

Santiago asks, “You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?” I tend to the latter view, but was reminded of The Ballad of Reading Gaol (longer excerpt below), “Yet each man kills the thing he loves”.

I am fortunate to have been born with more choices about what to be. But a blank slate can be a different sort of burden, and it offers no protection against killing the thing one loves.

Symbolism?

Hemingway famously said, "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.” Even taking that at face value, there is much depth in the lyrical, philosophical musings. (And I note the quote doesn’t mention the recurring and unexpected motif of lions on an African beach that Santiago fondly remembers from childhood!)

But it’s hard not to infer any symbolism.

There’s explicit symbolism in the gender of language. Santiago thinks of the sea as the feminine la mar, whereas many of the younger fishermen use the masculine el mar. He explains that the feminine is associated with love and “something that gave or withheld great favours”, whereas the flashy youngsters, with their motor-boats and technology, “spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy”. Gender is a hot topic at the moment, but in 1952, Hemingway noted the power of binary labels to reflect narrow thinking.

There’s the worship of the magnificent marlin and the great Joe DiMaggio. With DiMaggio, it is pure idolatry, but Santiago’s reverence for the marlin is complex and conflicted. He is in awe of it: “Such a calm, strong fish… so fearless and confident.” and “Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or calmer or more noble thing.” Nevertheless, “His determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him. There is no one worthy of eating him.” Wilde again, “Yet each man kills the thing he loves”.

There’s the devoted relationship between Santiago and Manolin: once the old man cared for the boy, but now the roles are reversed. The beginning and ending of lives, as one generation fades, in favour of the next.

And the sea: giver and taker of life, moody, unpredictable, and awesome in the ancient sense. We strive to master it, even as we know it to be a Sisyphean task.

I’m sorry, Hemingway, but I see symbols.

Quotes

· Scars “as old as erosions in a fishless desert”.

· “He smelled the tar and oakum of the deck as he slept and he smelled the smell of Africa that the land breeze brought at morning.”

· “He left the smell of the land behind” - yet we’re more used to considering the smell of the sea.

· “The old man looked at him with his sunburned, confident, loving eyes.” A striking combination of adjectives.

· Jellyfish: “He looked down in the water and saw the tiny fish that were coloured like the trailing filaments and swam between them and under the small shade the bubble made as it drifted.”

· “The sea was very dark and the light made prisms in the water. The myriad flecks of the plankton were annulled now by the high sun.”

· "The long, golden beaches, and the white beaches, so white they hurt your eyes, and the high capes and the brown mountains… Lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk."

· "The clouds were built up... 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."

· “The white cumulus built like friendly piles of ice-cream.”

· Marlin are “not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able.”

· “They passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket.”

· “I went out too far.”

· “The old man was dreaming about the lions” on the African beach - as will I, I hope.





Second Time Lucky with Hemingway

This book was very different from my first, unhappy encounter with Hemingway, Men Without Women, reviewed HERE. But that was nearly four years ago; I was a different reader then, and somehow, battling an enormous fish is less off-puttingly macho than all the boxing and bullfighting was.


Each man kills the thing he loves

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.”

From The Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde

Final, Wider Thoughts on Symbolism

In 1963, a 16-year old wrote to a dozen well-known authors to ask about intentional and unintentional symbolism in their works. The answers are very different, and provide food for thought:
Short article here.
Longer article here.


Image source for marlin: http://www.kingsailfishmounts.com/Use...
Image source for lion: http://www.kimballstock.com/pix/AFW/1...