The Old Man and the Sea Hardcover – January 1, 1952

This book never gets old I can read it and re-read it year after year. The book arrived in perfect condition and as well made it still looks fabulous has been read many times by our family and friends

Before I watch the movie again I wanted to read the book. Very different life the character has. Crazy story.

Oh my, what a sad, sad story.The old man, Santiago, and the young boy, Manolin are friends. This setting is in Cuba. Santiago would take the young boy with him and teach him about the practice of fishing. The old man who is down on his luck thought he should never have been a fisherman, but realized that fishing was the thing he was born for.One day, a great marlin took Santiago on an adventure leading the old man out to sea all alone. The great marlin kept a steady pace throughout the night with the old man in the boat in tow until sunrise. The old man had seen many great fish and caught two but never did it alone. He wished he had the boy as company, to see this and to help him. Yet he knew he had to go this journey by himself.After being out to sea for a couple of days, having caught and killed his great marlin, he had to fight off a pack of relentless man-eating sharks that eventually ate the marlin he was going to bring back to the market. In the end, after the old man made it back to shore Manolin came to visit him. Santiago told the boy that the sharks beat him. He was going to give up fishing. The boy told him, "He didn't beat you. Not the fish."The old man faced his adversary, his battle with a giant marlin out in the Gulf Stream. While Santiago had to deal with the injury to his hands, fighting off the aggressive attacks of the sharks in a pool of fresh blood surrounding his skiff (his small boat) his determination wasn't shattered. It didn't occur to the old man that in his time of weakness and apparent defeat, he garnered incredible strength to fight and win over his seemingly unbeatable foes.Easy recommended read!

Nice

Great book physically and literally.

Hemingway delivered his last masterpiece with this book, a cultural phenomenon when first published in the early '50s: in an unprecedented move, Life Magazine published the novella in its entirety,recognizing that Hemingway, the most influential writer of 20th century American literature and then a world-wide celebrity, had delivered a long-awaited masterful story. The Life magazine edition sold more than 5 million copies in a week so this book reached tens of millions of people within days - not many authors can achieve that! And that's before becoming a much beloved story translated into scores of languages. It is fair to say that this book, which won the Pullitzer Prize, reignited the interest and respect for Hemingway as a serious writer and might have been the decisive factor for his Nobel Prize award.It is so disappointing when people say that story is boring and has too much simbolism... if you have experience fishing or sailing or simply appreciating the sea and nature, then the book offers a marvellous account of man AND nature (not man vs. nature). As for the simbolism, don't dwell too much on it. Hemingway himself said that the book is about "an old man, a boy, a fish and the sea", but if the story is told well enough (as it is on this book) it can mean so much more.And the story is indeed so much more, in no small part because of the inherent goodness of the old man. That's how I enjoy and interpret the book: it is a straightforward tale of an old man embracing the struggles and rewards of life with courage, dignity and still full of the human spirit. Santiago is one of the most dignified characters in Literature, and I have to say he is my favorite and a bit of a personal hero... the old fisherman strives to be the best he can be and do the best he can do... he does not complain of his living in poverty, do not blame others for anything. His spirit is big, generous, undefeated. While other Hemingway heroes might have disappointed some people by way of too much machismo, Santiago keeps all the best traits of courage, resilience and non-nonsense survivalism, while displaying more maturity and humility - perhaps reflecting the middle-age wisdom of the author (then is his fifties).Hemingway story-telling skills are at his best here. I am a big fan of his style, particularly in the short-story format, but here he is astounding all the way. yeah, the prose is deceptively simple at first, but if you pay attention we can see the craft of a master. The opening sentence alone is formidable and could only be delivered by a master of the short-story format. Ihe last sentence is also wonderful and pure Hemingway- simple but infinitely deep, and in this story hopeful and bitter-sweet.In between, Hemingway writes with uncanny power,in such a way that you can fully experience what the character is going through: first you see what the old man does, from mundane tasks and spadework to the excitement of the deep-sea hunt and the exhausting struggle, and in the process you start to think the way Santiago thinks and finally you are feeling the way he feels. It is magical if you only give it a try. Granted, it is easier to immerse into this story if you are familiar with the ways of fishing and the ocean, but in any case, when Santiago is alone in the boat looking at the sea creatures or at the night-sky... I guess the recognition of the infinite solitude of human condition, mitigated by the bonding with the life and the world around us, that is truly universal.I am so glad that such a sweet, simple, timeless story became the classic that it is. You have to try this one too!

This is a gift for my daughter as her birthday gift. She likes it and finishes reading it one time,then she wants to read another time to better understand the meaning of the book.

My dad suggested that I read this as a child. It was great then, and great now, 25 years later.

The cover of this book is HUGELY misleading! It says clearly on the cover "Ernest Hemingway", but it turns out that it is based on his book of the same name but is "adapted by Swayam Ganguly" which is says in very small writing inside the cover. The language is NOT that of a Pulitzer prize winning author but I suspect has maybe translated into another language and back again? Or otherwise it has simply been dumbed down for the sake of it. WHO KNOWS??!!As you can probably tell, I am VERY DISAPPOINTED and will be complaining to Amazon about the extremely misleading appearance of this book on their website.

As I was reading this, I was thinking that Hemingway was very avant-garde and ahead of his time, especially in the way he switched between third- and first-person in sentences and had this kind of weirdly choppy and inarticulate writing style. I was sure it would all be explained at the end, that it was some kind of dreamlike narrative in which the writing reflected the old man's tentative grip on reality.It was all explained at the end, but only after I'd finished the book: The version I read (on Kindle for 39p) is not the original text, but an interpretation by an Indian company. I'm guessing the book was translated into Hindi and then translated back into English. Which means the whole thing was a colossal waste of time.

I hate to appear as a philistine, but these other reviews must have been written by English literature graduates. This is not a book to read for entertainment or excitement. Dull, dull, dull. A man goes out on a boat to catch fish, takes him two days to land the fish( its a big one), man goes home, I think. Couldn't get to the end without skipping the last 40 pages of a 100 page short story. Serves me right, never watch a film that won awards now applies to books. Maybe it was relevant when it was written but those days have gone. I'll go back to reading for pleasure now.

I honestly, earnestly think, this book is a piece of trash. I picked this book seeing so many positive reviews, and it's status as one of the great classics, but somehow, I've started doubting this whole 'Classic' thing, seems like a gimmick. First, 'The Great Gatsby', and now this. It was such a pain to read through each page, random boring description of catching a fish. Call me naive or anything, it didn't find any meaning in the book, there are thousands of books out there, much better written, and communicate with the reader easily. This one was a waste of time and money.

The old fisherman Santiago’s luck has run out. For eighty-four straight days he hasn’t caught a fish, and is surviving only with the help of the young boy, Manolin, who once fished with him but whose parents have now insisted he go out with another luckier boat instead. Manolin feels an intense loyalty to old Santiago, and helps him each day with his gear, catching bait, and even buying him food when Santiago’s funds run out.On this day it will be different. A fish takes Santiago’s bait – a huge marlin, so big that Santiago can’t pull him in. As the marlin sets out to sea, dragging Santiago’s little skiff behind him, Santiago must decide whether to cut the line or run with the fish. And so it becomes a matter of will, as Santiago battles with nature, with his own failing strength, with growing exhaustion and with his pride as a fisherman.This is a beautifully written and absorbing short tale – mesmerising, almost, as hour after hour passes and still the fish won’t tire. Although written in the third person, once Santiago is alone on the sea with his fish, the reader is taken directly into his thoughts. He is a simple man, and his mind dwells on great successes and failures of his past, a lifetime’s experience all guiding his actions in this moment. He knows he is at the limit of his physical endurance as the line cuts his calloused hands each time the fish changes pace. He recognises that the pride of youth has given way to the humility of age, and wonders when that happened. But he still has enough pride to want to kill this fish, although he loves it for its strength and will and beauty.I suspect people have read all sorts of symbolism into this over the years and maybe there is lots and I just missed it. But for me, this is simply a tale well-told, by a man who clearly knew what he was talking about. As usual with Hemingway, there’s a degree of pondering on the meaning of masculinity, though less overtly than in the couple of longer novels of his I’ve read. It’s an old theme, man against nature, and Hemingway brings nothing new to it except his wonderful prose. And that alone makes this well worth reading.