Ernest Hemingway is often considered one of the century's best writers and while reading his work his immense talent is apparent. My experience with Hemingway started with his short stories. I liked the way that he could use such simple language to describe such grand ideas. Often, his stories have much more meaning than appears on the surface.
Such is the case with The Old Man and the Sea, the book for which he won the Nobel Prize. The book tells the story of a poor fisherman, Santiago, and his long battle with a giant marlin. His struggle to bring the fish in represents the struggle of all mankind against the things that bear against it. Likewise, the way in which Santiago faces this immense challenge exhibits Hemingway's idea of the way men should deal with adversity--they should never give up or complain. Instead, like Santiago, mankind should respect adversity and face it with diligence and courage.
If you've ever wanted to read Hemingway but haven't yet, this is a good place to start. If you already have, then, well, good.
This book sounds great, and like it would be a great book for a book club. Would you recommend it for a book club? Also, could you tell me the page count for this book?
ReplyDeleteYes, I would recommend it for a book club, I think there is a lot you could talk about in it. Its pretty open to translation so it would be interesting to see what other people had to say about it.
ReplyDeleteThe book is 127 pages.
I used this book for my book club last night. Everyone seemed to enjoy it for various reasons. I would say there is symbolism that you can pull out or you can just enjoy this as a great, simple, story.
ReplyDeleteThanks