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Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations)
from: Bloom's Literary Criticism

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9781604131475
ISBN: 1604131470
Label: Bloom's Literary Criticism
Manufacturer: Bloom's Literary Criticism
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 246
Publication Date: July 30, 2008
Publisher: Bloom's Literary Criticism
Reading Level: Young Adult
Sales Rank: 145619
Studio: Bloom's Literary Criticism

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Amazon.com Review:
Here, for a change, is a fish tale that actually does honor to the author. In fact The Old Man and the Sea revived Ernest Hemingway's career, which was foundering under the weight of such postwar stinkers as Across the River and into the Trees. It also led directly to his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1954 (an award Hemingway gladly accepted, despite his earlier observation that 'no son of a bitch that ever won the Nobel Prize ever wrote anything worth reading afterwards'). A half century later, it's still easy to see why. This tale of an aged Cuban fisherman going head-to-head (or hand-to-fin) with a magnificent marlin encapsulates Hemingway's favorite motifs of physical and moral challenge. Yet Santiago is too old and infirm to partake of the gun-toting machismo that disfigured much of the author's later work: 'The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords.' Hemingway's style, too, reverts to those superb snapshots of perception that won him his initial fame:

Just before it was dark, as 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, his small line was taken by a dolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air.

If a younger Hemingway had written this novella, Santiago most likely would have towed the enormous fish back to port and posed for a triumphal photograph--just as the author delighted in doing, circa 1935. Instead his prize gets devoured by a school of sharks. Returning with little more than a skeleton, he takes to his bed and, in the very last line, cements his identification with his creator: 'The old man was dreaming about the lions.' Perhaps there's some allegory of art and experience floating around in there somewhere--but The Old Man and the Sea was, in any case, the last great catch of Hemingway's career. --James Marcus

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A Little Too Old Man
Ernest Hemingway's Book "The Old Man and the Sea" is the story of an old man (as you can get from the title) and his experience through the sea and trying to catch the fish of his life. This book looks like a short read but, it takes a lot of will to get through this whole book. I think this is a great piece of literature but, I read it in my 8th grade class. In this class it was hard to really get into the book because, it is a book that is suppose to take only a few days and it was stretched out to two whole months. As we all know, when reading a 120 page book over two months could make anything terrible. I can see why this book is a classic piece of literature because of the simplicity but, I would not try to make children understand to read it because there are very subtle metaphors that are pretty hard to pick up. I myself did not enjoy the book for the reason that it took to long to read and Santiago (who ... Read More

Rating:

- Mini-"Moby"
Hemingway apes "Moby Dick," recasting Ahab as a "black sheep" shaman who constantly yearns for his overly emotional boy slave and has self-destructive tendencies he takes out on his loved ones and those who seek to possess said loved ones. Everything is emptiness, like brainpans fried away, ornaments without luster.

At least Idaho Spud keeps his aimless ramblings brief, unlike the constipated "A Moveable Feast," in which Papa Longstocking trained a spotlight on the mundanity of social hour at the writers guild.

Rating:

- Well, he nailed the title . . .
This book is about an old man and the sea.
Actually, it is about quite more than that - I am just not sure what. I liked the book, and I love Hemingway; and that's the attraction - the great appeal of this book for me is that it is Hemingway's style and philosophy laid bare. Hemingway was famously agnostic - to the point of seeming despair. We see that theme and message over and over again in his writing: in Robert Jordan awaiting the shutting out of his lights in "For Whom The Bell Tolls," in Frederic Henry's lonely walk away from the richness meaninglessly denied him in "A Farewell to Arms," and in the nameless, solitary old man who mumbles his rosary to nothing in "A Clean, Well Lighted Place." Your theological agreements or disagreements with Hemingway aside, his literary message was consistent, unsentimental, and stark - and always presented in the blunt narrative that he mastered and is so often unsuccessfully ... Read More

Rating:

- The sea giveth...and the sea taketh away
"The Old Man and the Sea" was Ernest Hemingway's last important work. Written in Cuba in 1951 and when published, it became one of his most recognize pieces. The work won him the Pulitzer prize in 1953 and the Nobel prize in literature in 1954.

*SPOILER*

This is the story of Santiago, a poor, humble Cuban fisherman who has been down on his luck for some time i.e. no catches lately. However on this day he ventures father out to sea than usual in his tiny skiff, and hooks the biggest Marlin he's ever seen. Thus the real story begins; a battle of epic proportions, drawn out over several days, between man and fish, man and the ocean, and man and himself.

What really impressed me about this short novel was Hemingway's ability to conjure a slowly increasing sense of foreboding and fear as his hero is dragged farther and farther off-shore by his immense 'prize'. With ... Read More

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