So much great discussion on the novel. It clarified a lot of my reaction to the book.
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Originally Posted by CRussel
But even though the entire story revolves around this struggle, what makes this story work for me is that it is, ultimately, a love story.
...The visuals are as powerful as the writing and so evocative of the daily struggle for survival of fishermen with and against the sea that provides their livelihood.
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Yes, if this were just a fishing story, it would have been a good story, but not great. It is the humanity of Santiago and Manolin that elevates it.
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Originally Posted by issybird
What struck me most was that this is a sustained and quite powerful Christian allegory, although somewhat flawed.
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Yes, I wondered about his name, and there are the repeated references to bearing the pain of the rope on his back which suggested the flagellation and crucifixion, although I completely missed Santiago’s carrying the mast, and his maimed hands. Was Santiago’s left hand almost his Judas Iscariot?
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Originally Posted by Dazrin
The balance of trying to close with the fish while protecting himself from too much injury, and his accepting and dealing with the injuries he did get, is a lot of the tension of the story.
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Yes, Hemingway was at his best as a writer in how he describes that.
He's always most effective when he describes the physical.
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Originally Posted by Bookpossum
I found this book very powerful, but almost unbearable to read. While I had sympathy for Santiago's situation, I disliked the whole premise of the heroic man battling and trying to overcome nature.
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Yes, ultimately, what lessens the novel for me is the macho bs of “If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him.” And then there is the hypocrisy of “"I killed him in self-defense," the old man said aloud. "And I killed him well."”
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Originally Posted by fantasyfan
I first read this book some decades ago and as it was done in class, I could not really appreciate it properly. This time I was astonished at what a masterpiece it is. The "simple" fisherman is anything but simple. He has a philosophy which informs his entire being and which impels him to great heroism in an unequal struggle with the elements and still simultaneously prompts him to question the validity of that struggle.
The battle with the great fish is genuinely tragic. He knows that one of them must die and yet he loves his opponent. The Old Man hunts not out of hate but to survive. Still, in the end, he wonders whether he was right to seek out the Fish; that he travelled too far out for either. The Fish gives up its life but only the sharks benefit from the sacrifice. The Old Man wrestles with this conundrum but in the end he finds no certain answer.
The pacing of the novel is perfect. There are those great meditative passages alternating with moments of the fury of the hunt and the anguish of the battle with the sharks.
And finally the return home where the we see a kind of rebirth. The Boy knows that he has much to learn from the Old Man. Thus the latter's struggle bears a kind of fruit for the future.
Still, the novel leaves us wondering about basic questions— the true function of a masterpiece.
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A great summation.
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Originally Posted by Bookpossum
The only thing I did note and then dismissed was the reference to the sound Santiago made when he hurt his hand as being the sound a man would make when a nail was hammered into his hand. I thought that Hemingway was wanting us to see Santiago as Christlike, and I thought it was a bit over the top.
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How spot on!
One thing that I did wonder about was how much of himself Hemingway saw in Santiago. When Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea in 1949 he had gone a very long time since his last big catch - For Whom The Bell Tolls in 1940. He was 50 - probably in his own mind, old and long past his physical prime. The Old Man and the Sea was his last big fish.
I first read this book fifty years ago in high school as an assigned text. Bits of it have stuck in my mind ever since then, which I suppose is indicative of how well Hemingway could write.