The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea
by Ernest Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea
List Price: $6.95
Our Price: $0.01
You Save: $6.94 (100%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Ernest Hemingway
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1981-03
ISBN: 0684718057
Number of pages: 123
Publisher: Simon Schuster Trade

Summary of The Old Man and the Sea

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.
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

History & Criticism Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in History & Criticism Books
An Introduction to Literature ImageAn Introduction to Literature
by Sylvan Barnet, William E. Burto, William E Cain
Longman; Published: 2007-11-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.00
Price in other shops: $86.67
Ariel ImageAriel
by José Enrique Rodó
University of Texas Press; Published: 1988; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.50
Price in other shops: $18.95
The Priapus Poems: EROTIC EPIGRAMS FROM ANCIENT ROME ImageThe Priapus Poems: EROTIC EPIGRAMS FROM ANCIENT ROME
by Richard W. Hooper
University of Illinois Press; Published: 1999-04-01; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops: $37.00
Theodor Fontane: Literature and History in the Bismarck Reich ImageTheodor Fontane: Literature and History in the Bismarck Reich
by Gordon A. Craig
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1999-11-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $94.61
Price in other shops: $100.00
The Annotated Anne of Green Gables ImageThe Annotated Anne of Green Gables
by L. M. Montgomery
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1997-08-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $26.45
Price in other shops: $49.95
Christmas in America: A History ImageChristmas in America: A History
by Penne L. Restad
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1995-12-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $44.69
Price in other shops: $74.00
Antigone (Greek Tragedy in New Translations) ImageAntigone (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)
by Sophocles
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1990-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops: $11.95
Lysistrata and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) ImageLysistrata and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)
by Aristophane
Addison Wesley; Published: 2008-09-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.48
Price in other shops: $7.00
Death of a Salesman (Viking Critical Library) ImageDeath of a Salesman (Viking Critical Library)
by Arthur Miller
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1996-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops: $18.00
Brush Up Your Shakespeare! ImageBrush Up Your Shakespeare!
by Michael Macrone, Tom Lulevitch
Harpercollins; Published: 1994-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.50
Price in other shops: $13.00
Similar Books and other products
A Moveable Feast ImageA Moveable Feast
by Ernest Hemingway
Scribner; Published: 1996-05-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.85
Price in other shops: $15.00
Garden of Eden ImageGarden of Eden
by Ernest Hemingway
Scribner; Published: 1995-09-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.89
Price in other shops: $15.00
Childhood's End ImageChildhood's End
by Arthur C. Clarke
Del Rey; Published: 1987-05-12; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.13
Price in other shops: $7.99
To Have and Have Not ImageTo Have and Have Not
by Ernest Hemingway
Scribner; Published: 1996-03-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.49
Price in other shops: $15.00
The Catcher in the Rye ImageThe Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
Little, Brown and Company; Little, Brown and Company; Published: 1991-05-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.74
Price in other shops: $6.99
The Pearl (Centennial Edition) ImageThe Pearl (Centennial Edition)
by John Steinbeck
Penguin Group USA; Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2002-01-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops: $13.00
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition ImageThe Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition
by Ernest Hemingway
Scribner; Published: 1998-08-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.34
Price in other shops: $22.00
A Farewell To Arms ImageA Farewell To Arms
by Ernest Hemingway
Scribner; Published: 1995-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops: $16.00
For Whom the Bell Tolls ImageFor Whom the Bell Tolls
by Ernest Hemingway
Simon & Schuster; Scribner; Published: 1995-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops: $16.00
The Sun Also Rises ImageThe Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway
Scribner; Published: 2006-10-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.52
Price in other shops: $15.00
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories