Review
WL Rating
This is one of my favorite books and, at just north of 120 pages, an easy read pretty much anywhere. This book came later in Hemingway’s career and heavily influenced his getting the Nobel Prize in 1954 (the book was actually the ill-fated final chapter of Islands in the Stream). Accolades aside, The Old Man and the Sea is a classic water book that skillfully tells the tale of an aged Cuban fisherman named Santiago, who, from his tiny dinghy, heroically goes mano-y-mano with an enormous marlin. This is Hemingway at his best, providing those tight, wonderful observations that characterize his greatest work. The ending of this book somehow manages to be brilliant, tragic, happy and deep. Had this been written when Hemingway was younger, it’s quite possible that the author would have ended the story in a mucho-macho cliche. Fortunately for the reader, Hemingway’s maturity came through in the story’s brilliant ending. Definitely a WL Essential. (August 2008)
The Old Man & the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
