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  • Old Man and the Sea
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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
16,789 global ratings
5 star
77%
4 star
13%
3 star
5%
2 star
2%
1 star
2%
Old Man and the Sea

Old Man and the Sea

byErnest Hemingway
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Top positive review

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John Mccarthy
5.0 out of 5 starsA Masterpiece. A True Masterpiece.
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2016
A Love Story. Yes, A Love Story. But not what you may be thinking...

It is about the love between the 'Old Man' (Santiago) and a young boy, his protege, his apprentice, his beloved companion, and about the boys love for him, too.

And if love is also 'committment,' as it surely is, this, too, is what this book is about...The 'old man's' commitment to break his streak of 84 days without a catch. His willingness to to row way, way, way out, way beyond where any of the other fishermen were toiling...and to do this by himself, alone.

And it's also about his love of (commitment to) fishing and, yes, his love of the 18' marlin (over one thousand pounds) that he caught, and with whom he dialogues throughout this wonderful tale..AND dialogues with him even after he had killed him, and, then, finally his ferocious committment to preserve the fallen fish, now dead, from the sharks that relentlessly tore into its carcass.

This is also a book about nobility, about singleness of purpose, about purity of heart and bravery, endurance, and about friendship....about the love of the 'old man' for the boy, and of the boys love for the 'old man.'

For Hemingway, who wrote 'The Old Man' when he was in his early 50's, this book was, I believe, a plaint, a cry about beauty, and about man at his best, and about good fortune and bad fortune, and about loss and sadness, and, in the end, about emptiness.

This book is a treasure of dialogue...dialogue between the man and the boy that is exquisite, but even more, much more exquisite, about the dialogue between the man and himself, his reveries, and also between the man and his fish, the huge marlin, both when the fish was living and when he was dead.

The Old Man and the Sea is artistry, pure artistry at its greatest, nary a spare word, never complicated...always lucid, aways compressed, transparent, pure. I have read that Hemingway labored over each and every word, each and every phrase, and edited and re-edited it endlessly.

Only 127 pages, it is an easy read that bears periodic rereading...For this review, I have read it twice, and listened to it on tape twice...and I had read it before when I was in college in the late 1950's.

Hemingway died about 9 years after this book was published...In some ways, The Old Man and the Sea can be considered his last and final testament...and what a beauty it is...A true treasure. And, of course, it did win both a Nobel and a Pulitzer...

Finally, I don't want or mean to suggest or imply that this book is 'heavy.' Anything but...It catches perfectly the 'lightness of being' in it's descriptions of the weather, the processes of fishing, and the Old Man's love for baseball and Joe DiMaggio, and his arm wresting with a huge black man in Havana...In short, this book is also fun...
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65 people found this helpful

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armink
1.0 out of 5 starsLame
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2020
I finally decided to read this book because you hear about this book everywhere. But I really don't understand all the rave about this book or Ernest Hemingway.. it's like reading something a 5th grade student would write.

"I must eat the tuna so that I will not have a failure of strength"

Who on earth writes like this? Atrocious grammar, synthax, the most basic vocabulary..

Every phrase flip flops between present tense and past tense, and often in the same sentence (I don't feel like looking up the page to find the specific example), but just to give a rough example: 'the old man is doing this 2 hours ago..'...?!?!).

How did this book become a literary masterpiece?
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26 people found this helpful

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From the United States

armink
1.0 out of 5 stars Lame
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2020
Verified Purchase
I finally decided to read this book because you hear about this book everywhere. But I really don't understand all the rave about this book or Ernest Hemingway.. it's like reading something a 5th grade student would write.

"I must eat the tuna so that I will not have a failure of strength"

Who on earth writes like this? Atrocious grammar, synthax, the most basic vocabulary..

Every phrase flip flops between present tense and past tense, and often in the same sentence (I don't feel like looking up the page to find the specific example), but just to give a rough example: 'the old man is doing this 2 hours ago..'...?!?!).

How did this book become a literary masterpiece?
26 people found this helpful
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John Mccarthy
5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece. A True Masterpiece.
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2016
Verified Purchase
A Love Story. Yes, A Love Story. But not what you may be thinking...

It is about the love between the 'Old Man' (Santiago) and a young boy, his protege, his apprentice, his beloved companion, and about the boys love for him, too.

And if love is also 'committment,' as it surely is, this, too, is what this book is about...The 'old man's' commitment to break his streak of 84 days without a catch. His willingness to to row way, way, way out, way beyond where any of the other fishermen were toiling...and to do this by himself, alone.

And it's also about his love of (commitment to) fishing and, yes, his love of the 18' marlin (over one thousand pounds) that he caught, and with whom he dialogues throughout this wonderful tale..AND dialogues with him even after he had killed him, and, then, finally his ferocious committment to preserve the fallen fish, now dead, from the sharks that relentlessly tore into its carcass.

This is also a book about nobility, about singleness of purpose, about purity of heart and bravery, endurance, and about friendship....about the love of the 'old man' for the boy, and of the boys love for the 'old man.'

For Hemingway, who wrote 'The Old Man' when he was in his early 50's, this book was, I believe, a plaint, a cry about beauty, and about man at his best, and about good fortune and bad fortune, and about loss and sadness, and, in the end, about emptiness.

This book is a treasure of dialogue...dialogue between the man and the boy that is exquisite, but even more, much more exquisite, about the dialogue between the man and himself, his reveries, and also between the man and his fish, the huge marlin, both when the fish was living and when he was dead.

The Old Man and the Sea is artistry, pure artistry at its greatest, nary a spare word, never complicated...always lucid, aways compressed, transparent, pure. I have read that Hemingway labored over each and every word, each and every phrase, and edited and re-edited it endlessly.

Only 127 pages, it is an easy read that bears periodic rereading...For this review, I have read it twice, and listened to it on tape twice...and I had read it before when I was in college in the late 1950's.

Hemingway died about 9 years after this book was published...In some ways, The Old Man and the Sea can be considered his last and final testament...and what a beauty it is...A true treasure. And, of course, it did win both a Nobel and a Pulitzer...

Finally, I don't want or mean to suggest or imply that this book is 'heavy.' Anything but...It catches perfectly the 'lightness of being' in it's descriptions of the weather, the processes of fishing, and the Old Man's love for baseball and Joe DiMaggio, and his arm wresting with a huge black man in Havana...In short, this book is also fun...
65 people found this helpful
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Connor Burnett
5.0 out of 5 stars Short Simple Greatness
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2020
Verified Purchase
For a book that you could easily read in just a couple hours, it sure is a classic. You could tell that when Ernest Hemingway wrote this book, that it wasn't meant to be this long story filled with complex emotions like what was going on in A Farewell To Arms or For Whom The Bell Tolls. This book is much more in the vein of his short stories with its simplistic writing. I recommend reading those before you get into this, if you go into this book expecting a fully fleshed out backdrop then you will be disappointed. Other than that, totally worth it.
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Connor Burnett
5.0 out of 5 stars Short Simple Greatness
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2020
For a book that you could easily read in just a couple hours, it sure is a classic. You could tell that when Ernest Hemingway wrote this book, that it wasn't meant to be this long story filled with complex emotions like what was going on in A Farewell To Arms or For Whom The Bell Tolls. This book is much more in the vein of his short stories with its simplistic writing. I recommend reading those before you get into this, if you go into this book expecting a fully fleshed out backdrop then you will be disappointed. Other than that, totally worth it.
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12 people found this helpful
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MJ
2.0 out of 5 stars Typos galore
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2017
Verified Purchase
Not a review of the book because I haven't been able to read it yet. I couldn't get past all the formatting errors and misspellings in the first few pages. Won't bother continuing, I'll try another version.
40 people found this helpful
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a customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read
Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2018
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An easy to read story that takes the reader on a journey, a physical and spiritual battle. There are multiple themes including perseverance, will, and friendship. If you've not yet read anything by Hemingway, I'd recommend starting with The Old Man And The Sea. It's easy to see why this book is a classic. I've read it multiple times at different ages and each time I read it, I find new meaning and feel strengthened for having read it.
22 people found this helpful
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januarysend
5.0 out of 5 stars A New Discovery with Every Reading
Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2016
Verified Purchase
I have read this book several times, and each time I find some new meaning, something deeper than I had noticed before. No writer I know of could reach so far into the hearts of this boy and this old fisherman as Ernest Hemingway. The story speaks to something human that is indescribable, too deep for words. This time I was struck by the clash of the old man's excruciating fishing experience with the indifference of the waiter at the end, who when asked by a tourist what that wreckage of bones is, floating out there, just shrugs and says, "Tiburon." (shark), a fish which is a common, everyday sight in the Havana Harbor of the time. The waiter stands in for the big, silent, looming character -- The Indifference of the World. It's a marvelous story, Hemingway at his absolute best.
45 people found this helpful
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Zachary Littrell
VINE VOICE
5.0 out of 5 stars The perfectly sized Man vs Nature story
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2017
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It's a short book basically about an old man spending days trying to catch a really big fish, while talking to himself about Joe DiMaggio and whatever else pops in his head. If that already sounds like too much of a snore-fest, this probably isn't the book for you.

But if you give it a chance, what a story! It puts other Man vs Nature stories to shame. Hemingway puts you in the boat with this old man, and watch his fortunes rise and fall, and how he copes with physical and mental pain, alone and far from shore.

For such a short book, by the satisfying end, you leave feeling like the the old man's constant friend, the boy: sympathetic for the old man's struggles, but in complete admiration of his spirit.
16 people found this helpful
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AroundSound
2.0 out of 5 stars Two out of five fish
Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2021
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This was the first time I had read anything from Hemingway. I must say, I am surprised that “The Old Man and the Sea” won a Pulitzer Prize. Perhaps it is merely a product of its time (1952) when it was published, attached to a name already renowned in literature by that point.

The book contains a lot of run-on sentences and half-baked - some would say “simple” - syntax and sentence structure that makes it a slog to read. I was left feeling "unengaged" with the reading material as a result.

There is some philosophical reasoning that happens with the old man, Santiago, as he is out at sea, for he has nothing but his thoughts to keep him company. For example: religious themes on whether it's a sin to kill a fish, or “praying for luck,” even though the author alludes to the fact that the protagonist is not religious; the sea being like a family (Hemingway uses brother, mother, etc. for different allusions); or if everything he was experiencing was nothing but a figment of his imagination – a dream. These concepts are a bit of grasping at straws, though, as "The Old Man and the Sea" comes down to being a basic story about an old man at sea trying to catch some fish.

Starting with Hemingway’s earlier books might be a better way to go for those interested in his works.
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John Pavliga
1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing For A "Masterpiece"
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2019
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This is the first Hemingway book I've read, and I was shocked at his juvenile writing style. The disregard for punctuation and constant use of choppy, colorless sentences made me wonder how Hemingway earned his reputation.

What's more, the dialogue between characters was completely unbelievable. At one point early in the book, the boy issues a long, flowery statement about the old man that seems out of character and out of place with Hemingway's otherwise terse style.

The structure and setting of the story were interesting, though. As I read, I found myself imagining what a better writer could have done with it.
6 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars More than just a fish story!
Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2017
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"The Old Man and the Sea" was Hemingway's most popular work. The story makes use of the classic themes, man against nature and man against himself. As he was getting older and the wars and political conflicts he was involved in began to take a toll on him, his writings became more controversial and criticized, and his health began to decline. Then he wrote "The Old Man and the Sea". It's about a poor Cuban fisherman who hasn't caught a fish in 84 days. Feeling desperate he sails his boat farther out into the sea than he has ever been and where there are no other fishing boats to compete with. He finally hooks a marlin that is larger than his entire boat, taking 3 days to subdue it. He kills the fish when it surfaces and ties it to his boat. On the way back he repels several shark attacks, but by the time he gets to his village there is nothing left but an 18 feet long skeleton. During the ordeal he developes a sense of respect and admiration for the noble animal, and he feels remorse for having killed it only to have it devoured by sharks. Most importantly having found and conquered the biggest and most powerful fish he'd ever seen, he regained his confidence and self respect . . Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954 as a result of his masterpiece, the two awards that he had coveted for years. . Of the few Hemingway books I've read this was my favorite. To gain more insights into Hemingway's life, attitudes, and writings I recommend the book "Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy" by Nicholas Reynolds. . David L. Mathews . Sandy, Utah
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