Very descriptive and compelling. A must-read!!
Never in my life has a book been able to portray such detail using a such a simplistic style of writing. Hemingway writes in such a way that you feel you are on the skiff with Santiago as he is struggle with this great fish...his brother. The 127 pages in this book and the hour that it took to read it made me ponder my own tumultuous life experiences and how they made me grow as a person. Kudos Hemingway.
Definitely a slow moving plot, like an old man would be
Although I did find the "waiting for interesting things to happen" bit of this read to be tedious, I think that is what Hemingway was trying to portray...how much patience and tedium a fisherman must endure just for those brief moments of excitement when he "outwits" a fish. The sad irony of course is that he himself is then easily outwitted by the sharks. It is depressing how all our hard work and accomplishment can be so quickly eaten away by theives. I agree that the reading was mediocre.
HMMMMM.....
I couldn't finish the book coz it was soooooo slow. Sutherland attempts to use exclamations and such but it is just monotonously(?) written. I get the idea behind it and all but can't understand why this is THE book for Hemingway. Ah, but I got through it.
throw away your self-help books, it's all right here
call me a throwback, but this slender novel contains more wisdom than entire libraries of self-help books. hemingway tells the story of an old cuban fisherman on his most memorable trip with characteristic simplicity. the man's respect for the fish, courage and inner battle are a fitting finale to hemingway's career. there is more here about character and what life is about than a thousand self-help books.
i listened to the audio version and donald sutherland's performance is the best reading i've heard.
"We must kill our brothers"
I really enjoyed the movie (1990) with Anthony Quinn as Santiago. So I decided it was time to read the book. Well I found the book and the movie paralleled pretty well. How ever I was getting bored with the book it seemed a bit repetitive. The old man kept going on and on about Joe Dimaggio's bone spur.
There were a few places that made me squeamish. One such place is when he gutted a dolphin and had his face stuck in it.
The story is too short to go into detail without revealing the surprises; however it is about (you guessed it) an old fisherman, that should be over the hill, going out to sea from Cuba to catch fish. He has 84 days of bad luck and with any luck this is about to change (or is it?)
The reader helps bring the story to life.
(6 reviews)
