Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Aside from a few short stories, "The Old Man and the Sea" is the first Hemingway book that I have read. Of course, I am familiar with his persona, and the idea of the "Hemingway man," and was well aware as his stature as one of the greatest writers of modern times. But I had never read his books. Wow. I mean, really. Wow. With "The Old Man and the Sea," it is so easy to see why Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize, and why he deserves all of his accolades. This short novel is fierce, full of vibrant energy and humanity, all the while being a slave to the realities of finite power, of the inability to struggle against something greater than yourself. Of course, this is the standard "man against nature" story, but it is told with such craft that even cliches ring true. Santiago is a fully-realized character. His strength of will is all that holds together his failing body. The great marlin that he struggles with is like a true fish, lacking personality or anthropomorphism, but just a powerful beast that does not want to die. There is no Moby Dick animosity, and the fish is under the water for the majority of the struggle. All of it, the sharks, the flying fish, the small boat and the ocean, each is what it is, lacking metaphor and saying that life itself is enough. No need to wax poetic. I never knew a story a little over 120 pages could pack such a punch.