A review of “The Old Man And The Sea” by Ernest Hemingway
Santiago is an experienced but elderly fisherman in a Cuban fishing village who has had a prolonged run of bad luck, having failed in 84 consecutive days to catch anything. His luck is about to change dramatically, but at what cost and with what consequence? This novella of less than 100 pages won Hemingway the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and it was the only work explicitly mentioned when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 (this was his last work of fiction and he died in 1961).
Many regard this work as a classic of American literature, although some critics have claimed that it is overrated. Certainly it has a deceptively understated style – what Hemingway himself called the ‘iceberg theory’ with deeper meaning not evident on the surface – but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved the physicality of the narrative and the positivity, nobility and resilience of the titular old man. When talking to himself, he declares: “But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”