The Old Man and the Sea Book Review

Amanda Rivera

23 April 2013

9B

 

The Old Man And The Sea: A Man Who Had Bad Luck And Overcame It

The Old man and the sea, Ernest Hemingway, Simon & Schuster inc., 1950.

Genre: Fiction

                        

This story is about a fisherman named Santiago. An old man who is considered “Saloa” which is very bad luck. Unlike the other fisherman he has gone 84 days without catching a fish. A boy named Manolin was very close to Santiago and regularly visited his shack.

When Manolin was just a little boy Santiago brought him out to fish, but ever since he got bad luck, the boys parents forbid him to go out to sea with him. He set out alone to see if he can try and break his unlucky streak. He put his bait in the water and hoped a fish will come. By noon a big fish got caught on the bait and he hoped it would be a marlin. On the third day the Marlin came back and even though the old man was still wounded and completely worn out he used all of his strength to stab the marlin and make sure it`s strapped on the side of his boat. Although he feels that his luck is back, its not. During the journey back the blood from the marlin left a trail for the sharks and brought them right to Santiagos boat. He kills the first with his harpoon in total he killed five sharks and the others gave up and left. By the time he arrived on shore, the sharks have already devoured the marlin. Finally making his way back to his shack he slumps on the bed and falls into a deep sleep. The next morning, the fisherman notice the big skeleton still attached to the boat. The boy who was worried about the old man, arrived at his shack with newspapers and coffee when the man awakes he promises they will go fishing again.

Upon looking at some of the reviews of the book I stumbled upon a man named Zack Davisson saying “I never knew a story a little over 120 pages could pack such a punch.” I picked this quote because, I agree with this quote. When you see how many pages are in this book you would never think that there would be so much action packed into it.

The book was packed with similes. On almost every page the author threw in a simile. For example, “But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert (page 10).” This sentence was a little mix of simile with a little bit of imagery. As I'm reading it, I think of a sandy desert but also think of old scars on a mans body. When I saw this quote I knew this would be a good quote to use for an example for simile but also imagery.

I`d like to compare The old man and the sea to the last book I read which was called “Titanic: Young Survivors’. The thing that is similar is, the setting because they each take place on the water and both really have to stay alive. But the differences between them definitely is that on the titanic they were on a cruise ship and their ship was sinking, when in the old man and the sea, Santiago only had a little boat and he was alone. 
 

The quote “A man can be destroyed but not defeated” to me means that though someone may have hurt you, you're not completely done. Though you may be broken and beaten, it does not mean that you can`t get back up and keep going, though you feel defeated, you are not. For an example, I am using 9/11 and the recent Boston bombings. I was watching news coverage on the bombings just the other day and a woman came on and said something that really inspired me. She said, “Even though 9/11 happened, we still have to use planes and even though the bombings happened, we are still going to run marathons” Those weren't the exact words, but it was pretty close. Though people suffered injuries such as, losing limbs, broken backs/legs/arms, I believe that we will get through this all together and on the day it happened we will celebrate the lives we lost but still celebrate that we are still alive to celebrate those lives.

This book showed me, that even though you're having a little bad luck and even though people are trying to bring you down, don't give up. I really enjoyed the description that Ernest Hemingway put into it, some parts were really graphic but other parts were told well.

 

I give The Old Man and the Sea 4 Paws- Pounce on it.