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    The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition
    The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition
    The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition
    Ebook184 pages3 hours

    The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition

    By Ernest Hemingway

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    About this ebook

    Ernest Hemingway’s most beloved and popular novel ever, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, now featuring a previously unpublished short story and additional supplementary material—plus a personal foreword by the author’s only living son, Patrick Hemingway, and an introduction by the author’s grandson Seán Hemingway.

    The last of his novels Ernest Hemingway saw published, The Old Man and the Sea has proved itself to be one of the most enduring works of American fiction. The story of a down-on-his-luck Cuban fisherman and his supreme ordeal—a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream—has been cherished by generations of readers.

    Hemingway takes the timeless themes of courage in the face of adversity and personal triumph won from loss and transforms them into a magnificent 20th-century classic. First published in 1952, this hugely popular tale confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScribner
    Release dateJul 21, 2020
    ISBN9781476787862
    The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition
    Author

    Ernest Hemingway

    Ernest Hemingway did more to change the style of English prose than any other writer of his time. Publication of The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms immediately established Hemingway as one of the greatest literary lights of the twentieth century. His classic novel The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. His life and accomplishments are explored in-depth in the PBS documentary film from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, Hemingway. Known for his larger-than-life personality and his passions for bullfighting, fishing, and big-game hunting, he died in Ketchum, Idaho on July 2, 1961. 

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    Reviews for The Old Man and the Sea

    4/5

    8,188 ratings143 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A compelling story of one man’s struggle against the forces of nature as he copes with the frailty of his aging body. He wants to catch this great fish, and he battles with it for three days before it is spent and ready to die. After he kills it he finds the fish, a marlin, is too large to fit in his boat, so he lashes the fish carcass to the side of the boat and begins the journey home, hoping the fish will bring a good price at the market once it is butchered. On the way he must battle hungry sharks, his own hunger, and thirst. This is a poignant story of determination and the human will to dominate, despite the limitations of age and loneliness.
    • 3/5
      Summary: Old guy goes looking for fish after a bit of a long time of not catching any fish. Gets a little bit more and a little bit less than he bargained for.

      Things I liked:

      Nice narrative, you found things out as stuff happened rather than being told how things were.

      Things I thought could be improved:

      Maybe a bit to long fighting the fish . It seemed sometimes like I was reading the same statements more than once. Flip side this might have set my mind up just right for the final events of the story.

      Highlight: Probably the old man taking care of the sharks as they ate the fish . It was exciting and sad and romantic and a good ending to to a good story.
    • 3/5
      I had read this book in high school many years ago, I do not remember it at all! But I really enjoyed it, even though I didn't think I cared for Ernest Hemingway. I have only read a couple of his, but now I think I might try another. :)
    • 4/5
      I will shamefacedly admit that this is the first Ernest Hemingway novel I have ever read. I know. I'm a monster. How dare I call myself a librarian! I'm glad I finally got around to reading this Pulitzer prize winning classic, because I liked it so much more than I anticipated. The title summarizes the book pretty succinctly. It really is about an old man and the sea. A lonely old Cuban fisherman sails out to see and battles against a giant marlin for days. All he has are his wits and perseverance and he's not giving up. Deeper though, this story is so much more. It's about fortitude and determination, about never giving up and being resilient all the way to the end. I never thought I would enjoy a story about fishing, but thankfully it is so much more than that. The old man's struggle is real, it's not easy, he loses many battles, but he never gives up on himself.
    • 3/5
      First off, it took me a little bit to get into this book, as I felt it was fairly underwhelming after 20 minutes or so. It seemed to be much about a man and the fish he was attempting to catch, and it was very much so about that, but it was also about a lot more. The sentence structure was interesting, as this was definitely not a novel (or short story?) that one could say was particularly verbose or one containing that refined of a vocabulary. It was a strange, but good read.

      What I got out of it was what it means to give something all of your being, regardless of how much you have to give, be satisfied in that effort. I'd go more into what I thought this novel was supposed to bring out, but I think this quote says it more eloquently than I ever will:
      "I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious." - Vince Lombardi
    • 4/5
      This is the first Hemingway book I've read. I've visited Cuba and seen where he lived/drank etc, and knew a lot about him, but strangely for someone who professes to love books, had never read any of this books or stories.The Old Man and the Sea is a wonderful short book - although I got lost in the technical sailing terms at the very beginning, I soon became engrossed in the life of the old fisherman and the loneliness of being at sea with a very large fish attached to the fishing line, pulling him further from the shore. Wonderful writing.
    • 3/5
      The story begins in a little village near the sea. A village lives a few people who depend on catch fish for life. This story main setting is sea. A old man who lives in that village has no food to eat, so he go fishing. He goes to a place very far from village. And then after he catchs the fish D:Maggio he drives his boat from deep sea to coastal waters. At last he comes back to village.
    • 4/5
      This could have been a simple Man v Fish story but in usual Hemingway style it becomes a metaphor for so much more. Santiago is an old man struggling each day to fulfil his place in society, as a fisherman, but has dreams of catching a big one, a winning lottery ticket in today's world. The shark seems to represent life while the young man is lost youth with all those youthful dreams of being lucky and therefore different from the rest but overall the story seems to speak of an unbreakable human spirit who no matter what continues to strive to be the best that they can only for life's vagaries, the sharks, to often thwart us. The ending could have been different but then it would not be real life. I even read somewhere that Santiago with his bleeding hands represents Jesus on the cross but not sure that I can see that one personally.
    • 4/5
      A short classic that I somehow missed growing up. The thoughts it inspires in me make me want to revisit again someday.
    • 5/5
      I thought of my childhood best friends, Paul and Randy, while reading this book--the importance of the hunt with the respect of the hunted. I loved the 'don't give up spirit' portrayed. The respect the boy had for the old man. And that everyone knew what the old man had endured and accomplished.
    • 4/5
      Centered on the struggle that Santiago has with a giant Marlin, this novella nevertheless manages to touch on his standing in his village, his love of baseball, his relationship with a local boy who fishes with him, and his simple faith in the power of will. I liked how he saw his relationship to the fish he caught and how the struggle was raised to some sort of contest of honor and skill. The story is simple, yet it has lots of texture and detail.
    • 4/5
      Not as boring as I expected.
    • 5/5
      Good book, as always Hemingway, I truly felt for the old man. It made me so immensely sad. I would read it again.
    • 5/5
      Santiago is one of the most underrated characters in all of literature. What Hemingway accomplishes through this character is a great example of what it is to be a man.
    • 5/5
      I loved the book and the film with Spencer Tracy when I was a youngster - I'm sure I saw the film first. The story made me so sad when I was young and it still manages to do so now. I've read it several times and I'm sure I will again. A sentimental favorite gets an extra half star from me when it doesn't fail on a re-read. This story grabbed me once again from the start. Hemingway's narrative was among his best and this is a great novella. It was very unique among the books I read long ago. It still is unique. The character of the boy who learned to fish from the old man is my favorite - he is so devoted and loves and cares for the old man deeply.
    • 4/5
      Sparse, gruff, and muscled with old-school machismo. Powered along by a now-defunct, animalistic moral code, at once brutish and poetic. Like a return to nature; will put some HAIR on that sparse, downy modern chest.
    • 4/5
      I really appreciated the allegory of man vs. struggle in this book. It reminded me a bit of my Saturday long runs, especially the tough ones. Just like Santiago, I'll talk to myself (sometimes aloud), plead with God, wish for companionship/assistance, and look for the light (in my case, my car) at the end of the tunnel (in his case, on land). And sometimes, like Santiago and his catch, I leave pretty much everything out there on the running trail.

      I was surprised that this is such a short book and fast read. Now I want to go to the coast and watch fishing boats come in.
    • 5/5
      This is the third time I've read The Old Man and the Sea, and I can't say I've ever really liked or appreciated it as much as I did this time around. As short as it is, this work is a quintessential classic of both American literature and literature in general. The last two times I read it, once as a too-cool-for-school high school student, and later as a surly Lit major who was burned out on Hemingway, I didn't enjoy it quite as much, true... But I can say that every time I've read it, it's broken my heart the way only a really good story can.
    • 4/5
      Like almost every other student in the American public school system, I read this book in high school. Unlike most students, I enjoyed it. It was a simple story that conveyed subtle, yet profound emotion. The first and only work of Hemingway's I've enjoyed.
    • 5/5
      Third time re-reading it, finding new things as a parent. Excited and also scared to re-read it as an actual old man.
    • 4/5
      The Old Man and the Sea is truly a classic. Hemingway created a solid character who you start to feel for and understand due to the intricate back story and in-depth Frame of Reference. The only reason for the four star is this commenter's personal preference would have much more action. But it is understood why this story has retained it's masterpiece status for the past few decades and it will stay there for many years to come.
    • 5/5
      "But man is not made for defeat...A man can be destroyed but not defeated," Hemingway writes in The Old Man in the Sea. Unfortunately the actual ending of the story is somewhat ambiguous on this point, but it is still a powerful and gripping story, and a beautifully written one (despite a couple of awkward sentences and some overwritten ones), and at times quite moving and rousing. Donald Sutherland's narration of this audio edition is well-suited to the material.
    • 5/5
      Outstanding short story.
    • 4/5
      Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a geriatric Cuban man alone at sea while fishing for a long duration of time? Then this book is great for you!Otherwise, you may still enjoy this book, as it provides an interesting narrative in Hemingway's trademark style, all while providing a bit of allegory for the author's life.And to top it off, it's not that long!So, if you're looking for a quick read, or want to pick up some more fishing tips (note, you may not actually pick up any fishing tips), then this book is perfect for you!Recommended for fans of Hemingway, Steinbeck, or Fitzgerald.
    • 5/5
      This was an interesting read to say the least. The story read very simple, so simple that probably a 1st grader can read it. So I didn't start off impressed with the artistic style. However as the story progressed I kept thinking of the story of The Pearl (which is one of my favorites) and found them very similar in their basic idea. The moral of the story is what makes it fantastic. After a couple days of reading it, I'm still thinking of the old man. I have a feeling the old man is another great literary character that will stay with me.*****
    • 5/5
      This was so good I couldn't get the circulation flowing in my hand for ages and the over-stretching of my back was killing me. By the time I got back to shore - hey, hang on, I was only reading this! For a moment there my imagination was so vividly fired up I was in the story. This now-classic is nothing less than brilliant.
    • 4/5
      Hemingway's simple prose and plot masks a surprisingly gripping book. The story of an old man fishing - and that pretty much is the entire story - doesn't sound like anything particularly exciting. However, through his excellent characterization of Santiago and his world view this story of a fisherman trying to finally land another big catch becomes an epic tale. There were moments of suspense as great as any I've experienced whilst reading a thriller or adventure novel. True, even though this is a novella I did think perhaps there could be ten less pages of Santiago waiting for the fish to give up swimming. I was never bored though, merely too interested in seeing how the story would develop.
    • 5/5
      I re-read this classic to see if time had allowed me to see anything different within its pages. I got to thinking, as Sanitago struggled with the great fish about the struggles that we all endure in our lives. Do we face them with the courage and tenacity that Hemingway described? I think that Santiago is held up as a model of how we should face difficulties. He goes out beyond the expectations of others, he pursues his goal despite repeated failure, he does not give up and does everything within his power to achieve success. How ironic that having killed the greatest fish of his life, he loses it to the sharks as he makes his way back home.There are so many lessons in this short book. No wonder it is a lasting classic.
    • 4/5
      I didn't really expect to enjoy this because of the subject matter, despite my adoration of Hemingway. In my head I was linking it to Moby Dick and I knew I didn't want to go there. So yeah, I was wrong, I liked it just fine. As always with Hem, I really appreciate the dialogue, even the inner dialogue of Santiago speaking to himself at sea. While there is much to read into this should you wish to do so, I chose to mostly pass that by, it is pretty obvious, as in a children's fable, so opted to just enjoy the characters and the writing of the tale. I did really like how respectful and protective the young boy was of Santiago; a man to whom he wasn't even related, but who stood tall as a hero and mentor to him. I look forward to reading this again in the future.
    • 2/5
      Not my favourite story but then I'm not the biggest fish fan in the world. It was beautifully written and the battle to get back to shore was great.

    Book preview

    The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

    Cover: The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway

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    The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway, Scribner

    To Charlie Scribner and Max Perkins

    Foreword

    In his treatise On the Nature of Things, the ancient Roman philosopher Lucretius once wrote: Life is one long struggle in the dark. What I think he meant by that is there is so much that we do not know. My own education began in many ways during the summers of my youth in Key West, Bimini, and Cuba, especially at Finca Vigía, with my father, who was a wonderful teacher. Cuba and the Gulf Stream then were like an Eden for me, and returning to boarding school always felt like being sent into exile from paradise. Fishing trips with Papa aboard the Pilar in pursuit of marlin, exploring the sea by snorkeling with some of the first single-lens goggle glasses, and the trove of natural history books in my father’s library awakened me to the world in all of its beauty and complexity. In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago knows about life’s struggle—he has fished for eighty-four days without a catch. He is not, however, entirely in the dark. In my view, a great achievement of this novel is how my father, drawing on his own formidable experience and talent, managed to create for us the world of the Gulf Stream so completely. It is a powerful evocation of a precious ecosystem, one sadly undergoing terrible changes today due to human intervention, and one very much worth protecting.

    In a fascinating twist of history, the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger and Ernest Hemingway died in the same year. Over the course of their lives both men made great contributions to their chosen professions, each achieving a Nobel Prize, one in physics, the other in literature. Perhaps the most memorable of the Austrian physicist’s thought experiments was Schrödinger’s cat—a creature both dead and alive at the same time. It was a way for him to explain the duality of conditions that can coexist in quantum physics. Schrödinger imagined a cat in a closed box with a deadly poison—one would not know if the cat was dead or alive and so it would, in a sense, be both. Part of the mythic power of The Old Man and the Sea is something that I would call Hemingway’s cat. A seemingly impossible feat is made possible through my father’s storytelling: an old man alone in a skiff on the sea manages to bring in a fish weighing over a thousand pounds.

    Patrick Hemingway

    Introduction

    The Old Man and the Sea is arguably the greatest fishing story of all time. It ranks, in my opinion, above Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick as the most marvelous piscatorial contribution of American literature. It is a timeless story—mythic, archetypal—but it is also of its time. Like the whaling industry of nineteenth-century America captured so poignantly in Moby-Dick, the practice of Cuban commercial fishermen setting out in small sailing skiffs for large billfish, using only hand tackle, is now largely a thing of the past with the advent of motorboats and modern fishing equipment.¹

    Fishing has been a part of human experience for thousands of years and this story reminds us of its importance.²

    Part of the joy of reading The Old Man and the Sea is the portrayal of the act of fishing itself, as anyone who has held a hand line or a rod with a fish tugging on it will understand. Fishing, for those of us who practice it, is one of life’s great pleasures. I am forever grateful to my father for introducing me at a young age to the wonders of fishing, as his father had done for him. The notion of passing on this knowledge from generation to generation, which is expressed so beautifully in the novella through the friendship of Santiago and the young boy, is an important aspect of the story.

    How did Ernest Hemingway come to write this masterpiece? The Old Man and the Sea had a long period of gestation. In 1936 Hemingway described the essence of the story in an article he wrote for Esquire magazine entitled On the Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter, included as the first appendix to this book. It was a tale told to him by Carlos Gutiérrez, a Cuban fisherman who taught my grandfather much about big-game fishing (see figs. 1

    –3). Hemingway’s passion for deep-sea fishing began much earlier, though, and it was through his determination to master the sport that he acquired a wealth of detailed knowledge enabling him to write the novella many years later.

    Hemingway first became interested in deep-sea fishing when he lived in Key West in the late 1920s, which is also when he began to visit Cuba. The personal fishing logs he kept for more than ten years are preserved in the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. They document everything from the numerous fishing trips and catches he made to the weather conditions.³

    In a log from 1932 there are notes from conversations with Carlos Gutiérrez that record fascinating tips about fishing for marlin, as well as the fish’s behavior and characteristics (see fig. 2

    ). In the spring of 1934, upon returning from the safari that he immortalized in Green Hills of Africa, Hemingway custom-ordered his own deep-sea fishing boat. The Pilar, a forty-two-foot wooden motor cruiser from the Wheeler Shipyard in Brooklyn, was to become his home on the sea (see figs. 3

    –5). By the following year my grandfather had caught more than one hundred marlin (see fig. 6

    ) and was considered enough of an expert to write authoritative articles about the sport.⁴

    He was approached by scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the American Museum of Natural History in New York to help gather information about the large game fish of the Gulf Stream—their classifications, life histories, diets, migratory patterns, and mating habits.⁵

    The ichthyologist Henry Fowler even recognized his contributions by naming a new species of sculpin after him, Neomerinthe hemingwayi.⁶

    One of the largest marlin that Ernest Hemingway ever fought, which was arguably nine hundred pounds, was hooked by his friend Henry Strater on the Pilar in 1935. As Hemingway describes in a letter just after the event (appendix II), the fish was savagely attacked by sharks while they reeled it in and lost nearly half of its meat. It is clear that my grandfather drew on this real-life experience when he wrote The Old Man and the Sea.

    Hemingway had a great number of encounters with sharks and caught several large makos, one of which, hooked near Bimini, was 786 pounds. This Hemingway Library Edition includes as appendix III a previously unpublished list by my grandfather of principal sharks in Cuban waters (see fig. 10

    ). It features his own observations about the different species and how dangerous they become when they smell blood in the water. Hemingway even pioneered a technique for quickly landing large fish to avoid their being attacked by sharks. In the summer of 1935 in Bimini, he was the first angler to bring in a bluefin tuna unscathed by sharks.

    A particularly exciting feature of this Hemingway Library Edition of The Old Man and the Sea is the inclusion of a previously unpublished short story by my grandfather (see appendix IV, fig. 11

    ), which Patrick Hemingway has aptly entitled Pursuit As Happiness. The story makes a marvelous counterpart to The Old Man and the Sea and gives a vivid sense of what it was like for Hemingway when he went deep-sea fishing for marlin in those early days. Set in 1933, the story describes Hemingway’s passionate pursuit of a huge marlin while aboard the Anita, a ship captained by my grandfather’s friend Josie Russell, who owned both the Anita (see fig. 1

    ) and Sloppy Joe’s Bar in Key West. The story uses nonfictional characters like my grandfather and his longtime first mate Carlos Gutiérrez (see figs. 1

    and 3

    ). It is difficult to say how much of it is based on fact and how much was embellished by the storyteller. Certain elements, such as the reference to outriggers, which were added to the Pilar in April 1935, indicate that the story was written much later than 1933.⁷

    Will Watson in his careful study of my grandfather’s fishing logs notes how he became disappointed with the aging Gutiérrez in 1936, as his first mate made more and more mistakes on the Pilar resulting in many lost fish. These later experiences may have inspired Hemingway’s fictional account of Carlos’s error in the short story.⁸

    Other details suggest the autobiographical nature of the story. The main character resides at the Ambos Mundos Hotel, where Hemingway first stayed in Havana, and eats and drinks at the Floridita, which was one of his favorite hangouts. He also mentions his own record of catching seven white marlin in one day off the north coast of Cuba, a record Hemingway held alone until 1936.⁹

    The heroic notion of giving all of the meat away to the locals is a happy and generous way to ensure that none of the meat from their fishing adventures went to waste. However, what happens in the story contrasts with the reality in Bimini during the 1930s, when massive quantities of trophy fish meat went unused. It was a common occurrence that deeply bothered my grandfather.¹⁰

    Hemingway periodically returned to the idea of writing The Old Man and the Sea. In a letter to his editor Max Perkins in 1939, he mentions that it would make a great addition to a forthcoming book of short stories:

    … And three very long ones I want to write now. One about Teruel called Fatigue. One about the old commercial fisherman who fought the swordfish all alone in his skiff for 4 days and four nights and the sharks finally eating it after he had it alongside and could not get it into the boat. That’s a wonderful story of the Cuban coast. I’m going out with old Carlos in his skiff so as to get it all right. Everything he does and everything he thinks in all that long fight with the boat out of sight of all the other boats all alone on the sea. It’s a great story if I can get it right. One that would make the book.¹¹

    No other record of that trip with Carlos Gutiérrez exists, but Hemingway’s personal collection of photographs, many taken by the author himself, show Cuban fishermen at work in their small wooden sailing boats with typically two men aboard (see figs. 7

    and 8

    ). A photo of a Cuban fishing boat with a large marlin nearly the length of the skiff gives a powerful sense of the heroic nature of these fishermen and their quarry (see fig. 9

    ).¹²

    The onsets of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and World War II (1939–1945) led my grandfather to other writing projects, and it was not until the end of 1950 that he was finally able to write the story of the old fisherman. At that time he had completed the first draft of a novel that would be posthumously published as Islands in the Stream.¹³

    Hemingway had envisioned this manuscript as the first book of a major trilogy that he was composing on The Sea, The Air and The Land.¹⁴

    As Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea, he thought it could serve as a coda to the sea book.¹⁵

    By February 17, 1951, he had completed the first draft (26,531 words) of The Old Man and the Sea at Finca Vigía. Preferring to rise early in the morning and work until lunchtime, he claimed to have written 1,000 words per day for a sixteen-day period that month, much more than his usual output.¹⁶

    During this time the young, beautiful Adriana Ivancich, who was the model for the female heroine in Across the River and Into the Trees, was visiting the Finca with her mother, and she once again provided inspiration for my grandfather’s writing.¹⁷

    Hemingway even suggested that Adriana illustrate the story. Her artwork, drawn from visits to the little fishing village of Cojímar, was used for the cover of the book (see fig. 15

    ). In a moment of generosity before the book was even published, Hemingway gave the original manuscript to Adriana’s brother Gianfranco Ivancich.¹⁸

    Unfortunately, that manuscript has never been found. Hemingway’s final typescript with quite a number of pencil corrections in the author’s hand is preserved in the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. It illustrates some of the last editorial changes that Hemingway made to The Old Man and the Sea. For the most part, these changes are minor additions that clarify or reinforce his existing statements. For example, in the first paragraph of page 1

    , he adds the words now definitely and finally before "salao, which is the worst form of unlucky,"

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