Book Review 1064 洪郑栋

  It's been a long time since I read this book for the first time when I was a little boy. I was amused by the adventurous plot and the surprising ending. But that is in Chinese version, so I come to read the English original this time. I am glad to find the fact that the more careful I read, the more I understand the moral of the ending of this story.

  Again, I was deeply impressed by the adventurous courage and consistence the old man showed when he was in the fight against the big marlin. “that must be my biggest enemy I have ever met.” From the description of Santiago’s mind, it is true that he was excited as well as determined to win the fight. As expected, it finally tuned out the brave old man beat his enemy after two-day struggle, as spectacular as a epic. But is this the end? Not at all, actually the author is going to tell us another hard fight between the old man and the sharks until sharks ate up all the meat on the marlin and ruined what Santiago had achieved. It was an unbelievable, hard truth that Santiago had tried his all efforts but to gain nothing in the end. Why does the author tell us such a tragedy, and what moral did he want to convey by the depressing ending? I sank into deep thinking, while the picture of the old man fighting against the overwhelming powers emerged in my mind time and time again.

  At last, I retrospected a saying “You often find a writer's books more comprehensible if you know about his life.” I realized that answer may lie in the background of the author: Ernest Hemingway. He is the representative of the "Lost Generation" writers in the United States and his works show confusion and uncertainty in life, in the world and in society. Most of all, he was called as The literary tough guy thanks to his brave and straight personality, but he committed suicide in the end. On aware of that, I suddenly realized the old man Santiago in the book actually symbolizes the Strong and unyielding spirits of the author in his real life. “But man is not made for defeat, a man can be destroyed but be defeated.” Maybe this is the moral the author want to tell us.

2017-12-15

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