Book Review

Hemingway's novel The Old Man and the Sea, one of his best-known works and a modern classic, is among the most widely read books in the world. It contributed significantly to his winning the 1954 Novel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize in 1953, establishing his authority and influence in the literary community. Hemingway is one of my favorite authors as well.

The elderly fisherman in the book is someone I really admire. He helps me to understand that perseverance is necessary for success. In the novel, an almost sixty-year-old elderly fisherman is described as having once gone fishing alone at sea and hooked a monster fish but was unable to reel it in. After a few days, the elderly guy just discovers that it is a large Malins fish that is larger than the fishing boat by a significant margin. Despite the fact that he is fully aware of how challenging it is to capture the fish, he persists. As a result of the enormous marlin's fishy wounds luring later swarms of sharks to once again compete for food, the elderly man was finally forced to stress a tight siege to get the big fish back to the fishing port, much to the admiration of other fishermen.

The elderly man in the book did his fishing more skillfully and carefully than any other fisherman, so that "When luck arrives, you are ready," as the elderly man mused to himself. In actuality, some of us are constantly whining about our bad luck or being born at the wrong time. In actuality, luck occasionally strikes when they least expect it. Consider Newton as an example. He would never have discovered gravity if he had not amassed much wealth. Therefore, if we just keep studying as much as we can, luck will eventually find us and we will have a brilliant future. The elderly man never loses faith. He has a strong belief that he will catch a big fish even though everyone else says he is doomed. So it's crucial to us that we never lose hope. This made me think of the phrase "Never give up, never, never, never..." from Churchill's speech. "But man is not designed for failure. When I face failures in my life, the phrase "A man can be destroyed but not defeated" has always served as motivation for me. In the pursuit of our objectives, setbacks are unavoidable, but we shouldn't give up and instead should be "graceful under enormous pressure" like the elderly guy. His unwavering persistence is a major factor in the outcome.

Just when the blood of the big fish was smelled by a group of sharks, struggling to swim over to grab food, the old man's left hand happened to be twitching, he could only use his right hand, with a wooden stick, mouth, etc. were allowed to be used as a weapon of attack in self-defense, and finally expelled the group of sharks. But the flesh of the big fish had been eaten almost, but the old man still did not forget to criticize his left hand "this working time is actually resting" when I was also impressed by the optimism of the old man. In life, some losses are inevitable and we should treat them with optimism and not be calculating.

Finally, the novel describes again the immensity of the fish through the measure of a young man who sees a large marlin completely 18 feet long by the senior fisherman, showing the magnitude of the difficulties the senior fisherman overcame, which is extraordinary.

It is said that the author, Ernest Hemingway who is a great American writer wrote the novel in only eight weeks, based on one of his friend’s true experiences. He created the figure of the old man which was later called by people “tough man” and showed his life attitude and spiritual world. The most well-known sentence of this novel and also the topic of it is that: “man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” These words become the belief of many readers.

2023-01-30

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