Reading for Pleasure.

 

MY FAVORITE BOOK:

My favorite book is The Old Man and The Sea.

Written by Ernest Miller Hemingway. He was an American writer and journalist, one of the leading novelists and short story writers of the 20th century. His understated style had a great influence on 20th century fiction, while his adventurous life and public image left traces on later generations.

It is a fiction book, of genre Novel.

Summary of the work:

The play takes place in the Gulf Stream - Havana, whose protagonist is Santiago, although everyone calls him The Old Man. Santiago is an elderly fisherman who has not been able to catch anything for 84 days. One fine morning, he decides to go out alone to the sea, where at last, a huge marlin (sailfish similar to swordfish) bites the hook, not without a fight before being captured for good. The fight with the fish lasts three days, in which Santiago remembers his past life. His mind echoes the times when luck was on his side, and he was able to catch a big catch. He also remembers Manolín, a young man who had been helping him fish until recently. The boy's parents forbade him to go fishing with the old man, due to the losing streak he had gotten in the trade. However, the young man was always willing to help him when necessary, since it was Santiago who instructed him in fishing since Manolín was five years old. On the third day, the fish, already exhausted, begins to circle the boat. Santiago, worn out and almost delirious, uses all his remaining strength to throw the fish over to his side and stab it with a harpoon. Once caught, Santiago ties the fish to the side of his boat and heads back home. He walks thinking about the high price the fish would have in the market, and the number of people he could feed. However, on their way to shore, the sharks are attracted by the marlin's blood and gradually appear to devour the catch. Santiago manages to kill a large mako shark with his harpoon, but he loses the weapon, as well as a quarter of the fish that the shark managed to devour before dying. After a while, the old man's swordfish is again attacked by a shark that manages to remove one more piece of meat. The old man builds a harpoon by attaching the knife to the end of one of the oars, and thus protect what remains of his prey; five sharks are killed in total, and many others are driven off. But the sharks keep coming, and by nightfall, they have devoured most of the swordfish's meat, leaving behind a skeleton consisting of its spine, tail, and head. Santiago, defeated, now convinced of his bad luck, rebukes the sharks for the way they have killed his dreams. Arriving at port, he leaves his boat on the shore with the remains of the fish. Exhausted, hungry and wounded he immediately heads to his little cabin to rest, while he carries the heavy mast of his boat on his shoulders. The next day, several fishermen and tourists are amazed to see the colossal dimensions of the swordfish, despite the fact that it has only arrived in bones. Saddened by the physical state of the old man, Manolín promises Santiago to go fishing with him again, no matter what his parents say about him.

The ending is left to the reader's interpretation. On the one hand, the physical state of the old man and the reactions of both Santiago and Manolín allow you to infer that due to his sadness and desperate acts, both recognize the possible end of the old man. In his counterpart, his death is never confirmed and the closing of the book leaves the future state of the old man unfinished by culminating in dialogues of future deeds, without hope on which to base himself.