The old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway

The old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway has written nothing so beautiful as this brief tale, and nowhere, I think, has his vision of the historic scars of life been so surely realised.

The hero is a Cuban fisherman, an old man starved of luck and alone in the world but for a boy who loves him, and his adversary is a giant marlin whose strength, in the illumination of a poet's vision, seems as noble as the courage and resolution of the old man who kills it. The story is told with an art that serves its purpose as closely as a skin, and like the bright skin of a fish makes it shine with a natural splendour, and gives death the fleeting colours of a rainbow.

It is a little book in space, but read it three times and it grows in the mind like an old story of one's childhood: so certain it is, so satisfying are its pains and valiancy.

Take from the inner flapper, written by Eric Linklater

Details

• Hardcover with Dust Jacket (acceptable, signs of wear and tear)
  
• Condition: Very good, turquoise cloth with silver guilded letters, no notes stamps or stickers.
  
• Illustrated by C.F. Tunnicliffe and Raymond Sheppard
• Publisher: Book Club Associates, 1979