Published: 1952 (Charles Scribner’s Sons)
Ernest Hemingway’s novella is a small story of epic proportions. Santiago, a grizzled and down-on-his-luck fisherman breaks a months long streak of futility by venturing out to the Cuban Gulf Stream to meet his fate, death or otherwise.
Hemingway starts and ends his novel with Santiago and his young assistant/friend Manolin conversing about baseball, fishing, and food. Santiago is at once a typical crotchety old man weathered by time and the loss of his wife, but also a dreamer who fantasizes about the heroic Joe DiMaggio and traveling the world. Even though Manolin is forbade by his parents to join Santiago on his boat due to his lack of success, Manolin still reveres him.
Santiago, without his deckhand, goes out on his skiff to break his unlucky streak. After venturing out a bit too far into the Gulf, he encounters his version of a Moby Dickian white whale, the marlin. Santiago hooks the marlin and struggles three days and nights with little sleep to get it to bend to his will. His hands are calloused and his spirit tested, he talks to himself and daydreams about a better life while also paying respect to the strength and honor of the marlin. He sees the marlin as a majestic animal worthy of his respect and admiration to have fought and almost outlasting Santiago in the Gulf. After the marlin is finally subdued, Santiago slowly pulls it to shore, only for a cadre of sharks to mangle the marlins body slowly until it is devoid of meat by the time he reaches shore. Santiago, exhausted but victorious washes ashore with the marlin. All the fisherman see the length of the marlin carcass and measure it eighteen feet long, astonished by its size. Santiago rests after his Gulf excursion.
Some final thoughts:
1. This book won the Pulitzer and was mainly credited for pushing the Nobel Prize committee to select him. Critical analysis of this novel is all over the place, some see it as an affront to feminism and ecology, some see it as a triumph of the human spirit, while the most agreed upon analysis is one of a religious parable of Jesus’ crucifixion. While this book seems to be his most widely debated, it is at the very least, a page turner that takes 1.5-2 hours total to read and is worth devoting time to a non-stop reading session. I was propelled through the novel, even though the prose can be repetitive, it did make me feel like I was in a little skiff gliding up and down waves as I watched Santiago struggle to reclaim his former glory.
2. Hemingway loved Cuba, so when I made a parody of my professors in the UO school of Education for a class project in 2019, I compared one of my professors who also loved Cuba (and ditched 1/2 of the course during the school year to go there) to Hemingway.
3. Santiago fit so many stereotypes of the down and out old man with nothing to live for but his younger days and the thought that even for a second he could reclaim them. I think Hemingway used the marlin carcass as a way to symbolize the long journey Santiago took in the sea to get him to where he was during the events of the novel.
Rating: 4.1/5
Will Reviews Things 