我读过的许多书中唯一能让我真正感动就是著名作家海明威写的《老人与海》。
《老人与海》这本书讲了这么一个故事，古巴老渔夫桑提亚哥连续八十四天没捕到鱼，被别的渔夫看作失败者，可是他坚持不懈，终于钓到了一条大马林鱼。尽管鱼肉都被咬去了，但什么也无法摧残他的英勇意志。这本书向我们揭示了这样一个真理：人不是为了失败而生的，一个人可以被毁灭，但不能被打败。
以前，我做什么事只要有一点不顺利，就会退缩，有时还会说上几句垂头丧气的话。在学习上，我只要有几次考试不是很理想就没有信心。自从读了这本书之后，我知道了自己的不足，学习上不再因为一两次不顺利而失去信心，而是越考不好，就越要考好。
从物质上来说，老人搏斗了三天三夜的结果是失败了；但从人的精神、从人的自信自尊，从人勇于和命运作竭尽全力的抗争来说，桑提亚哥取得了胜利。
说到底，人的真正胜利也只能是精神的胜利。人在物质上无论取得多大的成就，都不能赢得我们崇高的敬意。而只有精神和气魄的胜利，才使我感动，才使我和追随老人的孩子一样，为他的悲壮落泪。

1
The Old Man and the Sea is the most classic and concernful novel of Hemmingway's. Its compendious expression and exciting fighting narrative attracts numerous readers. The author repeatedly emphasized his customary key thoughts in the story: despairing courage, struggling on both physically and psychologically, and the hero's brave, glory and noble character.

One of the pivotal sentences, "a man can be destroyed but not defeated" draws our attention. This sentence is gorgeous in surface but a little doubtful in a certain angle. In the end of the story the old man told to the boy that he was a loser who beaten by the sharks. With his bloody hands and the skeleton of the fish, it was really difficult to judge that he was defeated or not. However, he was undoubtedly destroyed in the fighting at the hopeless sea. Therefore, the difference between "destroy" and "defeated" was just something untraceable. We are not expected to tell one word form another, but to feel the antinomy and contact of them.

This sentence from the old man was also a reflection of the author himself. Sometimes we may treat a novel as some individual and emotional words. The old man and the sea were the symbols of the author and his life and destiny. As we know, Hemingway suffered a lot from his broken life during two ruthless world wars. In his late years, he was a successful litterateur but also a disable old man. He ended up his life with suicide. It's too arbitrary to say he was defeated from his fate, and also too shallow to use the word "destroy" in his experiences.

In my opinion, the most splendid thing in Hemmingway and his the Old Man and the Sea is not the VICTORY OF DEFEAT, but the relationship between the two words "defeat" and "destroy" as well as the novel and the author.
2
I have read the American well-known Hemingway’s book ‘’ the old man and the sea’’, which came out in 1976. This is a true story about an old fisherman battling with a giant marlin in the sea.
The old fisherman, who names Santiago, have not caught any fish for 84 days , other fishermen looks down him as a loser, but he never gives up. Finally 85th days, he fishes a big marlin fish which is bigger than his skiff and over fifteen hundred pounds. The fish begins to tow him farther and farther out to the sea, but he still holds onto the line, even though a hand is cramping, he don’t give up it. After two days and two nights’ crucifixion, at the end he kills the fish, and attaches the marlin to the outside of the skiff with rope, it’s blood leaves a trail in the water and attracts sharks in return journey, he comes to strike back against and uses to all tools which are harpoon, knife, and quant . When Santiago returns to harbor is left over with the fish head fishtail and one backbone. Although the flesh of fish has been got rid of all quilt barking, what also has no way to devastate his brave will. When he lay down on the bed at home, he makes a usual dream of lions at play on the beaches of Africa.
This story happened in 1940th near a Gulf Stream in Cuba. The main character Santiago is an old man, who fishes alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and lives a small village. He is characterized as someone struggling against defeat. The second character Manolin is a young boy whom Santiago teaches to fish. The litter boy is his loyal friend. Language is great simplicity and power. The theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. It is a song of praise of heroism.
The Author, Ernest Miller Hemingway is a famous writer in the literary world. ‘’The old man and the sea’’ was written in 1952, and it is one of Hemingway’s most enduring works .It won the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature. The author wants to told readers ,you will be supposed to like this old person same mind lofty aspiration, and will even better pursue even better, the bigger goal, don’t easy give up your goal in your life.
The novel shows a view about struggle of life, even in the face of nature can’t be conquered, but still can be moral victory. Perhaps the result of a failure, but I n the struggle of process, the reader can see how a person become an indomitable spirit of man. I like the main character Santiago and the classic saying ‘’But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated’’, because this is Santiago’s faith of life, and the human will not fail also, the enterprise spirit of a carols. It is encouraging me to face up to life with smiles no matter what happens. It's a simple story, but offers the reader much to think about without lapsing into the didactic. I am strongly recommend that book.
3
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
Ernest Hemingway
New York: Charles Scribner�s Sons, 1952
127 pages.
Comments by Bob Corbett
January 2006
Once again I return to the work of Ernest Hemingway after an almost 50 year hiatus. The Old Man and the Sea is a magnificent story. At one level it is the tale of a man and a fish, at another, a story of man versus nature, at yet another, the story of the culture of manhood, courage, bravery in the face of existence, and at yet another a history of what life was like when individuals were more the central actors on the human stage and not groups or organizations.
At the most basic level the very elderly fisherman, Santiago, goes out in his small fishing boat after 84 days without hooking a decent fish. He goes far out, and hooks a gigantic 18 foot long sword fish. The battle then begins, and the fish drags the small boat and Santiago far out to sea. For two days they battle, and Santiago wins that battle, but then loses the great fish on the way home to the scavenger sharks who find him easy prey.
Hemingway celebrates the courage and raw guts of this old man, even recounting a time in Casablanca when he had spent an entire day in an arm wrestling match with a much larger man in a seaside tavern. Hemingway celebrates a concept of humans as beings who go it alone, fierce, brave, courageous without even thinking about it, oozing strength from the nature of the best of the species.
The story is told with incredible economy of words and description, yet nothing is sacrificed which drives home the power and inner strength of this man, who just takes it as what he does, what it is to be a serious fisherman.
Hemingway�s world is not my world. I am no Santiago, no macho man. And the culture of today has little place left for the radical individual whom Hemingway celebrates and Santiago portrays. Yet the power of Hemingway�s telling is such that I couldn�t help but be on Santiago�s side, to admire him, to ache with his loss in the end to forces greater than he.
There is a side tale as well. This great individual, the man who stands alone, is not alone completely by choice. He has developed a friendship, a working relationship, a love with a young boy who began fishing with him when the boy was only five. Now the boy has moved on to another boat, a more successful one, at his parents� behest, but he pines to work with Santiago, and when the battle with the great fish has been engaged, Santiago pleads over and over and over: �I wish the boy were here.�
Like many readers who might come upon this novel today, I live a life of citified ease and comfort. A life far removed from harsh confrontations with nature. But Hemingway forces me to remember and acknowledge the individual, the struggle for the most basic existence, the battle with nature for survival itself. But most importantly he makes one acknowledge the importance of the individual and the magnificence of courage, skill, art and endurance.
5
The Old Man and the Sea
Simon & Schuster
The Old Man and the Sea was an enormous success for Ernest Hemingway when it was published in 1952. At first glance, the story appears to be an extremely simple story of an old Cuban fisherman (Santiago), who catches an enormously large fish then loses it again. But, there's much more to the story than that...
The Old Man and the Sea helped to revive Hemingway's reputation as a writer of great acclaim. This slim volume also contributed enormously to Hemingway's recognition as a world-renowned writer--with the award of the Nobel Prize for literature. The popular reception of the novel comes from its part-parable, part-eulogy style--recollecting a by-gone age in this spiritual quest for discovery. Touching and powerful in turns, the story is told in Hemingway's simple, brittle style. The book reaches out to a very human need--for stability and certainty.
Overview: The Old Man and the Sea
Santiago is an old man, and many are starting to think that he can no longer fish. He has gone for many months without landing any kind of fish to speak of; and his apprentice, a young man named Manolin, has gone to work for a more prosperous boat. The fisherman sets out into the open sea and goes a little further out than he normally would in his desperation to catch a fish. At noon, a big Marlin takes hold of one of the lines, but the fish is far too big for him to handle.
Hemingway pays great attention to the skill and dexterity that Santiago uses in coping with the fish. Santiago lets the fish have enough line, so that it won't break his pole; but he and his boat are dragged out to sea for three days. Finally, the fish--an enormous and worthy opponent--grows tired; and Santiago kills it. Even this final victory does not end the Santiago's journey; he is a still far, far out to sea. To make matters worse, Santiago drags the Marlin behind the boat (and the blood from the dead fish attracts sharks).
Santiago does his best to beat the sharks away, but his efforts are not enough. The sharks eat the flesh off the Marlin, and Santiago is left with only the bones. Santiago gets back to shore--weary and tired--with nothing to show for his pains but the skeletal remains of a large Marlin. Even with just the bare remains of the fish, the experience has changed him, and altered the perception others have of him. Manolin wakes him the morning after his return and suggests that they once more fish together.
6
I was very surprised when I finally tried to read this, and discovered that it bored the living crap out of me. I just couldn't get into it, I don't know why, maybe it was just my mood or something....? I mean, I do like Hemingway. I love the sea, and baseball. I am relatively fond of both old men and little boys (not like that, you fool).... and this is supposed to be really terrific and all, but I just.... I mean, I could've finished it of course, it's short, and it wouldn't have been like torture at all, but I just wasn't feeling it.... so I stopped.
Sometimes I think about making an "okay-so-does-this-mean-i'm-stupid-or-something?" shelf, but my ideological opposition to the idea has overridden that impulse every time.... so far.