人能夠忍受痛苦,可以被毀,但意志不能被打敗。「海面很大,船很小」。渺小的個體(老人)對抗外在環境,有歷盡滄桑的搏鬥過程。儘管勝利者所獲無多,或者說沒有誰是最後的勝利者,且充滿茫然的悲劇,故事卻在單調的情境、簡鍊的情節中延伸,蘊藏令人回味無窮的動人描述。這部精彩的中篇小說可以做為海明威作品和其硬漢一生的完美句點。
*本書中譯本<<老人與海>>由桂冠出版
The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway’s most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal—a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.