The Old Man and the Sea is a book that combines faith, will, tenacity, courage and strength. Let people thoroughly understand what is indestructible spiritual power.
"The Old Man and the Sea" tells the story of Santiago, a Cuban fisherman, going out to sea to catch fish. After 84 days, he found nothing. But he was not depressed, and he still set out enthusiastically every day. At first, a boy named Manorine went to sea with him, but 40 days passed in the blink of an eye, but he didn't hold on to a glimmer of hope. Manorine was put on another boat by his parents, because they thought the child would not be lucky enough to follow San Diego. On the 85th day, San Diego rowed the boat far away early in the morning. On this day, he accidentally bumped into a marlin bigger than a boat. Santiago struggled with the fish for two days and finally caught it. However, the injured fish left a blood mark on the sea, which attracted countless sharks to compete. So, San Diego and the shark launched a life-and-death struggle, and finally defeated the shark ... When he returned to the port, the marlin only had a huge skeleton, and the old man fell to the ground exhausted ... San Diego was not defeated by the shark, nor was he conquered by fate, entirely because of his tenacious character: "People are not people."
Santiago is a symbol of the perfect life advocated by Hemingway: generosity, kindness, love, perseverance and no hesitation. ...
Although Santiago has a concrete prototype of life, to put it bluntly, it is also a projection of Hemingway's own real life. Let's take a look at this concrete and clearly visible projection-
Hemingway tried to eat earthworms, lizards and other things that many people were afraid to eat at that time. In the Mexican bullring. Strolling through the virgin forests of Africa. Both world wars have started.
During the First World War, once Hemingway, aged 19, saw an Italian soldier seriously injured, so he braved the artillery fire of the Austrian army and ran to rescue him. As a result, his leg was injured, but he still stubbornly carried the wounded forward ... Suddenly, the shelling went out, the searchlight lit up, and Hemingway finally returned to the position. It turned out that his heroic behavior touched the Austrian general and ordered him to let go.
Hemingway, as a writer, once said ambitiously that he would surpass Shakespeare and beat Turgenev, Mo Bosang, Stendhal and others out of the water, saying a lot of "nonsense". Determined, he dived into the water and burned like a fire. 1949, his friend Faulkner won back the trophy of Nobel Prize in Literature. Not convinced, Hemingway hastily wrote a novel to surpass Faulkner, but failed. The stubborn Hemingway got up and continued to write, and finally wrote the novel The Old Man and the Sea, which became the Nobel Prize in Literature winner in 1954.
Hemingway gets up at half past six every morning, and the first thing he does is to start writing. His works are fundamentally different from those of ordinary writers. He stood and wrote. He said, "I write standing. I stand on one leg. I take this posture, which makes me nervous and forces me to express my thoughts as briefly as possible. " That's it. He writes every day 12: 30. He likes to write in pencil, saying it is easy to modify. Legend has it that he used up 20 pencils a day when he wrote. Hearing this, he seriously corrected that there were not so many pencils, and he only used seven pencils a day when he was fluent in writing.
Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, whether it is other works or not, is characterized by mutual infiltration of scenes, appropriate shades, simplicity and uniqueness, which is naturally related to his love for Shakespeare's plays and his careful study of the works of German composer Bach, Austrian composer Mozart, Spanish oil painter Goya and French modernist painter Xie Zanle. He said that he learned as much from the painter as from the writer. Therefore, the clarity of lines and the collocation of colors in painting, the harmony of timbre and the contrast of melody in music works are clearly visible in his novels.
Hemingway has always admired a famous saying of American architect Rodwig: "The less, the better", which makes his works more and more exquisite, thus shortening the distance between his works and readers. Hemingway put forward a famous "iceberg theory", that is, icebergs transport things in the sea, and only one-eighth of them are beautiful, that is, only one-eighth of them are shown in his works, which makes his works more substantial, implicit and intriguing, which has something to do with Hemingway's famous saying that "the less the better".
All Hemingway's works are "athletic" and full of great power, which is not unrelated to Hemingway's love of outdoor sports all his life. The hobby of this sport is naturally inherited from his father. Although his father is a doctor, he likes sports all his life, especially hunting. So Hemingway also likes hunting, and in the process of hunting, he embodies some unique qualities of athletes, such as agility, such as courage, which has never weakened in his life. Hemingway's works are both "athletic" and "artistic" and full of unique aesthetics, which is not unrelated to Hemingway's love for music. This artistic talent is naturally inherited from his mother, who is a writer and likes many art forms. Hemingway said this about the nourishment of music. I learned a lot of writing methods from research and acoustics and counterpoint. It is precisely because of this that Hemingway's works show a typical "demeanor under pressure." This "demeanor under pressure" is actually another manifestation of San Diego's winner's tolerance in the face of failure.
Hemingway has always attached great importance to the revision of his works. Before he starts writing every day, he always rereads what he wrote the day before and changes where he reads. After writing it all, revise it from beginning to end, ask someone to print out the draft and revise it again, and finally make a proof and revise it again. He believes that at least three or four major changes in this way are the necessary conditions for writing a good book. The first draft of his novel A Farewell to Arms took six months to write, but it took another five months to revise it. It was still being revised after it was proved, and the last page was changed 39 times before it was satisfied until the last moment before publication. It can be seen that he is very demanding of himself. Naturally, this is also the concrete embodiment of the "tough guy spirit".
Hemingway wrote Paris at the end of The Flowing Banquet: "Paris is always worth visiting, and what you bring will always pay off." Obviously, this is a meaningful sentence, and Hemingway undoubtedly brought his "tough guy spirit". This "tough guy spirit" has offensive beauty, predatory beauty, conquering beauty and irresistible beauty.
At least Hemingway committed suicide ... from a deep psychological analysis, of course, it is related to Hemingway's suicidal desire inherited from his father, who, like Hemingway, shot himself. The hunter's last prey is himself, which leaves us too much to think about. But in any case, it was a lion that fell under Hemingway's own gun, not anything else. After conquering one height after another, the lion was tired and just wanted to go to bed early. The act of suicide itself naturally reflects Hemingway's determination. Hemingway was the bravest soldier in the battlefield of time all his life, and the bravest soldier should embody the spirit of tough guy. In this way, the tough guy spirit runs through Hemingway's life.