《老人与海》是芙国著名作家海明威的代表作。小说讲述了一个叫桑提亚哥的老渔夫独自出海，与一条大鱼和一群鲨鱼搏斗了两天两夜的故事。它塑造了“桑提亚哥”这个令人敬佩的硬汉形象，赞扬了他面对困难百折不挠的拼搏精神。小说语言简洁，情节激动人心，洋溢着英雄主义精神，深深吸引着世界各国的读者。1954年，《老人与海》使海明威获得了诺贝尔文学奖，这部小说从此成为家喻户晓的世界文学名著。

本书讲述的是一位老人只身到遥远的海域捕鱼的故事。老渔夫桑提亚哥在连续八十四天没捕到一条鱼的情况下，终于独自钓上了一条大马林鱼，但这条鱼实在是太大了，在海上拖着小渔船游逃了三天才筋疲力尽而被桑提亚哥杀死并被绑在了渔船的一边。在归程中，桑提亚哥不断遭到鲨鱼的袭击，到岸时大马林鱼只剩下鱼头、鱼尾和一条脊骨。

海明威说：“我试图描写一个真正的老人，一个真正的孩子，真正的大海，一条真正的鱼和许多真正的鲨鱼。然而，如果我能写得足够逼真的话，它们也能代表许多其他事物。”

The old man and the sea

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eightyfour days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy's parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week. It made the boy sad to see the old man come in each day with his skiff empty and he always went down to help him carry either the coiled lines or the gaff and harpoon and the sail that was furled around the mast. The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.

The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert.

Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.

 "Santiago," the boy said to him as they climbed the bank from where the skiff was hauled up. "I could go with you again. We've made some money."

 The old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him.

 "NO," the old man said. "You're with a lucky boat. Stay with them."

 "But remember how you went eighty-seven days without fish and then we caught big ones every day for three weeks."

 "I remember," the old man said, "I know you did not leave me because you doubted."

 "It was papa made me leave. I am a boy and I must obey him."

 "I know," the old man said. "It is quite normal."

 "He hasne't much faith."

 "No," the old man said. "But we have. Haven't we"

"Yes," the boy said. "Can I offer you a beer on the Terrace and then we'll take the stuff home."

"Why not?" the old man said. "Between fishermen."

They sat on the Terrace and many of the fishermen made fun of the old man and he was not angry.Others, of the older fishermen, looked at him and were sad. But they did not show it and they spoke politely about the current and the depths they had drifted their lines at and the steady good weather and of what they had seen. The successful fishermen of that day were already in and had butchered their marlin out and carried them laid full across two planks, with two men staggering at the end of each plank, to the fish house where they waited for the ice truck to carry them to the market in Havana. Those who had caught sharks had taken them to the shark factory on the other side of the cove where they were hoisted on a block and tackle, their livers removed, their fins cut off and their hides skinned out and their flesh cut into strips for salting.

When the wind was in the east a smell came across the harbor from the shark factory; but today there was only the faint edge of the odor because the wind had backed into the north and then dropped off and it was pleasant and sunny on the Terrace.

P3-5