-
-
-
- The Fountainhead (411)
-
By Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand -
Not Started
-
-
-
-
- Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (15)
- (Signet Classics)
-
By Charles Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson -
Not Started
-
-
-
-
- A Room with a View and Howards End (18)
- (Signet Classics)
-
By Benjamin DeMott, E. M. Forster -
Not Started
-
-
-
-
- The Hound of the Baskervilles (683)
- (Signet Classics)
-
By Arthur Conan Doyle -
Not Started
-
-
-
-
- The Complete Novels of Jane Austen (197)
- (Special Editions S.)
-
By Jane Austen -
Reference
-
-
-
-
- 大亨小傳 (2894)
- Great Gatsby
-
By 弗朗西斯．史考特．費滋傑羅 -
Finished on Dec 20, 2012 
-
-
-
-
- 張愛玲譯作選二 (15)
- 老人與海．鹿苑長春〔張愛玲典藏 18〕（新版）
-
By 張愛玲 -
Not Started
-
-
-
-
- The Old Man and the Sea (1154)
-
By Ernest Hemingway -
Finished on Dec 9, 2012
-
-
-
-
- Lord of the Flies (1899)
- (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)
-
By William Golding -
Finished on Dec 2, 2012 
-
-
-
-
- The Great Gatsby (3407)
-
By Francis Scott Fitzgerald -
Finished on Nov 3, 2011
Finished (re-read) on Dec 27, 2012
-
-
-
-
- The Birth of Tragedy (67)
- (Dover Thrift Editions)
-
By Friedrich Nietzsche -
Not Started
-
-
-
-
- Middlemarch (515)
-
By George Eliot -
Not Started
-
-
-
-
- The Last of the Mohicans (298)
-
By James Fenimore Cooper -
Not Started
-
-
-
-
- The Wind in the Willows (405)
-
By Kenneth Grahame -
Finished on Aug 7, 2012
-
-
-
-
- Collins Classics - The Thirty-Nine Steps (211)
-
By John Buchan -
Not Started
-
The Old Man and the Sea
***This comment contains spoilers! ***
Just like Kundera, Kafka, or Calvino, Hemingway is just another cliché among the public. Most people have heard of him, have spoken about him, yet have never tried reading any of him. I must as well confess this is my very first of him, but it turns out to be one of the most moving stories I have ev ... (continue)
Just like Kundera, Kafka, or Calvino, Hemingway is just another cliché among the public. Most people have heard of him, have spoken about him, yet have never tried reading any of him. I must as well confess this is my very first of him, but it turns out to be one of the most moving stories I have ever read. When looking at the cover, with the shabby houses facing the vast blue, I thought it was just an elegy, perhaps philosophical, featuring the loneliness of an average fisherman, on how he lived a nihilistic life on the sea undergoing helpless days without catching a fish. But soon I found out my guilt for underestimating the talent of this Nobel Laureate. First, we saw hope offered by the author, through the undeterred faith and effort of the fisherman fighting with the marlin which took the bait. Rather than soliloquizing, Santiago (the fisherman) spoke aloud on his skiff, reinforcing and reassuring himself the faith in killing the fish, and theatrically reminding the readers how determined he was. The sense of hope was further strengthened as another source, the all-star baseball player Joe DiMaggio, was being coupled to his imagination. (This reminds me of “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon”, one of my favourite Stephen King’s; and I am quite sure he wrote under the influence of this branch plot.) Based on the fact that DiMaggio’s old man sharing the common vocation, he has been “invented” as a mind mentor of Santiago. This branch has also understated the importance of baseball in US, giving a supplementary remark on the background of the author. But the hope didn’t stop here. After three days and nights of seesaw battling in a guerilla fashion, with an additional Stockholm syndrome suffered by the old man, the fish has become the ultimate source of hope for Santiago. I felt so complicated for the moment when he came off with his prey harpooned. No doubt that was a touching moment, which should be the climax of the story, and once again Ernest proved me wrong. The fish, surprisingly huge, has incited the invasion of some other even larger, life threatening predators – the sharks. With several rounds of devastating attack, one should be tearful to see what Santiago has left: the bones of the marlin and his grievously wounded body. But then Hemingway has confirmed his literary power by ending his novel with the sweetest twist, describing the sudden mind shift of the returner, with his reincarnated state of hope. Finally I cannot help but think of the Freudian model best explaining this stunning journey of redemption: from id to superego, and the old man has found out the true meaning of life.