quotHis best Time may show it to be the best single piece of any of us I mean his and my contemporariesquot William FaulknerThe Old Man and the Sea an apparently simple fable represents the mature Hemingway at his best and it is still one of his most read books In 1954 Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature quotfor his mastery of the art of narrative most recently demonstrated inampnbspThe Old Man and the Seaampnbspand for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary stylequotHemingways style was famously simple In responding to a critic he said quotDoes he really think big emotions come from big words He thinks I dont know the tendollar words I know them all right But there are older and simpler and better words and those are the ones I usequot Using these simpler and better words he tells the unforgettable story of Santiago an old Cuban fisherman down on his luck who goes out alone far from the shore in search of one last victory and catches a huge marlin longer than his boat He is tested to the very limits of his skill and strength and returns quotdestroyed but not defeatedquot This of course also refers to Hemingway who in his last years was in constant...
