"He feteva" "Who him?"
"The interferon," he murmured
"The interferon? The interferon? The interferon? "
Stefano d'Arrigo" Horcynus orca "
P overo, small Santiago. In its own way is a hero. But not real ones. Of those, so to speak, who fought under the walls of Troy sculpted by the sun, who died at Thermopylae, which took off at Salamis or in the waters of Carthage. It is not even one of those ancient heroes and huge sea that accompanied Jason Pirithous or to cleave the furrows of the sky poseidonia unknown. For him there is a remote but rewarding Colchis. Poor, little or no crown Odysseus Penelope, Ithaca or without God's protection. He, old, weak, tired, indomitable Santiago believes in one god. A god to whom it is forbidden to pronounce the name: Joe. And even the surname: May. And 'the numinous gods of the baseball diamond stages to keep him company in the pages of a newspaper covered with wrinkles like the skin of his old fisherman. Poor little Ahab without Leviathan. The great captain lame fighting for the glory and history. He died in battle, raving, shiny symbol of our sins and the devil who works there. But at least, for once at least, David is dead along with Goliath. Jonah, like Samson, he destroyed himself and the Leviathan who had swallowed.
P as I say and think Santiago, "Man is not made for defeat. You can kill a man but not defeat it. " The old fisherman is a tiny, huge unfortunate hero. A glorious Hector, who knows no death. There is an Achilles tear in the viscera with blade invincible. His injuries are burns inflicted by the simple teeth to rope and woven with rough hemp rope. The monster did not kill at the end of a titanic clash. Simply put, the "brother fish" bait and is captured, certainly not without a fight for long. But Moby Dick, whose numinous light White will be reflected on for ever Ahab, belongs to another universe, the empyrean of Heroes.
S anti-aging, after 84 days of desperate empty, useless lapping of never taut lines, hooks and nets thrown in vain for him to tear the breast stingy Teti, warns the echo near the end. Manolo Solo, the young Manolo, the neighbors, he loves him, he suffers with his aging impotence. He learned to fish from the old. But above all he has learned and assimilated the style of a life of honesty, hard work, danger and love. Absorbed by apprentice the secrets of fishing along with those of frugal living in Santiago. A modest living that shakes every day in view of the Caribbean coast.
M to now is different. This trip, this poor fishing and hunting, this single combat that vie for blue immensity, Santiago want to fight it alone. The guy has to build a future that is now old and unfortunate fisherman no longer able to tell it. But Santiago knows, bad luck does not exist. There is only one inevitable old age, a slow and irreversible decline soon softened by memories of crumpled paper that you replace with increasing frequency to reality. And if it exists, fortunately, it is as if he were facing an enemy, a brother or fish. Although the energies are now dormant. So "inside, more inside, where the sea is the sea." The orcaferone is transformed here into a giant marlin, swordfish by the huge dorsal fin. Santiago part only. To win. To live. To return to his cabin.
L in Hemingway's prose is rough and basic, unfolds as sharp as the thin black line for three days between the intense blue of the old over the head from cobalt blue that is under the boat. Two skies, in fact, contend the man. A heavenly paradise and far suggests that the fisherman every slightest movement of the bar, which indicates the road with the sun and other stars. And the other, liquid sky, closer but less friend, always try to hide or to snatch their prey. Deception, deceived, for sick with invisible mermaids. But Santiago knows a thousand centuries as how to attack and defend. Or so believes and hopes.
C 'is also, almost hidden between the pages of the intense narrative, a beautiful love story. Emerges from the blue green waves and sinks in the death that comes, as always, love. As is often the man who wants to do good and evil produces. Without guilt, without will, without knowing the fate that work blind and deaf to the desperate contractions of the heart. "The first male feed the female always leaves ..." . Irretrievable act of love from the disastrous consequences and desperate. I love carving with ferocity in the foam ondivagante a final ruling. "... all the time the male was crossing the line and stood beside her on the spinning surface. " The end is fast and pain is embodied in the fluid of the sea when "... the color of the animal was almost similar to that of the back of the mirrors ...". The color of dried blood, death is needed for life. Fish, like men, men like fish.
" It was the saddest thing I've ever seen," thought the old man. (...) And we have apologized and we quartered without delay. " He apologizes and quartered in a hurry, while Santiago Manolo, as he innocent actor, he learns the universal art of killing for a living. Art has always been that man, often with abhorrent reversing declines. There is no choice. Santiago, all of us with him, do not get a chance, related to that servant will immobilize us with irons indestructible. The old man is vaguely aware of it: "Maybe I should not have to be a fisherman, he thought. But that's why I was born. " The anguish of life has something to say, pointing to the future irrevocably locked in a present undecidable. Pages sculpt the memorable struggle between man and the sea, between fish and fisherman. Santiago is so weak and old sails, like everyone else, to an unreachable horizon, a huge link in the chain that imprisons Promethean pain in the world.
I the Ahab knows a little short when the great victory won marlin floats and bound to slow rocking boat to the port. Win the sea. The sea, in the end, always wins. Ulysses abandons the comforts of Ithaca and the gentle attentions of Penelope to rush back to the point of the wave that rocks all hope. The sirens can not be ignored twice and no one has written a second Odyssey.
n addition to appearances populate the way to Santiago. The sharks are moving with untiring commitment to the orders of luck enemy. The fisherman sees disappearing piece by piece on his victory. Blue eyes but do not yield to despair. Never. Although they are the only ones to fight against the sea. We are fully myth "It is defended by old, with eyes ". (Cesare Pavese, "Dialogues with Leuco" - the Wolf Man ). Santiago and the old Lycaon fight to the end as you know, as they can. But the fight is loneliness and the jaws of sharks are fierce multitude. Even the mad master of the Pequod sees crowds of angry sharks attacking the whale just fixed to the side of the ship. But the monster is so huge that it will always be enough. Santiago does not hunt whales, and is forced to fight and lose, as Romeo, against the invincible "yoke of inauspicious stars" . Useless sacrifice. The brother marlin, indomitable Abel Cain killed by a poor, will feed not the killer. On the ground just landed a huge bone, a monument to futility of life that the sea will recover.
L a history of the old Cuban fisherman goes into penomb ra cabin. Standing on a miserable bed, seems to be asleep. But, as we know, is listening to the touch of a narrow bell ringing for him.
M a really, Santiago, "Man is not made for defeat"?
Ernest Hemingway, "The Vechio and the Sea" Oscar Mondadori; pp. 104 . Translation and afterword by Fernanda Pivano.
U na interesting series of objections included as a comment from Loris to my reading of "The Old Man and the Sea" I believe requires a detailed answer since of topics that seem of great interest. Thank you Lori for the effective consideration and clarification. But I believe that some issues require clarification. Claims, Loris, not to see the defeat in the history of Santiago, but the epilogue "of a human life meant to a slow depletion of the difficulties of old age and loneliness." I completely agree with the quotation marks part of the statement. Disagree with the conclusions. Simply stress that so accurately describes its defeat. Not by chance at the end Loris decides to "simplify" a reference, I think inevitably, to a theistic religious interpretations of the problem. It 'just the point. Without someone to thank or curse, not a "court" from which any resulting final sentence (I speak of life and its inevitable end), every path, every step, every human action is a defeat because it lacks meaning. Santiago and all of us with him, is a loser. Because he suffered, not knowing the source of his / our suffering, because they accept everything, even life and death, convinced "born for this." If we are not here, in the presence of a sacred vision or if you prefer religious life and death, then I must admit that I have read another book. 
