Customer Reviews: Read 489 more reviews...
 Literary Classic? [3.5 stars] July 25, 2008
I listened to this book on audio. The story focuses on a very poor man with a sick son who finds a gigantic pearl that is destined to change his life forever. The story is short (the print version only takes 96 pages) and action-packed. It is well written, but I didn't find that I sympathized all that much with the main characters.
I will caveat that my 3.5 stars may be due to the fact that I listened to this book in the final hours of a 24 hour car ride to Virginia. Also, the previous book that I listened to was very similar. In both stories (one being fiction and the other non-fiction), the main character stumbles across a great fortune, and in both stories, it ultimately ruins (or at least makes much worse off) their lives. That similarility may have led me to not like the second iteration as much.
 great book; poorly bound June 10, 2008
I love this book but wish Penguin would put a bit more effort into a decent binding job. Charging $9.00 for a slim paperback that will often not survive a single reading in the hands of one of my students seems excessively high.
A wonderful book! (warning: spoilers!) June 8, 2008
I'm 13, and I read this for school. It's a wonderful parable.
Kino is a poor Indian who lives with his wife, Juana, and his son, Coyotito. They are superstitious people that hears songs, when they experience feelings, like the "song of the family."
The first conflict arises when Coyotito is stung by a scorpion. (Where Kino hears the "Song of Evil) Juana quickly sucks out the poison, but they still take him to the city doctor. The doctor publicly refuses, so Kino goes out to sea to try to find a pearl to pay the doctor with. News soon spreads that he has found the pearl of the world,(Where Kino hears the "Song of the Pearl") but Kino fails top sell it because the pearl buyers have put a ridiculously low price on the pearl. The greedy doctor then visits Kino's hut, even though Coyotito is better. The doctor then tricks Kino and Juana by making the baby worse, then making him quiet.
That night is the first night when people try to steal the pearl. It stirs greed in Kino, though Juana wants to take it back to the ocean. When she tries Kino beats her up, and kills a man that same night. Becuase of that, Kino and his family run away. After a while, three men, one of which who has a rifle, try to find them, and his pearl. At one point, Juana and Coyotit hide in the mountains, while Kino attempts to kill them by creeping up on them. However, he hears the sound of Coyotito crying, which the three men also hear. The man with a rifle assumes it is a baby coyote, and shoots in the direction. Kino, enraged, attacks them.
In the final chapter, you learn that Coyotito's head had been blown apart. Kino and Juana return, but act almost dead.
They then return the pearl, and the "Music of the Pearl" disappears.
I think that it is a very interesting book,though it is short. I would recommend it to people of all ages.
Relevant to Events of Our Time May 30, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The world portrayed in THE PEARL is that of the helpless, exploited, and disinherited. It portrays the lives of people being forced to live closer to nature than most of us care to, of people who somehow don't fit into the social structure, of people who do not understand the boundaries and rules of governments and nations, and of people forced to be on the run.
Steinbeck paints a beautiful family with hope and joy, but he promptly dashes all hope these people could have. It is a beautiful but dark tragedy written in poetic prose.
The story is a parable with two-dimensional characters. Reading the story, I felt that these events were happening to me. There is a strong sense of universality. THE PEARL shows the best and the worst of humanity, and it displays much of Steinbeck's greatest ability to write.
 A skewed piece of literature May 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I give this book one star not because it is depressing or somber - but in virtue of it having a message bordering on something like nihilism. The book is about a man who is presented with sudden wealth, and of the downfall it brings him. Were he a man of already sufficient means who was presented with a fruitful lottery ticket it might be one thing, but what disturbed me about this book was that the protagonist, Kino, is a man of indisputably wretched means who initially is glad to happen across a gargantuan pearl in order that he might provide a better life for his family and rise above the unjust socio-economic caste he's been trapped in his whole life.
But in the end, after the pearl causes terrible greed and destruction to both him and his loved ones, both internally and externally, he tosses it back in the ocean. The general message is clear enough: avoid potential sources of greed and materialism, and be happy with what you've got. Intrinsically, a perfectly sound message.
But again, what is abhorrent about this book is it's about a man who's trying to RISE ABOVE, not gratuitously or materialistically get ahead. Unless to Steinbeck, 'rising above' in Kino's case really is just a subcategory of 'getting ahead' as opposed to 'being content.' If that is the case, that strikes me as a dichotomy unsound on every level. Or perhaps, Steinbeck's message is, or in addition is, 'don't fight the system.' (So, when people treat you like horse dung you just take it, right? Take it lying down, even if it means your children die of starvation or scorpion bites).
If 'don't fight the system' is NOT the message of the book, then Steinbeck should have been more clear about what his message WAS. At best he's a confusing and ambivalent writer. At worst he's a nihilistic, sociologically sick person who can't even make a story enjoyable.
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