The Pearl
The Pearl by John Steinbeck was one of those books that just caught my eye on an endcap and asked to be bought. I had never even heard the book mentioned before, and I’m not sure why, as it really is a wonderful little read–small, with umph to it. It speaks to the beauty and song that life is, and the way that greed, fear, and rage can slip into that song and distort it, destroying the beauty of what we have–with what we think we need or want. When the book started with Kino and his wife Juana, the song of their lives was beautiful, "Sometimes it rose to an aching chord that caught the throat, saying this is safety, this is warmth, this is the Whole" (5). Then things began to shift, the cruelty of the world, which Steinbeck seems to masterfully portray in little sentences that reach out and grab the depth, like when the doctor said, "Have I nothing better to do than cure insect bites for ‘little Indians’? I am a doctor, not a veterinary" (13). Kino starts to make a "hard skin for himself against the world" and not only does he not get the world he wants, he looses the world that he had.
An altogether beautifully sad book that for me was a reminder of how destructive negativity can be, taking the music that is at the essence of our lives and twisting it into something that is unwholesome and unbalanced. One passage stuck out to me, "The people say that the two seemed to be removed from human experience; that they had gone through pain and had come out on the other side" (85). Their passage through pain had not taught them anything except for loss, and instead of learning or growing, they withdrew from experience. That is truly the sadness of this story. A friend of mine said something to me the other day that has really stuck with me, she said she had heard somewhere the idea that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience–but that we are spiritual beings having a human experience–that experience is not always easy, or happy, or comfortable, but there is a great deal that we can learn from it.
Nice review! I read this a long time ago for a class. I loved it, it was the only Steinbeck book I liked until last year when I finally broke down and read East of Eden.
I loved reading The Pearl, it had a profound influence one me. Though it is completely different, it touched me in much the same way as The Unbearable Lightness of Being.Your review is wonderful and makes me want to read it again.