Porque esa perla ha llegado a ser mi alma, dice Kino. Si me desprendo de ella, pierdo mi alma.

Qué hermoso libro. Una historia sencilla, narrada en forma clara, sin rodeos ni términos difíciles. Steinbeck logra atraparme siempre con sus libros. Al igual que como con "De Ratones y Hombres", "La Perla" nos muestra una historia en donde apreciamos la naturaleza humana al desnudo, las emociones a flor de piel en situaciones límites.
No he leído "Las Uvas de la Ira" ni "Al Este del Edén", pero siento que Steinbeck es poderoso en este tipo de novelas cortas. En este libro todo gira alrededor de esa perla, cuya "canción", como él la denomina, comienza a infectar el alma de Kino.
Ese pescador afortunado (¿afortunado?) por el descubrimiento de la gema que busca la felicidad a partir de él. Kino y Juana junto con Coyotito emprenden una travesía al estilo Sam y Frodo con una perla en vez de un anillo, pero no hacen falta 700 interminables páginas para describir la travesía, no hace falta describir enredos agotadores para lograr un efecto maravilloso en el lector.
Tan sólo un objeto, una perla, que nos pregunta a todos, al narrador, los personajes y al lector: ¿tú, qué harías ante una oportunidad así?
Para Kino es una bendición, para Juana, una maldición y para nosotros, los lectores, una maravillosa historia.

مروارید داستان نسبتا کوتاه از جان اشتاین بک که از روی یک داستان مکزیکی به رشته تحریر در آورده. داستان تلاش میان فقر و غنا و ظلم و ایستادگی. داستان واقعا گیراست و توصیفات ساده و زیبایی داره. مثل کتاب موش ها و آدم ها آخر کار غافلگیر کننده است

Moral fable or political diatribe? You decide!

Kino is a pearl diver in La Paz, Mexico, eking out a meager subsistence living for his wife, Juana, and their infant son, Coyotito. When Coyotito is stung by a scorpion, Kino is both embarrassed and angered by the fact that the arrogant, self-centered town doctor is unwilling to help because they are unable to pay. Diving long and deep, perhaps to cool off his anger or perhaps to find an extra pearl or two so that he might have the money for his son's care, he emerges from the Gulf of Mexico with the largest, most exquisite pearl that his community has ever seen. It is quickly labeled as "The Pearl of the World".

Thinking it to be the source of his family's future health, comfort, happiness and peace, Kino seeks to sell it to the local pearl buyers who attempt to swindle him, offering only a fraction of its real value. When the pearl becomes the target of sneak thieves in the middle of the night, Kino kills the thief defending himself, his family and the pearl that is now the central focus of their lives.

Kino and Juana realize that the doctor, the priest and those already possessed of wealth in the town are angry that they should presume to step out of their station. While their friends, the other pearl fishermen, are happy for Kino's good fortune they are also jealous and convinced that Kino's sudden wealth will change him into a new person - a person that, in some fashion, will choose to distance himself from the people he formerly loved and valued.

Steinbeck's story writing skills are eloquent, compelling, and impossibly tight and concise but, at the same time, exceptionally profound and moving. Steinbeck's writing is the very antithesis of the style of Charles Dickens, for example, another consummate storyteller, but one who never failed to write astonishingly complex sentences and paragraphs using an enormous number of words where one would do.

For example, when Kino said, "I am a man", insisting that he must defend his family and his goods, Steinbeck perfectly described a woman's understanding of what a man meant when he said that:

"It meant that he was half insane and half God. It meant that Kino would drive his strength against a mountain and plunge his strength against the sea. Juana, in her woman's soul, knew that the mountain would stand while the man broke himself; that the sea would surge while the man drowned in it."

On the flip side, any female reader today would appreciate Steinbeck's brief but powerful statement of his admiration of their good sense:

"Sometimes the quality of woman, the reason, the caution, the sense of preservation could cut through Kino's manness and save them all."

Read on the surface, THE PEARL is a beautifully told, sadly moving parable that expounds on the often repeated childhood mantra, "Money can't buy happiness". A slightly more sophisticated reader will also take away the message that wealth is equivalent to power which, as we all come to know, can be its own evil leading to corruption and deceit. A deeper analytical reading, perhaps from a world-weary, more cynical adult, may give rise to the conclusion that Steinbeck was also indulging in a political criticism of the wealthy class and the authorities. Perhaps he was even expounding on the virtues of socialism, a political posture that would have been, to say the least, unpopular in the USA such a short time after the end of WW II.

However you choose to read it, THE PEARL is a short novella, easily read in a mere two to three hours, that deserves to be in a library of classic American literature.

Paul Weiss

John Steinbeck adapted a Mexican folk tale into a novella about fate, evil, the perils of greed, and the plight of oppressed people. The infant son of Juana and Kino, a fisherman and pearl diver, is stung by a scorpion. The doctor refuses to treat the baby because Kino does not have the money to pay him, and because the affluent Spanish colonialists look down at the natives. Kino dives for pearls in the hope that he could afford to pay a doctor, and comes up with a huge, valuable pearl--the "Pearl of the World". He hopes that the pearl will provide necessities and an education for his son someday. But a succession of violent and tragic events occur as people try to rob and swindle Kino.

It was interesting how music plays a role in Kino's emotions throughout the book. He hears songs in his head that express a strong feeling--the music of the pearl. When Kino was excited about the material benefits the pearl would bring to his family, "....the music of the pearl rose like a chorus of trumpets to his ears."(24) When people try to swindle him, "....he heard only the dark music of the enemy."(53) When his family treks to another city to sell the pearl, "....the music of the pearl was triumphant in Kino's head, and the quiet melody of the family underlay it, and they wove themselves into the soft padding of sandaled feet in the dust."(67) As circumstances change, Kino hears different types of music of the pearl all the way to the last sentence. Steinbeck wrote a screenplay with Jack Wagner, so the music probably played an even more important role in the film
which was released in 1947.

I've read other books by Steinbeck, and he is always very sympathetic to poor and oppressed people. This story is told in a very simple manner, like a parable or Mexican folk tale passed down orally. In the epigraph Steinbeck writes, "As with all retold tales that are in people's hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and no in-between anywhere." Although I think real life usually has lots of in-between, or shades of gray, telling this as a parable was very effective for this tale.

The Pearl is Steinbeck's retelling of a Mexican folktale. With his beautiful writing, Steinbeck tells us the story of Kino, a poor pearl diver, whose simple and peaceful life changes, irrevocably, with the finding of the "pearl of the world". With the newfound riches, Kino dreams of making a better life for his family, educating his son, hoping he will uplift them from the class of "outcasts". But, fate or evil or greed or whatever you like to call it won't let Kino see the dawn of his dream. Instead, only tragedy follows in its wake.

This tragic story is gloomy and depressing. My heart went to Kino and his family. At the same time, I was feeling angry at the injustice of it all. Kino only wants a better life for his family. But his efforts are thwarted at every corner. He is cheated, threatened, and persecuted just because he wanted to get a decent sum for his pearl so he could make a good living out of it.

When I read a little into the background of this novella, I saw that one of the main themes is "good and evil". When interpreting the theme it can only be understood that Kino's former life, the simple life before the finding of the pearl, is "good" and the comfortable and better life that he hopes to have with new riches is "evil". With it goes that all is Kino's fault. It's his greed that has been his undoing. He mustn't have dared to rise in life, to aspire to reach higher status. But that cannot be right. Steinbeck couldn't have intended that. I think the story goes deeper. It is the society that is evil, and that "evil society' persecutes the "good Kino" and his innocent dreams. Society is unhappy to see its pattern change. It doesn't want to see Kino and the likes rise from their "given status" to a higher one. And it's not so much of Kino's greed that brings him evil, but the social norms and attitudes. This bitter truth is simply shocking and disgusting.

Although thematically interesting, the story didn't quite resonate with me. There was drama and excitement, and at times suspense, but, the overall storyline was thin and weak. Steinbeck usually rouses powerful emotions within me, but here, they weren't strong. However, Steinbeck's writing compensates for this deficiency. His magician's wand (by which I mean his pen) brings to life the setting, the landscape, and Kino's thoughts and emotions beautifully. I particularly enjoyed how he described Kino's mind with reference to music. It was wonderfully clever of him. I can quite honestly say that it was his beautiful writing that absorbed me more than the story. Overall, it is not the best of Steinbeck, but still, a good read.

¡Joya clásica de 4.5! ... ¿por qué? a parte de estas 5 razones para leer La perla tengo por decir que...

"(...) Ainda tens a pérola?
-Tenho - disse Kino. - E vou guardá-la. Podia tê-la dado de presente, mas agora é a minha desgraça e a minha vida e vou guardá-la."

De facto esta pérola não foi uma benesse para Kino e para a sua família.

54th book of 2022

This was my first of Steinbeck's shorter fiction to read. I have read and loved The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and so I was very curious to read one of his shorter tales.  finds its roots in an ancient Mexican folktale, and the plot is quite simple. A man finds an object, (in this case, a very large pearl,) and becomes so attached to it that everything else in his life dims in proportion to it. Becoming so fixated on the protection of this object, the man loses sight of what is really of value to him, (his wife and baby,) and so is met with a crossroads. His decision could lead to ultimate doom or possible redemption.

YouTube review: https://youtu.be/4jm5LROHIMI

“It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with God or the gods.” These are Juana’s ponderings while her husband Kino is hunting for a pearl. They are devastatingly poor and in need of money.

But evil has other plans for this family and as soon as possessing the pearl, Kino finds himself haunted by it.

Torn between wealth, obsession, greed, tragedy, love and family values, Kino should decide the fate of the pearl. Should he hold on to it and be pursued by nightmares or give it up and face the brutal reality but also keep his soul pure and untainted.

“It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with Gods or the gods.”
“Luck, you see, brings bitter friends.”

There are a few novels I consider perfect and The Pearl is one of them. Steinbeck’s parable is a complex symbolic story told in simple poetic language. The symbolism is built up layer by layer, like an oyster coating a grain of sand, and the result is a flawless tale, smooth and clear, like the Pearl of the World.

This is the story of the dawn of consciousness: The story human beings have been telling themselves since human beings started telling stories. The story of us, what we are, and how we came to be. The perennial story. Steinbeck tells it as well as the best of them.

The Pearl is fable as poetry, fable as philosophy, like the story of Genesis, like creation stories the world over, a fable that tells every story from Adam and Gilgamesh and Achilles to the Greatest Story Ever Told, the story we need to save us ~ if we will allow ourselves to be saved, to spit out the fruit, to give up the God-likeness that makes the origin story necessary in the first place.

In the beginning, there is peace. La Paz. The little family lives in harmony with nature. Kino wakes up in the morning and hears the song of the family. He looks at the world around him. The crowing rooster. The rooting pigs. The waves lapping on the shore. The dog curled up at his feet. “It was very good” (1).

“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

In his primitive idyll, Kino is both animal and God. Both less than human and more than human. He lives in an eternal present, like an animal, like God. He is whole. He has no ego. Consciousness has not yet emerged in Kino. He is not yet “fallen.” The songs that he hears are the nonlinear and nonverbal impressions that prefigure thought. Steinbeck’s prelapsarian man is Julian Jaynes’ bicameral man.

In this preconscious paradise, Kino observes and understands without turning everything into a narrative. After his awakening, after consciousness dawns, he starts to tell himself a story: Coyotito will go to school. He and Juana will marry in the church. This story replaces his music. Thus begins the fall.

Kino says each thing out loud and by doing so, he makes it real. For as all primitive people know, words are magical.

“And suddenly he was afraid of his talking” (26).

Kino is right to be afraid. He is already losing his “deep participation with all things” (55). The familiar sound of crickets, tree frogs, and toads has become a song of evil. He sees only his story now. He doesn’t even see the dog at his feet. He is alone, like Jaynes’ bicameral man when the voices of the gods were gone. And with the dawn of consciousness comes the expulsion from paradise. Kino and Juana “went out into the world” (68).

Kino tries to return to animal innocence, but it is too late. There is no going back. He removes his clothing, replacing his white shirt with his brown skin, but to no avail. The apple cannot be unbitten. Man and consciousness are now joined as are Kino and his pearl.

The only way out is through.

Consciousness has overreached itself. God is dead and his absence, deus absconditus, is the fatal flaw (the Achilles’ heel) of consciousness. It is time to go under ~ like Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. To go under ~ into Freud’s oceanic feeling. Maybe microdose the water supply. To go under and live as the rest of creation lives. Not without reason. Athens had reason. Not without faith. Israel had faith. But without discontent (to use Freud’s word).

All language began as poetry and all language must resolve into poetry. Pure symbolism. Blake understood this. Novalis understood this. I think Steinbeck understood this too.

I got on a little better with this than with Of Mine and Men but I still found it slightly lacking impact for me.