The Pearl

Here's the second Steinbeck book I've ever read, and once again it came in at just about a hundred pages. Dude knew how to write novellas! This one was even simpler and more straightforward than Of Mice and Men, with fewer and less complicated characters and a tale-as-old-as-time type of plot. A poor pearl diver living a simple but happy life finds the biggest and most perfect pearl the world has veer seen. It will bring him wealth and that wealth will bring his family opportunities they never could have dreamed of. Except, of course, that's not how things go. His friends and neighbors turn on him out of jealousy. Jewelers and bankers try to con him out of the treasure for a bargain. A few burglary attempts are made, and before long he is homeless and on the run with his wife and baby boy. The pearl hasn't brought him happiness at all, but despair, fear, and anger. Oh, the irony! Eventually, tragedy strikes in the form of a catastrophe bigger than all those yet faced by our humble pearl diver. He returns to his village, head hung low, and flings that pearl back into the sea.

Nothing you haven't seen before, I'm sure, in one form or another a few hundred times. But at the same time, it's laid out here so plainly and so perfectly that this just may be the perfect version of that all-too familiar tale. I'm left unsure about whether this was mundane and unspecial or timeless and flawless. Since I enjoyed reading it enough, I'll lean more toward the favorable side of things. At any rate I liked it more than I liked Of Mice and Men, and I didn't even dislike that one. Steinbeck, everyone!