Just Finished Reading The Pearl by John Steinbeck

It was either late 1970 or early 1971 when my ninth grade high school English teacher Mrs. Hagadorn assigned us to read John Steinbeck's 1947 novel The Pearl...I dutifully went down to my school's tiny bookstore at the southwest corner of campus and purchased a copy: it was pretty small and looked like a quick, easy read.  Unfortunately, the story itself was so overwhelmingly negative that I found the reading experience exceedingly unpleasant...to the point where I "studiously" avoided reading anything else by Steinbeck for decades.  Well, after three relatively recent positive reactions to three of his novels...Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and Cannery Row...I decided to take on The Pearl once more to see if the passing years might not have blunted some of my critical attitude about it.  Nope, turns out that I wasn't reading it back then with an immature mind...I found it just as distasteful as before, but nevertheless came out of it all with some reflections...

As in Grapes of Wrath from eight years before, society is depicted in The Pearl as dog-eat-dog and full of bigotry and racially-based class distinction...if you happen to be born into the "wrong" group then you can just forget about getting a fair shake in life.  A poor fisherman living on the Baja Mexico peninsula with his wife and infant makes a paltry income diving for pearls...one day he finds the ultimate prize, a giant beautiful specimen...and foolishly lets the news spread like wildfire.  Because he now possesses "wealth", Kino believes that he will be able to move up the social ladder and partake of the benefits that society offers to those with financial means.  Instead he is despised by his own people, swindled by the doctor and purchasers, and attacked for the pearl...ultimately becoming a hunted outcast.  It's a tragic tale...but which is evil, the pearl or the disease of covetousness infecting all the people who encounter it?  Kino himself gets carried away by his discovery and his dreams of capitalizing on it...ultimately, the "solution" is not to change others but his own attitude about material wealth. But if you're very poor and are struggling just to feed and shelter your own family, you have to grab on to anything that can guarantee at least some semblance of a future, so I was disappointed in how the story ended.  Maybe you'll arrive at a different reaction: The Pearl is "0 for 2" as far as my readings of it are concerned: I'm done with it...with a bit more respect for my old ninth grade ability of discernment...