The Pearl - John Steinbeck

Published in 1947, The Pearl was written to be made into a Mexican film depicting the hardships of poverty. Based on a legend about a poor boy who finds a pearl of tremendous size and value, Steinbeck modifies the story into a novella length parable about the illusion of the American dream and the evils of capitalism. A Mexican pearl diver Kino, his partner Juana, and their baby Coyotito live a poor but contented existence in a small coastal village on the outskirts of an unnamed town. One morning Coyotito is stung by a scorpion but denied medical treatment by the greedy and corrupt doctor. Whilst diving for pearls to use as payment, Kino discovers one as 'perfect as the moon ... large as a sea-gull's egg.' Rather than bringing them wealth and prosperity, the finding of the great pearl plunges Kino's family into a series of successively darker misfortunes, eventually resulting in violence and murder.

Steinbeck's language treads a balance between Classical resonance and Medieval refrain. His undefined world is presented in a dreamlike haze with periodic bursts of clarity and symbolic intent. The core moral of the tale is at once Biblical and modernist, with a strong Jungian undercurrent pleading the necessity of marrying the shadow aspect with the conscious ego, the male with the female. As the pearl takes hold of Kino's soul, his actions become more wild and desperate, endangering the lives of those he loves. It makes for a tense yet beautifully written page turner, uncompromising in its brutality and relentless in tragedy. Early critics dismissed the book as too slight to warrant much attention, yet its enervating concision was what sustained my interest and kept me guessing until the end. Like most of Steinbeck's books, it is a haunting critique on American segregation yet short enough to finish in one sitting.

Rating: 4/5