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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
Robert E. Kingery.
“The Pearl.”
Library Journal, 72
(1 November 1947), 1540.
Retelling of an old Mexican folk tale- the finding of the Great Pearl by Kino, a fisherman and what then happened to him, his wife Juana and their baby Coyotito, before Kino threw the pearl into the sea again. Within that simple frame, Steinbeck achieves a major artistic triumph full of subtle overtones, large fundamentals and universal significance. This is Steinbeck in full stature and in culmination, and is, therefore, without reservation, absolutely essential in all collections…
Maxwell Geismar.
“Fable Retold.”
Saturday Review, 30
(22 November 1947), 14–15.
This is an old Mexican folk tale which John Steinbeck has recast in his familiar paisano vein. It originally appeared in The Woman's Home Companion under the title of “The Pearl of the World” and now, with full-page original drawings by Orozco, it forms a modest and attractive little volume. But it also raises some serious questions about almost all Steinbeck's recent books and his work as a whole.
The story deals with a Mexican fisherman named Kino who is devoted to his wife, Juana, and his child, Coyotito. The child is bitten by a scorpion and the white doctor refuses to treat it. Kino discovered a huge pearl, the greatest pearl in the world according to his Mexican neighbors. The doctor tries to steal it, the pearl merchants (also white) try to cheat him out of it, and Kino is forced, in what is apparently an inevitable sequence of tragic consequences, to flee from his village and to murder the “trackers” who come after him.
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