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Pearl (Classics on Cassette) | 
 enlarge | Author: John Steinbeck
Creator: Hector Elizondo
Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $9.58
You Save: $6.42 (40%)
New (14) Used (10) from $5.20
Rating:  498 reviews
Sales Rank: 204836
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 2
Pages: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 4.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0453008755
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
UPC: 025024293160
EAN: 9780453008754
ASIN: 0453008755
Publication Date: April 1, 1994
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
A Mexican pearl-fisher finds a pearl of great value--far more than what he needs to pay the doctor to save his child's life. But the pearl brings only evil and tragedy. 2 cassettes.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 493 more reviews...
 A Classic December 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A classic. You can feel the sun, smell the sea, hear the sounds. Loved it.
 Not really useful November 2, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this book for my daughter. Her 8th grade Pre A.P. Literature class was reading it and the teacher encouraged us to buy our own copy. Well, when we got it, the page numbers did not match with the older version the teacher had. So, her reading assignments did not match and she had to use a copy from school. I feel like I wasted $11. My daughter also did not like the uneven "torn" edges of the pages. She said it made it difficult to turn the pages.
Keeping It Sad And Simple August 29, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Walking through middle school corridors, I'd spy kids in the grade above mine carrying John Steinbeck's "The Pearl" and think them lucky. Judging from the cover it was some kind of sea adventure, probably involving sharks and Jacqueline Bisset. This was back in the 1970s, and I was obviously confused.
Flash forward to the present. Feeling nostalgic, I decide to take the book on after years of wondering. It was certainly short, and Steinbeck is a classic writer, so it seemed a good idea.
A terse morality play about the pitfalls of materialism and the depravity of man, "The Pearl" is clearly a think piece rather than a conventional novel focused on characters and storyline. It made me think, too: However bad middle school was, it could have been worse.
Kino is a poor Mexican Indian who lives off the meager pearls he finds swimming for oysters in the Gulf. One day, desperate for a miracle as his infant son squirms from a scorpion bite, he finds the largest pearl anyone has ever seen, large as a gull's egg and jet black. Kino sees a brighter future for himself and his family, but the jealous villagers and the plutocratic pearl buyers conspire to keep him in his place.
"The pearl has become my soul", Kino tells his wife, who begs him to get rid of it before someone gets hurt. "If I give it up I shall lose my soul."
Steinbeck does nothing to make you care about Kino, his soul, or his wife and child, other than relate their poverty. They aren't people with personalities, but constructs designed to trot out points Steinbeck wants to make. Published in 1947, when socialism was fashionable and Steinbeck a recognized purveyor of the worker ideal, "The Pearl" might pass as a message about the folly of wealth and the value of living within one's means. Yet Kino and his family are clearly living below any decent standard. Collectivist comradeship may be the hallmark of socialist society, but the village Kino lives in is full of thieves and cheats.
As the novel moves slowly on to a finale obvious from the midpoint of the book, one wonders what Steinbeck is trying to say. "The Pearl" is not supposed to be just a story, it's so unsatisfying in that department its clear the Bard of Salinas had other fish to fry. But what?
You are left in the end not really knowing. As a classroom exercise, I guess it can provide some lively discussions if the teacher isn't too much of a tool. There's bits of good Steinbeck prose here and there, like his description of a watering hole where cats take their prey and lap water "through their bloody teeth" and the last image of the pearl itself, which captures a sense of otherworldly menace quite unexpected from this otherwise realist story. As an account of cruel nature, it works in a reductivist way.
But I can't see it as a "classic" in the same sense as other Steinbeck novels I've read. It's no "Grapes Of Wrath". Maybe because it's short it makes for a more popular scholastic reading assignment than "Grapes Of Wrath". But "The Pearl" is no easy read, nor is it satisfying.
Steinbeck Captures the Heart of an Immortal Lesson August 14, 2008
This book is criminally unknown. In just under 100 pages, Steinbeck weaves the immortal truth that worldy wealth cannot guarantee happiness or joy into a classic tale of a South American native couple who discover the joys and woes of finding an incredible pearl. They first think that the pearl will change their lives (which is correct) by bringing them happiness and opening endless possabilities for themselves and their infant child. They soon discover, however, that the pearl awakens darkness both within themselves and especially those around them. The setting (a poor fishing community) adds greatly to the telling of the tale, as it somehow adds a tangible sense of the timelessness of the truth it is conveying. John Steinbeck is truly a master story-teller, one who earns my respect not only for the magnificent method of writing (which is very similar to Hemingway), but also because he dares to tread where very few authors do: into unhappy endings. The truth is, things don't always turn out for the best, and not every story has a happy ending. It is always refreshing to find someone who has does not fear to go against the popular obsession with happy endings, and who is actually able to use an unhappy ending to further enhance the impact of their message.
Overall grade:
A
Assigned Reading August 7, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Had to read this book in the 9th grade....did not enjoy it...at all. Very frustrating...
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