The Pearl
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Pearl
| Author | John Steinbeck |
|---|---|
| Published | 1947 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Kino, a poor diver on the Gulf of California, finds an enormous pearl, and everyone who learns of it — the doctor, the priest, the buyers, eventually his neighbours — begins to calculate what they can take. Steinbeck wrote it as a parable and said so, which is why it is short and taught so often: the mechanism by which a windfall destroys the person who receives it is laid bare rather than dramatised. |
The Pearl
Where I heard about it
- Dissident Teacher — on A Library to Build Great Americans, a 468-title curriculum published by the Substack writer in December 2025, in the Ages 13-99+ band under Fiction.
About this edition
Steinbeck (1902–1968) based it on a story he heard at La Paz, Baja California Sur, and recorded in The Log from the Sea of Cortez. It was serialised as “The Pearl of the World” in 1945 and published as a book in 1947. Not to be confused with the Latter-day Saint scripture Pearl of Great Price.
Connections
- A Library to Build Great Americans — the 468-title curriculum this card came from; listed in the Ages 13-99+ band under Fiction.
- John Steinbeck — the author.
- Greed — the mechanism the story turns on.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.