The Pearl Post 1

   
     My first thought when I looked at the cover was dismay since I saw that John Steinbeck wrote it.  I was coming home from a trip recently and caught an audiobook on the radio, that book being "Of mice and Men." I listened for as long as I could take, constantly hearing about George and his rabbits. I didn't catch it till the middle either so that spoiled it just a wee bit more. Anyways, after reading a few pages into the book I gained a better image of Steinbeck and that he does have more to talk about than simply rabbits.  When I first started reading, I thought the setting was somewhere in Japan because I remember reading a James Bond book where there were divers that weren't terribly advanced and lived in a village. Later when I mentioned that some king of Spain had become rich off this coast I realized it was central America or somewhere near there. I found the way he used songs to be very interesting.  The way he made all of Kino's thoughts able to be summarized through songs was a choice that would have never come to my mind.
   
     About a quarter of the way through the book when Kino found the pearl, I thought he was probably going to be very gracious and accept whatever was offered to him.  The way he used the doctor to picture greed and show that Kino was fairly different really reinforced the idea that his change later was drastic. When he went to go sell the pearl, it surprised me that he didn't take the offers given to him. He had seemed desperate enough to do anything to have his child healed. The way the doctor suddenly had this air of helpfulness about him should of course make him question why, but I wonder if he was just being paranoid when he convinced himself what the doctor was doing was bad. I also questioned why the author had chosen to turn Kino into exactly what he hated.  It also seemed strange to me that Kino still hated the doctor and everything like him, even though he was "healing" his child.