a well told cautionary tale about wealth and what it really means.

overall it’s done pretty well, i surprisingly enjoyed how little dialogue there was considering that i normally enjoy books more if it has at least an equal amount of description and dialogue.

i also enjoyed the setting and characters.
i liked that it clearly showed how greedy most people were and how they only cared for their own wealth and well being.

what i didn’t enjoy at all was how it wrapped up.
i understand the message -losing the actual valuable object that was overshadowed by the object that brought only trouble and in the end loss with it.
but i think that could have been done better.
it also was the type of ending where i question the entire worth of what i read since it just leaves me hanging with too many questions that might not matter overall to the actual story but i still would like answers to.

for example:
do kino and his wife rebuild their home?
is that even possible after losing what they lost? to just start over?
does kino build himself another canoe and they continue on as if it all didn’t happen or start fresh in hopes it will get better?
do the people that still think he has the pearl continue to come after him?
or do they leave town and start fresh someone new? somewhere without memories?
is that even possible or are there consequences coming kinos way since he did commit crimes!
and if so what will happen to his wife? especially if people continue to believe they still have the pearl?
or if people believe the pearl is back in the ocean is there going to be this massive search and spectacle made of finding it again?

i have so many questions!!!!

which is why for me this was a good story, but it could have used a handful more pages to actually wrap it up.

but after reading this and reading the “introduction” (which nobody should ever read as an actual introduction since it’s basically a summary of the story!) and learning more about her steinbeck i do want to give his other longer books a try and see if they will be more to my liking or if steinbeck will always leave me wishing i could enjoy him more.