The Pearl

This is one of John Steinbeck's shorter novels, perhaps you could consider it a novella. It is about a poor fisherman named Kino who finds The Pearl of the World, a jewel that he believes will bring his young family great wealth and prestige. Nothing goes right for Kino, however, and the pearl that he thought was a great blessing ends up destroying his family.
One thing that I've noticed in a lot of Steinbeck's work, which is also present here, is the tendency for things to go badly. While reading Steinbeck, you can always assume that when things are good, they're about to go badly, and when they're bad, they will continue to get worse. I think this is funny.
The themes in this book are timeless--greed, wealth (and lack of), humility, corruption and good vs. evil. These can be good themes, but I don't think this particular story and its use of them was too great. Perhaps the tale seemed a little too familiar to me, I'm not sure.
I didn't think the characters in here were too interesting or compelling either, maybe they were a little too one-dimensional. I suppose in some ways that The Pearl is an allegory, thus its characters are representations of things and are not actual people. If this were the case, I guess it would make sense that the characters are this way.
Anyway, The Pearl is okay, and its not so long that you'll regret reading it. I just feel like Steinbeck has done better work and would recommend some of his other books before this one.