The Pearl – Original Text |

The Pearl – John Steinbeck

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Approximate Reading Times

Quick Read: under 5 minutes
Short Story: 5 to 30 minutes
Novelette: 30 to 90 minutes
Novella: 1.5 to 2.5 hours

The All-American Slurp
Grade 5-6 Story by Lensey Namioka. An entertaining story about a Chinese immigrant family’s efforts to “fit in” to American society. Chinese slurp soup; Americans slurp milkshakes. The message: despite cultural differences, we are all the same inside. This is expressed cryptically in the last line: All Americans slurp.
The Last Question
Short Story by Isaac Asimov. A powerful story that spans several trillion years of human history. A computer evolves from Multivac on Earth to AC in hyperspace. One by one, “Man” fuses with AC until it is finally able to answer mankind’s last unanswered question.
The Storyteller
Short Story by Saki. When a woman traveling on a train fails to quieten three unruly children with a story about a good girl who is saved from a mad bull, a male passenger counters with a story about an extra-ordinarily good girl that does end so well.
Suspicion
Short Story by Dorothy Sayers. Real estate agent Harold Mummery fears for his ailing wife. Police are on the hunt for a cook who has poisoned several of her employers. When a chemist identifies arsenic in some hot chocolate their new cook prepared, he rushes home.
Diamond Cuts Diamond
Indian Folktale. A traveler leaves his jewels in the care of a “friendly” merchant. When he returns to collect them, the merchant claims he has never seen the man before. To get the jewels back, he needs help from someone who is even better at cheating than the merchant.

A City of Churches
Quick Read by Donald Barthelme. Every building in Prester is a church of some kind. A woman talks to a realtor about moving there to open a car rental business. When told that nobody in the city rents cars, she decides to leave. The realtor has other ideas.
The Year of Spaghetti
Short Story by Haruki Murakami. A reclusive man buys the necessary equipment and ingredients and sets out to cook spaghetti every day for a year. “He cooked spaghetti to live and lived to cook spaghetti, comparing it to an act of revenge against his fears and feelings of meaningless isolation.
The Interlopers
Short Story by Saki. When the heads of two families feuding for years over the use of a poor piece of forest land find themselves trapped under a fallen tree, they realize how silly they have been. Sadly, some unexpected visitors spoil their promises of a more peaceful future.
The Star-Child
Short Story by Oscar Wilde. A baby who seemingly fell from the sky grows into a narcissistic, cruel young man until karma and loss teach him the error of his ways. Later, he becomes lord of a great city and rules with justice and mercy. But alas, not for long!
The Other
Short Story by Jorge Borges. A younger man sits beside an aging teacher on a riverside bench. As they talk, the teacher realizes that the younger man is himself at an earlier age. An 'impossible' date on an American banknote convinces the skeptical young man that this is true.