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A review by holmesstorybooks
The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century by Otto Penzler, Tony Hillerman
4.0
8 minutes in, and I already love Juana, the protagonist's wife. Juana made of iron. Juana who can be patient and cheerful and can arch her back in childbirth without so much as a cry.
Hector Elizondo reads as a narrator and his voice has a gravel texture but has a smoothness to it, like waves crashing on the shore. I'd never listened to a Steinbeck book before but I felt more than ever, how he uses repetition in his work so skilfully.
This story is about a pearl diver, and how he finds a pearl so big, and so beautiful that in it, he can see the future of his family. A wedding. A sailor suit for his son. His son going to school.
And then, as with all Steinbeck books, ruin is inevitable, and I find myself being pulled down a slope I'm unable to return from, along with all the characters.
I forgot that Steinbeck does this thing where he makes me care about characters and then he wrecks them and ruins their lives and then I cry.
Damn you, Steinbeck. I'm supposed to return to normal life after this?
Hector Elizondo reads as a narrator and his voice has a gravel texture but has a smoothness to it, like waves crashing on the shore. I'd never listened to a Steinbeck book before but I felt more than ever, how he uses repetition in his work so skilfully.
This story is about a pearl diver, and how he finds a pearl so big, and so beautiful that in it, he can see the future of his family. A wedding. A sailor suit for his son. His son going to school.
And then, as with all Steinbeck books, ruin is inevitable, and I find myself being pulled down a slope I'm unable to return from, along with all the characters.
I forgot that Steinbeck does this thing where he makes me care about characters and then he wrecks them and ruins their lives and then I cry.
Damn you, Steinbeck. I'm supposed to return to normal life after this?