Mirkwood

[Warning: This post contains some spoilers about early events in the novella. The ending of the story is not disclosed.]

There is something about John Steinbeck's style that makes me read faster than usual. Before I know it, I am zipping along ever more feverishly until I come to a point when, unable to grasp the flow of the words, I have to stop and go back over the last few paragraphs. Then, the whole process repeats. It was the same today morning, as I neared the end of The Pearl, Steinbeck's morality tale about the corrupting power of wealth. The presence of a talisman, so important to Steinbeck in Winter of Our Discontent and Tortilla Flat, is again seen here, in the form of an exquisite pearl found by the fisherman Kino. The symptoms of greed are what one would expect - Kino alternates between visions of better days, and the strained anxiety of possessing a treasure; the trader turns trickster; the doctor yearns for a quick buck, thugs crawl out to maim and steal; trackers become bloodhounds on a scent; and the treasure brings on curses unimaginable in poorer but simpler days. Continue reading ‘The Pearl’

Leading up to the French Open, the L'Equipe newspaper drew a funny parallel between the world of tennis and the superb Asterix comics by Goscinny and Uderzo. This fortnight, Roger Federer, blithe spirit of the beautiful game, will attempt to win the only major tournament that still eludes him. Simon Kuiper, while comparing the world number one to a Roman emperor in the Financial Times, quotes L'Equipe as saying:

One small village of indomitable Gauls still resists him.

Federer's struggle for ascendancy on the clay courts of Paris is reminiscent of the great Ivan Lendl's valiant, obsessive, but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to win Wimbledon. As a fan, one hopes that history does not repeat. Federer admits:

Roland Garros has become the great objective.