The Black Pearl by Scott O'Dell
140 pages
Published 1967
Read May 6
Rating: ★★½ out of 5
Disappointingly,
this was another mediocre O'Dell outing. I have fond memories of
reading a selection from this book in one of my big brother's textbooks,
but unlike the corresponding chapter in Sweetwater, the extract
didn't leap out at me during this read. I thought it was the final
confrontation with the manta, but in my memory the confrontation was far
longer, and the narrator was left adrift in the open sea at the end of
it. Now I'm thinking I combined my impression of The Black Pearl with recollections of another
sample in Randy's readers, this one of a youth (possibly a girl) adrift
in a sea swarming with hammerhead sharks. Which means yet another book
for me to track down one of these days, if "young person lost at sea and
also there are hammerheads" is enough information to identify a 30+
year old children's book.
O'Dell's flat, affect-less prose was
once again my main complaint. I mean -- spoilers -- the narrator's
father dies in the wreck of the fleet, along with like half the town,
yet the text betrays scarcely any emotion whatsoever. That's just not
good writing. Once again the setting is pretty much the only redeeming
virtue.
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