THE BLACK PEARL "...might better have been given to the devil."

From the author of ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS comes a minor classic difficult to classify.

Ramon Salazar is the son of a wealthy but 'hands-on' pearl merchant in Baja, California. As a child he was threatened by his mother with the Manta Diablo -- the giant devilfish -- bane of the local people and producer of enjoyable goosebumps. And also as a child he was promised by his father that he could begin to dive for pearls when he reached the age of sixteen.

Ramon comes of age at sixteen; of that much I am -- almost -- sure.

THE BLACK PEARL, by Scott O'Dell, is a powerful, suspenseful story of Nature, adventure, crime, coming of age and something else: superstition? myth? the supernatural? religion's true meaning? I am uncertain. It is easier to say what it is not -- what it displays only to devalue. Thus I write a sort of non-review:

THE BLACK PEARL is not about the wisdom of those who feed upon rumor, superstition, or even the news of the day, when there is work to be done!

It is not enamored of the deference toward wealth which can make it customary for a rich man's son to rouse the local priest from his nap or otherwise summon him whenever convenient.

Neither is it about buying blessings, nor the justified smugness of those who have bought them.

It does not portray the macho culture of La Baja as an admirable context in which to find one's niche and exploit same by means of bragging and belligerence.

It cannot be said to be a treatise on the natural history of the manta ray -- although some of the creature's characteristics are undoubtedly well described.

THE BLACK PEARL is not a tract against theft. Nevertheless theft does play a part in it; the question is, exactly where does it do so?

And this story is not a simple face-off between superstition, reason ... and another form of unreason, or between pagan and Christian worldviews. It does not end as I expected it to. In several very complicated ways I must consider the ending to be the flaw in THE 'PEARL.

What can be said more directly? Very, very spare descriptions of life in a seaside village provide a context in which something of the mythic is not only acceptable but necessary: "For to those who had little and to those who had nothing, the pearl also belonged to each of them, to dream of the rest of their lives."

Ramon's laconic style of narration is at the same time measured in cadence, dignified in such a way as to befit the subject matter (whatever that matter may be!) and particularly appropriate for reading aloud. The rhythm of myth is found here.

No viable female characters appear. But the only religious image even mentioned is a statue, the "Madonna-of-the-Sea", a Christian symbol not entirely unrelated to a pagan one in the villagers' treatment, and veneration, of her.

The Manta Diablo is specifically spoken of as male, but the imagery and the power of the creature cause me to wonder.

There is also a red mist -- undoubtedly a natural phenomenon in the Vermilion Sea -- which serves as a handy metaphor for rage, jealousy and greed.

THE BLACK PEARL is a very brief but resonant and perhaps complicated fable of these and other passions, a fable which reminds us that the man who holds the rope is as much bound as is the beast pierced by the harpoon. Primarily written for boys in the secondary grades and older, it is also worthy of the attention of adults, who may wish to hold it to the light and examine it closely. Whatever its flaws, it is a thing of beauty.

For history transformed into myth, see Scott O'Dell's ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS. For another deconstruction of machismo, see his CHILD OF FIRE.