"The Pearl", which I'm 50 pages through, is so far just seaming to be a story about hope. Yes hope. On the back of the book it talks about the American dream, and to live the American dream you have to have hope. Kino is not losing hope that he, Juana, and Coyotito can get out of the little fishing village they live in. When he finds "The Pearl of The World" he doesn't give up hope, he just stops hoping everything will be o.k. and starts knowing everything will be o.k

One part i found confusing about the book so far is the Doctor. He is just a big contridiction. When you become a doctor, you do it because you want to help people,Right? This doesn't seem to be the case with the doctor. He wants money or some other kind of payment out of everyone he treats. He also asks many questions about Kino's Pearl. What happened to him to make him so greedy and why would he move to this town and take advantage of the poorer people. 

The other thing that has been puzzling me is all the songs that Kino hears. I guess the songs are just a metaphor for his thoughts.

On my final note, what Juana was saying about how the pearl is cursed. It made me think about the show Lost, one of the characters, Hurley, got lucky and won the lottery, like Kino found the Pearl, an the money brought himself and his family bad luck, just like Juana thinks will happen with the pearl