Drawing on her years of living in China as the daughter of Christian missionaries, Buck tells an epic story of the life of farmer Wang Lung and his family. For Wang Lung, his identity comes from the land that he farms. Through cycles of plentiful harvests and poor or nonexistent harvests caused by droughts and floods, he never loses his faith in the land as the ultimate source of sustenance and meaning for himself and his family.

At one point, to avoid starvation, Wang Lung leaves the land with his family to travel to the south to find menial work in the city while his wife O-lan and their children beg for coins to buy food. Even at his most destitute, he thinks constantly of returning to his land, and by a stroke of good fortune, along with some dishonesty, he acquires enough money not only to return to his land but also to buy more land from the rich “Old Lord” whose fortune has ebbed away.

Wang Lung gradually builds more and more wealth until he no longer has to work the land himself. His neighbors admire him, and some of his relatives envy him and take advantage of the generosity that tradition requires of him. Meanwhile, Wang Lung’s wealth and leisure give him opportunities to indulge in some of the pleasures of the town.

All the while, his family is growing. O-lan bears three sons and three daughters. Wang Lung wants at least one son to take over the land after he is gone, but his sons do not share his love for the land, and they have other ideas about what to do with their lives. For Wang Lung, though, the land—the good earth—remains the lodestar of his life.

This classic book was never assigned to me in school, and for some reason, it never appealed to me enough to read it on my own. I think I assumed it would be dull. But reading it now, I found it anything but dull. Wang Lung is a man who lives in a particular time and place, not really an Everyman, and someone whose experience is vastly different than my own. Nonetheless, or maybe because of that, I found his life to be fascinating, and I never lost interest in his life’s journey. I think it’s probably good that I waited until I was pretty old myself to read about how his life unfolded over so many decades.

I know that some readers don’t like the book because of its depiction of the treatment of women. The social mores of rural China in the early 20th century (assuming they are accurately portrayed here) certainly do not align with the more enlightened values that most contemporary readers presumably share. But I think it’s a mistake to reject this or any book because it fails the “21st-century lens” test. I think that part of the book’s value for contemporary readers lies in making us think about issues like the treatment of women throughout history and across cultures. I think too that Buck recognized this, at least in part. Among other things, she made a point of describing Wang Lu’s belated recognition of O’lan’s goodness after she died.

As I was reading The Good Earth, I periodically thought that it sounded like some of the stories in the Old Testament—both thematically and linguistically. Just to cite a couple of examples, I was reminded of the story of rival brothers Jacob and Esau as well as the story of Noah’s sons covering up their father’s drunkenness out of respect for him. Like the Old Testament characters, Wang Lung was living in a rural patriarchal society. It’s not our world, thankfully, but there are still lessons to be learned from reading about it.

This is an engaging family history, and the way an unsympathetic character mellows is well done. However, the fact that Buck's parents were missionaries is demonstrated by a dated writing style that is reminiscent of the King James Bible. Although not preachy in content, I found the tone increasingly incongruous and irritating, though I was still keen to read to the end of the story.

It tells of Wang Lung's life from young adulthood till old age, in rural China before the second world war, though the protagonists are only vaguely aware of distant upheavals. He is a peasant farmer, in need of a wife, but without the means to be an attractive prospect. He marries an unattractive slave from the big Hwang house (local landowners) and it is one of his best decisions: O-lan is skilled, shrewd, very hardworking, loyal and deferential. He becomes proud of her, and this raises his ambitions. As they have some success, the permeation of the Biblical language makes the reader expect a fall.

As the title implies, land is at the heart of the book and is Wang Lung's true love. He is a farmer who lives for the land and from it, and whatever the ups and downs of his life, he never loses that deep bond. He is nourished by it in every sense and is lost when he is unable to tend it, whether through drought, flood or old age. "It was true that all their lives depended upon the earth." When he has a little silver, he is conscious that it came from the earth so naturally having more land is "the desire of his heart". He even uses earth to hide silver that is not invested in land. "It is the end of a family - when they begin to sell the land. No one can rob you of land." (Sadly untrue in Communist China.) Land is also his escape, "as was his wont when the affairs of his house became too deep for him, he took a hoe and he went to his fields".

Wang Lung is a man of his time and place, so he is autocratic and sees girls as a worthless burden or commodity - and yet he does love his disabled daughter ("poor fool") and, sometimes, care for his wife (though he never fully appreciates all that she does for him). As the book progresses, Buck is keen to contrast Wang Lung's darker side with his gentler one, "he was a man so soft-hearted that he could not kill an ox" and who buys a starving child as a slave, but pets and protects her. Such instances are all the more poignant because they seem slightly transgressive in his world.

Although Wang Lung's love of the land never diminishes, in later sections, the quest for domestic peace within his extended family is a more significant driving force than the quest for land, yet this doesn't derail the narrative or change the characters in an implausible way.

The other, far odder, change in the final third or so is that suddenly most of the characters develop the habit of prefacing almost everything they said with "Well, and". I haven't run a word count, but it suddenly became very noticeable, and remained so, in a way that was distracting and increasingly annoying.


Biblical notes: Here is a passage that sounded very like a New Testament parable:
"'Sell me the little parcel of land that you have and leave your lonely house and come into my house and help me with my land.' And X did this and was glad to do so."
In another section, sex with a prostitute proves unfulfilling in a way that was very reminiscent of Jesus telling the woman at the well that if she drank the water of life she would not be thirsty again.

Treasure of the Rubbermaids 6: Made in China

The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths.

I bitch about having to mow my lawn, but when I’m done, I usually sit on my deck and have a few ice cold beers. Then I take a hot shower and get in my car to go to the grocery store where I buy a cart full of food without giving it a second thought.

Chinese farmer Wang Lung (I wanted to type Wang Chung there. Damn you ‘80s!) spends all day doing back breaking labor in his own fields and there’s still barely enough food to keep from starving. His big reward is a cup of hot water in the morning with maybe a few tea leaves in it on special occasions, and he sponges himself off with hot water every couple of months whether he needs it or not.

So maybe I shouldn’t complain about walking around behind a power mower for an hour or two a week during the summer?

The book begins on Wang Lung’s wedding day. His bride, O-Lan, is a slave in the great house of his town, and they’ve never met. He splurges by taking a bath, buying her a couple of peaches, and getting a little pork and meat for their wedding feast which O-Lan prepares. For a honeymoon, they go work in the fields together. This whole section made me laugh thinking about the women on those reality wedding shows like Bridezillas.

Wang Lung and O-Lan make a good couple. They’re both hard working and she soon bears him sons which is kind of important to the Chinese. (And she returns to the fields right after giving birth with no assistance. O-Lan is a dream client for an HMO.) Together their family will go through bad times including droughts and famine, but O-Lan’s steady nature and Wang Lung’s farming skills eventually bring them prosperity.

The one thing that sets Wang Lung apart from other farmers is his constant desire to acquire new land. Part of this is pride, but Wang Lung realizes that owning good farm land is the key to providing the necessary cushion to keep from starving during bad years. Plus, he genuinely loves working his crops and bringing them to harvest. His fierce love of the land is the one constant in his life, but he obviously never went through a real estate crash. (Diversify, Wang Lung! Diversify!)

This book works on a lot of levels. As a depiction of a culture that little was known about when it was published, it’s fantastic. I liked how Buck never comments or judges on things that are kind of horrifying like selling girls for slaves or binding their feet, but treats them as just the way things are to all the characters. She just let the facts speak for themselves. It’s also works as a family drama with trials and tribulations worthy of a soap opera. You could also read it as a plain old rags-to-riches success story.

Despite being set in a time and place so alien to me, the characters still seem very real and relatable despite the cultural differences. Wang Lung doesn’t seem that different from any modern American farmer I’ve known. I think it must be universal that farmers everywhere like to gather and shoot the shit whether it’s at a Chinese tea house or a diner in Kansas.

And when a successful Wang Lung experiences a mid-life crisis and falls for a younger woman, you realize that it’s no different from any modern guy divorcing the wife who stood by him for years. It’s just that the sports car hasn’t been invented yet so Wang Lung can’t go buy one.

This is one of those classics that has an easily readable style and a compelling story that still seems fresh even though it was published over 70 years ago.

من الكتب التي يبقى اثرها طويلاً في الذهن و الروح بعد الانتهاء من قراءتها، و رغم طول الرواية إلا أني لم أشعر بالملل أطلاقاً في أي جزء منها
رائعة و تستحق الخمس نجوم

G9 LL
When "The Good Earth" comes to mind, people would think of how the novel won a Pulitzer Prize and how amazing the novel is. However, I disagree with the majority and how they all praise the oh so famous novel. One important aspect of this novel is that it portrays the society during the late Qing dynasty. Yet, some Western beliefs and Christian beliefs are included in the novel, considering that Buck is the daughter of Christian missionaries. If one did not have basic knowledge about Christianity, they would not understand the symbolism and some important scenes in the novel. I, for example, am not Christian and did not understand this novel to its full extent. Another drawback of this book is the sentence structure and diction Buck uses. What's a "firewagon"? A train. A direct translation of the word 火车, which means train in Chinese. I would recommend this book for more mature readers since there are some *intense scenes* such as when Wang Lung "seized" O-lan. However, after reading this book, I gained historical knowledge through the description of the social context but was not entertained during the reading process. This book is definitely NOT for everyone and will only suit a small range of readers.

Nice touches on the struggles and resilience required of rural families in early 20th century China, but overall all this saga was too much of a morality tale for me. We follow a poor farmer, Wang Lung, as he is steered by his elderly father to buy a slave for a wife, O-Lan. She is a quiet saint and applies her hard work to help them make a success of their farm and delivery several children by herself.

The following schematic plot summary can benefit the potential reader with an idea of the book’s content (and some may find spoilerish). Hard times from drought leads Wang to take his growing family to a large city to avoid starvation. They eke out a living through their begging and his work driving a rickshaw. Eventually, a windfall brings him back, where greed for land and financial security becomes an obsession. That drive helps them sustain the economic hardships from floods, but his growing wealth begins to corrupt him and lead him to neglect his loyal wife in favor of a prostitute.

In the process of this tale, the book illustrates the temptations and just rewards for most of the sins in the Old Testament. Despite Buck coming from a missionary family, there are no obvious elements of a Christian theme or religion in general. And despite casting the wealthy class in a poor light, I detect no signs of this story being some socialist paen of the virtues of the proletariat. Instead, it seems a straightforward honoring of the virtues of respect and nurturing of the land that feeds us. Wang can be a pig when he gets some wealth, but like good wine he improves with age. I didn’t get the same level of uplift from emotional connection to the land like I get from Willa Cather or the depth of empathetic rendering of the struggles of the downtrodden like Steinbeck pulls off.

‎دوستانِ گرانقدر، نویسندهٔ این کتاب <پرل بک>، دورانِ کودکی خویش را در چین گذراند و در همانجا نیز درس خواند.. او عاشقِ سرزمینِ چین است و چین را قلب و روحِ خود میداند... وی توانست فرهنگ و زندگیِ مردمانِ چین را به آمریکاییان و اروپائیان شناسانده و با داستانهایش فرهنگهای این مردمان را به یکدیگر پیوند بزند و در این راه جایزهٔ نوبل را نیز کسب نمود
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‎در این داستان، <وانگ لونگ> دهقانی است که خود را از زمین میداند و تمامِ زندگی خویش را فدایِ زمین کرده است و عشق دیوانه واری نسبت به زمین دارد ... او حاضر است آب را از فرزندانش دریغ کند، ولی همان آب را به زمین بدهد
‎همسرِ او <اُو-لان> نام دارد و از آنجایی که پیش از ازدواج با وانگ لونگ کنیز و بردهٔ خانوادهٔ بزرگ و زمیندار <هوانگ> بوده است، بنابراین به زندگی در هر شرایطی با وانگ لونگ، شاد و خرسند است
‎هوانگِ پیر، رئیس خاندانِ بزرگِ هوانگ، زندگی و دارایی اش به خطر می افتد، چراکه فساد و اعتیاد به تریاک، این خاندان را به بیچارگی میکشاند
‎وانگ لونگ از این فرصت استفاده کرده و بخشی از زمین هایِ خاندانِ هوانگ را خریداری میکند تا در راهِ پیشرفت، گام بزرگی بردارد... ولی از شانسِ بدِ او، جنگ و انقلاب و شورش و خشکسالی، به یکباره خسارت هایِ زیادی به او و خانواده اش وارد میکند.... آنها پس از تحملِ بدبختی هایِ فراوان، سرانجام در راهِ زمینداری و کشاورزی، به خوشبختی دست پیدا میکنند
‎پس از گذشتِ زمان، وانگ لونگ پیر میشود و زمینهایش را برای فرزندانش به ارث میگذارد... ولی فرزندانش همچون پدرشان نسبت به زمین عشق و تعصب نداشته و تصمیم میگیرند تا زمینها را به فروش برسانند
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‎شمارهٔ بعدیِ این رمان، با عنوانِ "پسران خاندانِ وانگ" از آنجایی آغاز میشود که پسرانِ این خانواده: وانگِ بزرگ، وانگ دوم و وانگ سوم یا همان ببر، زمینها را بین یکدیگر تقسیم کرده و داستان به زندگی آنها و نواده هایِ وانگ لونگ، میپردازد
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‎امیدوارم این ریویو در جهتِ شناختِ این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
‎<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>

Books like this are routinely read by high school students as a literature assignment. I went to a fairly good liberal arts high school and this is how I was introduced to the great classics of literature. Unfortunately, all of these books were read with the understanding that there would be an exam afterwards and I would be required to reveal my understanding of the book for the evaluation of a teacher. While I actually enjoyed reading some of these books the experience was seriously diminished by the onus of having to perform for the approval of another whose opinion I needed to divine and repeat if I wanted a good grade. Can you imagine a high school student telling a lit. teacher that a particular classic was dull as dishwater and the plot was beyond silly? No? Me either. Too bad I guess. So with that said I will state that I am really glad that this book was never part of any required reading list in my academic experience. What a joy to read this book unencumbered by the intimidation of needing to be examined on its meaning. I was able to just transport myself to China and observe the life of this Chinese family in what I can only guess was the late 19th or early 20th century. Their life was the essence of simple poverty and constant struggle for the basic necessities of survival. The story is classic in its arc and the book a delight to read.

Understanding that this book was published in the 1930's it is easy to see why it became so popular. At the time of publication the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were in full force and fury. The people in this country could well identify with the struggles of Wang Lung and his family regardless that their plight was being experienced thousands of miles away in China and at another time as their struggle is timeless and known in every culture of the world. Buck lays out a classic rags to riches story followed by the corruption of wealth and lives of ease. In this story the only constant is the land which is forever while the lives supported by the land are temporary and repeat cycles of existence that flourish with the understanding of the land's importance. It's a great book and well worth reading and maybe more than once.

This is a very unsentimental look at life in rural, pre-revolutionary China. Though she is American, Pearl Buck maintains an objective stance regarding Chinese cultural practices from the time, including foot-binding and the enslavement of women. Yet one encounters the unspoken torment of countless generations of women. The wife O-Lan is particularly well-drawn; in her rough-hewn features and ox-like devotion to the earth, the reader intimately feels her tragic solitude.

In Chinese society, she knows that she is "too ugly to be loved," and her husband seems to love Lotus, the live-in waif-prostitute, more than her-- despite her thankless contributions to the family's health and home. The scenes of famine and desperation strike epic chords of Steinbeck and Rohinton Mistry, the great author of "A Fine Balance," about Indian untouchables. As in all great novels, the setting of jade-green rice fields and gilded wheat becomes a living character with its own destiny and course--at times cruel; other times, benevolent.

I think it's a shame that this book was written so badly, since the story itself had some merit. As a family saga in agrarian China, it could have been interesting, engrossing and informative. But it wasn't. Apart from the background of old China, there is nothing to recommend this book. I have trouble understanding why this won the Pulitzer Prize, or maybe I should just get my head examined. Or maybe start my own book awards ...!

n  Charactersn

The characters were flat and except for Wang Lung himself, there was not much character development for anyone. In fact, other than Wang, his wife and concubines, none of the others were even given a name. Try reading 'Wang's father's brother's son' or 'the son of my father's uncle' a few times and soon you'll be pulling out your hair. I know I was! The bad characters were evil without any motive or reason. The entire evil family was lazy, arrogant, greedy and violent. ALL of them! Very believable, I am sure - in kiddie's stories! The good women were submissive and suffered silently and bore sons. The bad women threw tantrums and did not bear sons. All women squabbled without reason and tried to rule over their husbands. The entire character list was boring and not one person did I want to know better.

n  Writingn

The writing was pretty bad, and every other sentence started with 'well'. Stilted and jumping from one place to the other, the writing did not do the story any favours. The characters did not often speak and only spoke when absolutely necessary, so there was never any sense of actual progress. The entire book is written like an essay. Too much telling, not enough showing.

n  Draman

Non existent. Even when the most momentous events were taking place, they were dismissed in a narrative of a few words. There were opportunities for showing all kinds of conflicts taking place in the family, but what with flat characters and terrible writing, they were all lost. At no point did I feel a connection with any of the characters or get involved in the story. I just read through the book as if it were a required-reading essay for school, not feeling a thing.

n  Culture & Historyn

I never felt that I was being given an opportunity to visit a part of old China. Apart from the mandatory red paper on New Year's and vague references to foot binding, there were simply no cultural references of the kind that other good historical fiction authors take great pains to add. It could be any farmer in any country at any time in the past. If his name were not Wang Lung, no one would have known he was Chinese. There were plenty of opportunities for showing simple every day life in detail, which is basically the strength of these family saga novels, but Buck did not take them. The historical research was scanty and there were not many details weaved into the story.

I am bitterly disappointed with this book, because it seems that the author had a good idea and then out of pure laziness refused to do some work with the research and the writing. Just putting words on paper and stacking on one sentence after the other is not called writing a book.

I had forgotten most of the tale until I picked it up again to reread and I am overwhelmed by the hardship and futility of the lives of the characters. Their hopelessness coupled with their fortitude, that often goes unrewarded, is devasting. The writing appears almost simplistic but the message is so profound. As I read I am aware of the seeds that are being planted for the Cultural Revolution. The poverty and ignorance led to so much jealousy and greed.
Sometimes the book frightens me because I am reminded of our situation in the US, today. There is so much greed and selfishness currently. Did this lead us to this need for more government intervention, more socialism, which ultimately fails in every culture? Those that do less want more from those that are more productive and there seems to be no just reward for hard work anymore. Is this our Cultural Revolution?

Funny story about this book. I lived in Bucks County, PA when I was in Jr High School. The local library was named after Pearl S Buck. I had a book report to do, so I had the big idea of reading The Good Earth. Being a practicing procrastinator at the young age of 13, I didn't even open the book until the evening before the book report was due.

I still remember images and emotions that book dredged up. I read the whole book and wrote the report that night. I don't remember if I got any sleep, I just remember how much of an impact the book made on me. I need to read it again as an adult and see if it is as moving when I'm not under as much pressure!