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

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!

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?

I couldn't put this book down. It was very informative about pre-revolutionary Chinese culture. But even more than that, it was an interesting emotional journey. In the beginning, Wang Lung's character seems so simple and kinda static, albeit respectable. But as the novel progresses, his character becomes more and more complex, more and more human. It was hard for me to really define my opinion of him when it was all over. It wasn't as simple as just hating him because there was also a part of him that was good, even in the end. That's what makes him human. I think that feeling is the result of the peek Buck gives us into Wang Lung's mind during difficult decisions.

I think we all wanted to get more of O-lan. Obviously we all sympathize with her and, despite her unlikeability to pretty much everyone in the novel, she is extremely likeable and respectable to us as modern western readers. But I think the fact that we DON'T get to be more involved with her has meaning in itself. She was considered insignificant despite the fact that all of her contributions are arguably the most significant. As readers we were only allowed to see the surface of O-lan's character, just as everyone in her society saw--it's all they cared to see and really, it's all they believed there was. I think it's very clever writing on Buck's part.

Though born in West Virginia, Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (1892-1973) was raised in China, where both of her parents were Southern Presbyterian missionaries. She grew up speaking both Chinese and English, and spent most of her first 40 years in China, though she got her undergraduate and master's degrees in the U.S. Her first husband was also a Presbyterian missionary (they would subsequently divorce in 1935). For a number of years, she served as a missionary herself, mostly teaching English-language literature in a church-run college; but her own religious views, though definitely theistic, were not necessarily evangelically Christian. What forced her resignation as a missionary in 1933, however, was the furor over an article published in Harper's, in which she argued that the institutional mission system of that day fostered domination by foreign missionaries over the native Chinese church, which did a disservice to the latter. When she finally returned to the U.S. in 1934 (apparently because of the collapse of her marriage), she fully intended to return to China later; but was prevented, first by the Sino-Chinese War and World War II, and then by the refusal of the Red Chinese regime to let her back into the country, in retaliation for her outspoken opposition to Communist tyranny.

Buck's background shaped her voluminous fiction. The great majority of it is set in China and focuses, not on expatriate Westerners, but on native Chinese people, whom she learned from both her parents to respect and value as equals. The Good Earth was her second novel, and remains the best known of her works. I read it back around 1969, in a period of my reading life when I was consciously trying to read acknowledged classics in order to make myself into a cultured and “educated” person. Even though that project had a certain naivete to it, this particular read wasn't a bad choice; and I still remember it well enough to do it justice in a review. (And I do have a copy before me for reference!) It's still the only one of her novels I've read, but I've also read her short story (one of many!) “The Frill,” also set in China, and highly recommend it as a powerful indictment of Western racism and snobbery.

When I read the book, I assumed the chronological setting was roughly the author's present. At the time, though, I wasn't aware that it's actually the first book of a multi-generational trilogy. The novel itself also spans several decades of protagonist Wang Lung's life, from his marriage day as a young man to his old age. So we should probably view it as beginning at least in the time of Buck's childhood, if not somewhat before. (Of course, the lot of the peasantry and urban poor in China didn't particularly improve between, say, 1881 and 1931.) Basically, the plot is the story of Wang Lung. who starts out as a very small-scale landowner, and his family, in the course of various vicissitudes, which will take them from the country to the city and back again to the country, and through assorted challenges and dangers. (It's never a boring tale.) But, at least as I experienced and perceived the book, it's as much an introduction to an unfamiliar culture, a different worldview and way of life, as it is a story about specific individuals. I've sometimes said of Buck that she was multicultural before multiculturalism was a buzzword.

Precisely because her multiculturalism wasn't just a fashionable buzzword to be affected, but the result of real-life immersive encounter with another culture and people in it whom she cared about and genuinely understood (and wants us, the readers, to understand), it's much more the genuine article than what sometimes passes for it today. In particular, it's a warts-and-all view, not a rosy whitewash job. She depicts a society that's both very stratified, with grinding poverty on the lower end, and highly sexist and patriarchal, with practices like legalized slavery, arranged marriages, female infanticide, and concubinage, and one that devalues the handicapped. We're also given a good look at the ravages that opium addiction inflicts on a human being (though Buck doesn't bring out the role of the British as the instigators and promoters of the opium trade). Since Wang Lung is our viewpoint character, and there are no significant Westerners as characters here, we see all of these things through Chinese eyes that accept them as normal. This doesn't mean that Buck is trying to indoctrinate us with the attitude that this is all “just part of their culture,” and therefore perfectly fine for “those people.” On the contrary, Buck herself was a staunch advocate of gender equality and women's rights across cultures, an opponent of both abortion and infanticide, and a spokesperson for the worth and social value of the handicapped (her own first child was mentally handicapped, which gave her a lifelong sensitivity to the needs of the marginalized and disabled). Rather, I think what she's doing with this novel is enabling us to see and understand how people raised and socialized into this sort of culture see it, not so that we can see it with the same blinkered view, but so that we can recognize that they don't embrace these attitudes and practices because they're malevolent or perverse, and so that, if we have the opportunity for dialogue and interaction with them, we can go into it with an intelligent understanding of where they're coming from.

Being a Christian reader, I'm apt to pick up on religious content in a novel; and religion was also important to Buck, so it's a topic she seriously addresses here. There are scenes here that drive home, very forcefully, a gut-level understanding of the fundamental difference in religious attitudes between traditional Chinese culture and the Judeo-Christian-influenced mindset of most Westerners in 1931 (or of Western theists even today). Religious Westerners are accustomed to thinking of their physical and material blessings as gifts from God, that we should express thanks for. But when Wang Lung and his wife, walking along outdoors at a time when they're prospering, thoughtlessly talk to each other out loud about how pleased they are with their situation, the realization suddenly hits that the heavenly powers might hear them; so, lest they be smitten down in retaliation for being happy, they immediately fall to bemoaning their supposed afflictions and privations, so that any listening spirits will think that they're already appropriately bad off and can be left alone. For them, the ruling spirits of this world are not benevolent and sympathetic to human flourishing, but more apt to be hostile. Their hopes and agenda for their own well-being are their own. The function of religion is not to discern the good and helpful will of a well-intentioned Creator, and to enable people to line up with it, but rather to cajole or bribe reluctant supernatural powers to line up for a moment with human will and do something to further it. “Gods” aren't worshiped for their moral excellence, but propitiated for whatever humans can get out of them. (And if that turns out to be nothing, humans don't owe them anything, except maybe the deference that fear of their vindictive power might suggest. Another instructive scene here is when our protagonist,in a time of drought-induced famine that prayers totally fail to relieve, goes to the local shrine and surreptitiously spits in the face of the clay idol.)

Christian witness, however, doesn't offer an effective alternative in this novel. Our characters' only encounter with it comes when a missionary thrusts a Chinese-language tract with a picture of the crucified Christ into Wang Lung's hand. Since nobody in the family can read, he concludes that the foreigners are looking for the perpetrators of this outrage against one of their own. (The tract winds up sewn into a shoe to bolster the thin sole.) As an object lesson in how NOT to do constructive mission work, this vignette speaks volumes.

Although Buck was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and won the Pulitzer Prize for this novel, in general the modern critical community and U.S. reading public hasn't paid her the attention her merits deserve. (In American Literature classes in high school and college, for instance, I don't think she was ever mentioned, and I certainly wasn't exposed to any of her work; I'd heard of this book elsewhere, and sought it out on my own.) This isn't necessarily a cheery, feel-good read; it can be grim and depressing in places. But I'd say it's well worthwhile for serious readers –and indeed, in today's ever-shrinking world, perhaps even more so now than when it was first written.

I have always known that I needed to read this book. I believe it is on every list of books to read before you die. It is a beautifully written book and presents a picture of rural China before Mao. I found the first part to be extremely depressing; wondering how and why anyone would choose to continue living under the severe poverty and homeless faced by Wang Lung.

The story begins when Wang buys a slave to be his wife, carries through the birth of their children and their extreme struggle with poverty and the elements to maintain their life and ultimately become wealthy. The book has themes that resonate far beyond China: the connection to the land, the failure to appreciate the struggles of other people, problems with greedy and lecherous relations, etc.
I recommend this book for the story it tells and the manner in which it is told. Ultimately, it is not a story of success in any way other than the accumulation of wealth. Human connections are for the most part, non-existent. It is a picture of the way life is all too often lived.

G9 LL
It tells the touching story of early 20th century of China and the relationships between a Chinese farmer and his relatives. The humble Wang Lung glorifies in the land he buys, and pursues a dream as it nurtures him and his family. Nevertheless, lords of Hwang House are beyond Wang Lung's property which makes his inner acquisitiveness to grow. But eventually his excessive pride and his self-confidence leads him to a downfall.

What to make of so famous a book; Pulitzer Prize winner and Buck went on to win the Nobel Prize, the first American woman to do so. There are study guides galore and Oprah revived interest in the book when she selected it for one of her book club reads. The plot is well known and is set in the early part of the twentieth century in agrarian China. It is a family saga and is the first of a trilogy. It tells the story of peasant farmer Wang Lung from day until his death, covering about 50 years. It tells of famine and hardship and of the rise of Wang Lung to be a wealthy man, all his wealth springing from the land and the soil. The plotlines encompasses many of the evils/problems in Chinese society: famine/plenty, opium, foot binding, the taking of concubines, infanticide (of daughters), but also the daily routines of agrarian life with its ups and downs. Buck was the daughter of missionaries and spent many years in China and was a keen observer of life.
For many readers this was/has been an introduction to China, its people and culture and the endless notes provided by study guides illustrate this well. Celeste Ng makes a very good point about this:
“I hate The Good Earth because, all too often, it’s presented not as a work of fiction but as a lesson on Chinese culture. Too many people read it and sincerely believe they gain some special insight into being Chinese. In one quick step, they know China, like Neo in The Matrix knows Kung Fu. Since its publication, the book has regularly been assigned in high schools as much for its alleged window into Chinese culture as for its literary value.”
This raises the issue of whether a novel or work of fiction can ever be a guide or compendium of a country’s culture. Would we go to Zola to find out about nineteenth century France, Dickens for England, Faulkner for the modern US; I could go on. They might be illustrative, but not comprehensive or a cultural guide, a quite narrow perspective even for perceptive observers like Dickens or Zola. So why would Buck’s novel be treated like that? Even Buck points out there is much more to China than she portrays:
“And when on another day he heard a young man speaking — for this city was full of young men speaking — and he said at his street corner that the people of China must unite and must educate themselves in these times, it did not occur to Wang Lung that anyone was speaking to him.”
No book encapsulates an entire culture and it is typical of a western imperialist (or even post imperialist) mentality to begin to consider it can. The novel does clearly illuminate the position of women in Chinese society at that time. The focus on land and soil and personal progress tapped into middle class American values at the time it was written, helping to make it very popular and there is an interesting contrast with the role of Chinese immigrants in America at the time. There is, of course much more to be said, but reading Buck does necessitate an awareness of the society around her at the time. I did enjoy the novel and the character building is very good. It did remind me a little of Gone with the Wind (is that heresy?)

G9 LL
The Good Earth is an award-winning novel written by Pearl S. Buck. The novel follows the life of Wang Lung, a poor farmer in China who gradually, through both hard work and unexpected fortune, acquires more land and money than he had ever dreamed of owning. During a time, Wang Lung gets caught up in his fortune and his trappings of wealth (wearing lavish silk robes and having a concubine), he eventually grows to re-appreciate the simple life of a hard-working farmer. I happily fell into Pearl S. Buck’s clear, brisk prose and the story of Wang Lung the rags-to-riches farmer.
The novel also touched many old Chinese cultures such as foot binding, concubine, opium smoking, female infanticide, etc. Although I liked this book for its verisimilitude to the events that actually happened, The Good Earth's literary qualities are not that impressive. With the use of emotion and diction, book conveyed mood and tone very well. In a straightforward but highly detailed manner, Buck has composed a classic account of rural Chinese life. It's a pretty good read!

خیلی کتاب تلخی بود برام.
هرچقدر به صفحات پایانی می‌رسیدم تلختر میشد،اما خیلی دوستش داشتم داستان آروم و ملایم پیش می‌رفت.
اولین تجربه ی خواندنی ام از این نویسنده بود و خیلی لذت بردم.
حیفه که‌ تجدید چاپ نمیکنن من از فیدیبو خوندم که خیلی سختم بود.

“The sun beat down upon them, for it was early summer, and [O-Lan’s] face was dripping with her sweat. Wang Lung had his coat off and his back bare, but she worked with her thin garment covering her shoulders and it grew wet and clung to her like skin. Moving together in a perfect rhythm, without a word, hour after hour, he fell into a union with her which took the pain from his labor. He had no articulate thought of anything; there was only this perfect sympathy of movement, of turning over this earth of theirs over and over to the sun, this earth which formed their home and fed their bodes and made their gods. The earth lay rich and dark, and fell apart lightly under the points of their hoes. Sometimes they turned up a bit of brick, a splinter of wood. It was nothing. Some time, in some age, bodies of men and women had been buried there, houses had stood there, had fallen, and gone back into earth. So would also their house, some time, return into the earth, their bodies also. Each had his turn at this earth…”
-tPearl S. Buck, The Good Earth

The Good Earth is a remarkable, entertaining, moving, and unforgettable novel. It held me – from the first page to the last – in its lyrical grasp.

With that said, let me hasten to add that I did not find it remarkable, entertaining, moving, and unforgettable for the same reasons it has been turning up in English classes since its 1931 publication date.

Pearl S. Buck’s classic tale of a Chinese peasant family has been a fixture on syllabuses for decades. It has been used – with the best of intentions, I think – as an introduction to a culture unfamiliar to many Americans, both then and now. The trouble, of course, is that basing your knowledge about a massive country with a history that stretches back over thousands of years is ludicrous, to say the least.

The Good Earth is about a specific spot in China, centered on a single family, and set at a specific (though non-specified) time. It is fiction, and not even historical fiction. The setting is so enveloping, so fully-realized, that it is seductive to say This is China! But it’s not. The Good Earth is no more representative of China than, for instance, Gone With the Wind is representative of the United States.

Thankfully, I never read this in school, meaning I was never subjected to the forced extrapolations that students are required to draw from a novel of this sort. Instead, I read it as a follow-up to Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s The Mountains Sing, a saga about a North Vietnamese family living through Vietnam’s tumultuous 20th Century. I had no real notion of what I was getting into with The Good Earth. I only knew that I wanted to travel somewhere I hadn’t been, and spend some time with people I hadn’t met.

To that end, the striking thing about The Good Earth is how universal a story it tells. This is the quintessential rags-to-riches epic. The central character, Wang Lung, may be Chinese, but he could just as easily be Ragged Dick from a Horatio Alger story. He is a striver, an ambitious farmer who loves the earth, is willing to work hard, and holds a considerable grudge against the House of Hwang, a wealthy family that slights him in a way that he never forgets.

Because this is a story about a man trying to jump into a higher income tax bracket, it follows a familiar arc from humble goodness to raging assholery to potential redemption. Call me crazy (or drunk), but the comparison that jumped into my head was Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, except that famine replaces murder (which, yes, is an important distinction).

When The Good Earth opens, we are introduced to Wang Lung, who lives with his elderly father, eking a living from the earth. It is his wedding day, which for Wang Lung, means going to the House of Hwang to pick up the wife – or “slave” – he has purchased. The woman, whose name is O-Lan, becomes the essential element in Wang Lung’s plan for upward economic mobility.

The Good Earth is written in the third-person, though we are privy to Wang Lung’s thoughts and feelings alone. It is a testament to his complexity that he is allowed to be a jackass, and often.

With the exception of Wang Lung and O-Lan, none of the other supporting characters have much psychological depth or dimension. They lack interior lives. Nonetheless, they are unforgettable, especially the villainous ones. Everyone leaves a mark in your memory.

The Good Earth is a bildungsroman that follows Wang Lung from relative youth, onward through his years. There is not a central plot. Rather, events unfold episodically, over the course of days and months and years. Some incidents are small, some are large, some are absolutely unforgettable. The most memorable set-piece in The Good Earth is a terrible famine that comes on the heels of a punishing drought. Now, most of us have read about famines in history books, whether that is the Ukrainian famine caused by Stalin’s collectivization schemes, the Bengal famine during World War II, or the Great Chinese Famine during the time of Mao. It is one thing to know the overwhelming statistics from those tragedies. It is another thing to have the process recounted in unsparing detail, as Buck does here.

I found The Good Earth to be beautifully written. Buck creates a distinct idiom for the narrative – especially with regard to the dialogue – that is mesmerizing. The verisimilitude here is not the point, as I suspect that repeated phrases such as “such an one” and “hither and dither” may not be perfect recreations of the way that actual Chinese farmers spoke. Yet I appreciated the stylization, and the fact that it was applied consistently. It created a fully-formed world, even if that world should not be accepted as historical fact.

This is a natural place to pivot to the reality that it is not the 1930s anymore.

It just so happened that I read this as a debate about cultural appropriation in literature arose in the wake of Jeanine Cummins’s American Dirt (which followed on the heels of a debate being had in the community of romance writers). Because this discussion – to the extent that trading death threats can be called a discussion – is being had, I feel compelled to state the obvious: Pearl S. Buck was not Chinese.

The daughter of American missionaries, Buck spent the bulk of her life living in China, where she learned the language, made friends, and seemed to genuinely care about the country and her people. To be sure, Buck was not a cultural tourist. Equally true is the fact that she was not Chinese.

I have nothing to add, except to say there is no law – at least in America – keeping an author from writing about whatever he/she/they wants. There is also no law – at least in America – keeping an author’s critics from voicing disapproval and leaving no-read-one-star ratings of the book. If this sounds like a weaselly position to take, well, there is no law – at least in America – against being a weasel.

Worth noting, I suppose, is that unlike James Clavell (Shogun) and Michael Blake (Dances With Wolves), among others, Buck does not tell this story through the eyes of a western intermediary. Westerners are almost completely nonexistent, showing up only on the fringes of a trip to the city, where they are cluelessly-confident bunglers. There is also none of the racial condescension that tends to show up in China-based novels written by non-Chinese authors. Wang Lung is not a stereotyped unskilled laborer, speaking pidgin English and kowtowing to foreign overlords. (I’m thinking, for instance, of The Sand Pebbles, which I otherwise enjoyed, but which employs its Chinese characters as “coolies”).

Since we are dancing around emotionally fraught topics, I should also add that the treatment of women in The Good Earth is deplorable. Low-born girls are sold as slaves or into arranged marriages, while high-born girls have their feet bound and are groomed for refined coquetry. The female role is rather sharply defined as either sexual object or domestic help.

This, it should go without saying, is not a moral worldview that Buck is promoting, but a rendition of things as she saw them. Since there is a long, problematic history of Chinese portrayals (or caricatures) in western culture, this can be troubling. There is always the inherent danger of promoting unfair or inaccurate stereotypes. At the same time, there is no denying that Buck wrote about what she witnessed, and that in a patriarchal milieu such as Wang Lung’s, the general subordination of women was commonplace. Not just in China, obviously, but all over the world.

On the plus side, O-Lan is – in my opinion – the real hero of The Good Earth. She is described as homely and slow-witted, with her chief virtue being her doggedness. At least, that is how she is seen by Wang Lung. Anyone paying the slightest attention, however, will soon learn that she is indomitable, hickory-tough, and twice as clever as Wang Lung on his best day.

Many great novels are described as timeless. They work wherever and whenever you read them. The Good Earth is certainly a classic, but it is not timeless. It is of its time, and the way we view it will continue to vary and change. There are aspects of The Good Earth that will make it a nonstarter for many readers. For all that makes it discomfiting, or potentially discomfiting, I loved it.

Stripped of its trappings, The Good Earth is a moving and humane portrayal of one family’s journey. It is not always happy, and the ending is surprisingly dark. There are elements of King Lear and Anna Karenina, among other influences. But make no mistake, the intimacy, the empathy, and the unforgettable characters are all Pearl S. Buck.

The Good Earth (House of Earth #1), Pearl S. Buck

The Good Earth is a novel by Pearl S. Buck published in 1931 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1932.

The best-selling novel in the United States in both 1931 and 1932 was an influential factor in Buck's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938.

It is the first book in a trilogy that includes Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935). The story begins on Wang Lung's wedding day and follows the rise and fall of his fortunes.

The House of Hwang, a family of wealthy landowners, lives in the nearby town, where Wang Lung's future wife, O-Lan, lives as a slave. However, the House of Hwang slowly declines due to opium use, frequent spending, and uncontrolled borrowing.

Meanwhile, Wang Lung, through his own hard work and the skill of his wife, O-Lan, slowly earns enough money to buy land from the Hwang family, piece by piece. O-Lan delivers three sons and three daughters; the first daughter becomes mentally handicapped as a result of severe malnutrition brought on by famine.

Her father greatly pities her and calls her "Poor Fool," a name by which she is addressed throughout her life. O-Lan kills her second daughter at birth to spare her the misery of growing up in such hard times, and to give the remaining family a better chance to survive.

During the devastating famine and drought, the family must flee to a large city in the south to find work. Wang Lung's malevolent uncle offers to buy his possessions and land, but for significantly less than their value. The family sells everything except the land and the house.

Wang Lung then faces the long journey south, contemplating how the family will survive walking, when he discovers that the "firewagon" (the Chinese word for the newly built train) takes people south for a fee. In the city, O-Lan and the children beg while Wang Lung pulls a rickshaw.

Wang Lung's father begs but does not earn any money, and sits looking at the city instead. They find themselves aliens among their more metropolitan countrymen who look different and speak in a fast accent. They no longer starve, due to the one-cent charitable meals of congee, but still live in abject poverty.

Wang Lung longs to return to his land. When armies approach the city he can only work at night hauling merchandise out of fear of being conscripted. One time, his son brings home stolen meat. Furious, Wang Lung throws the meat on the ground, not wanting his sons to grow up as thieves. O-Lan, however, calmly picks up the meat and cooks it. When a food riot erupts, Wang Lung is swept up in a mob that is looting a rich man's house and corners the man himself, who fears for his life and gives Wang Lung all his money in order to buy his safety.

Meanwhile, his wife finds jewels in a hiding place in another house, hiding them between her breasts. Wang Lung uses this money to bring the family home, buy a new ox and farm tools, and hire servants to work the land for him.

In time, the youngest children are born, a twin son and daughter. When he discovers the jewels O-Lan looted from the house in the southern city, Wang Lung buys the House of Hwang's remaining land. He is eventually able to send his first two sons to school (also apprenticing the second one as a merchant) and retains the third one on the land.

As Wang Lung becomes more prosperous, he buys a concubine named Lotus. O-Lan endures the betrayal of her husband when he takes the only jewels she had asked to keep for herself, the two pearls, so that he can make them into earrings to present to Lotus. O-Lan's morale suffers and she eventually dies, but not before witnessing her first son's wedding.

Wang Lung finally appreciates her place in his life, as he mourns her passing. Lung and his family move into town and rent the old House of Hwang.

Wang Lung, now an old man, wants peace, but there are always disputes, especially between his first and second sons, and particularly their wives.

Wang Lung's third son runs away to become a soldier. At the end of the novel, Wang Lung overhears his sons planning to sell the land and tries to dissuade them. They say that they will do as he wishes, but smile knowingly at each other.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «خاک خوب»؛ «زمین خوب»؛ نویسنده: پرل س. باک؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دوم ماه ژوئن سال 1976میلادی

عنوان: زمین خوب؛ نویسنده: پرل باک؛ مترجم: فریدون بدره ای لرستانی؛ تهران، مرجان، 1336، در 364ص؛ چاپ دیگر 1368؛ در 413ص؛ شابک 9649049339؛ چاپ دیگر 1380؛ موضوع داستانهای چینی از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

عنوان: خاک خوب؛ نویسنده: پرل باک؛ مترجم: غفور آلبا؛ پاپ اول 1340؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، امیرکبیر، 1347، در 343ص؛ چاپ دوم 1347؛ سوم 1350؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، ناهید، 1371؛ در 343ص؛

عنوان: خاک خوب؛ نویسنده: پرل باک؛ مترجم: داریوش شاهین؛ تهران، جاویدان، 1362، در 533ص؛ چاپ ششم 1379؛ هفتم و هشتم 1390؛ چاپ یازدهم 1385؛

خاک خوب (زمین خوب)، کتاب نخست، از رمانی سه گانه «خانه ی زمین» است، که برای نخستین بار در سال 1930میلادی انتشار یافت، و به دنبال آن، کتابهای «پسران» در سال (1932میلادی) و «خانواده پراکنده» در سال (1935میلادی) منتشر شدند؛ در «خاک خوب (زمین خوب)»، زندگی «وانگ لونگ»، دهقان فقیر شهرستان «آن هوئی» بازگو می‌شود؛ نویسنده باورهای دهقانان میانه حال «چینی» را، که با فقر و گرسنگی و جنگهای داخلی پیش از انقلاب، درگیر بودند، با دقتی باورمندانه مینمایانند؛ اما، از ورای شخصیت «وانگ لونگ» است، که روحیه ی «چینی» سر برمی‌دارد؛

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در داستان؛ «وانگ لونگ» به زمین پای‌بند است، زیرا زمین «خون و گوشت هر کس» است؛ «وانگ لونگ» نیز، با استفاده از آشفتگی آنروزها، خود، مالکی بزرگ می‌شود؛ با اینحال، «خاک خوب (زمین خوب)»، تنها رشد و بالندگی یک دهقان نیست، که در ایام کهولت، به «گل گلابی» دلفریب، دل می‌بازد، و موجب ناخشنودی پسرانش می‌گردد؛ بلکه این اثر، با اینکه یک رمان است، نوشته ای مستند و ارزشمند نیز هست، درباره ی دورانیکه، «وانگ لونگ» هنوز فقیر بود؛ دورانیکه خود او فریاد برداشته بود: «دیگر چه! پس این وضع هرگز عوض نخواهد شد؟»، و به او پاسخ داده بودند: «چرا، رفیق، روزی عوض خواهد شد؛ وقتی که ثروتمندها زیادی ثروتمندند، امکاناتی وجود دارد؛ و وقتی که فقیرها زیادی فقیرند، امکاناتی وجود دارد.»؛

پسرانش: «وانگ» ارشد، «وانگ» دوم، و «وانگ» سوم، که پرتوان و نامدار به «ببر» است، و او یکی از آخرین سرلشکران ماجراجوی رژیم کهنسال، خواهد شد؛ پس از مرگ پدر، آنها زمینها را تقسیم میکنند؛ اما «ببر»، برادرانش را از سر باز میکند؛ زمین برای او، اهمیتی ندارد؛ او چیزی جز پول نمی‌خواهد، تا ارتشی در اندازه ی جاه طلبیهای خویش ایجاد کند؛ او که «سالار جنگ» شده، پیروزیهای خویش را پشت سر می‌گذارد؛ اگر پسرش «یوآن» به دنیا بیاید، خوشبختی او کامل خواهد شد؛ آرزو دارد، از پسرش یک «سرلشکر کوچک» بسازد؛ اما پسر جوان، که بسیار هوشمند و متنفر از کشتار است، خود را به دست اندیشه‌ های نو می‌سپارد؛ تضاد شدید، میان کهنه پرستی «ببر»، و تحول‌ طلبی پسر بسیار محبوبش، قدرتی دراماتیک به کتاب دوم می‌بخشد

یوآن؛ سنتهای خانوادگی را می‌گسلد، و از نفوذ «وانگ» سوم می‌گریزد؛ با اینحال، چون مبارزی سمج نیست، عضویت خود، در «انجمن مخفی» را، مدتها به تعویق می‌اندازد؛ سرانجام، به اصرار یکی از پسرعموهایش، تصمیم خود را عملی می‌کند، به امید آنکه «رنجهای ملت فقیر»، که او شاهد طغیان آن بوده، پایان گیرد؛ «یوآن»، کمی پس از آنکه جانب انقلاب را می‌گیرد، دستگیر می‌شود، و تنها در برابر باجی کلان، که بستگانش می‌پردازند، از مرگ نجات می‌یابد؛ همین که آزاد می‌شود، به خارج از کشور می‌رود، تا آموزش خود را کامل کند، و با تمدن غرب آشنا گردد؛ کتاب با تولد عشقی ساده، میان «یوآن» و «می‌لینگ»، یک دانشجوی «چینی»، پایان می‌گیرد؛ و نهایتاً سالار پیر جنگ به دست دهقانان شورشی کشته می‌شود

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 27/09/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 05/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی