"Ah sì, ho sentito parlare di una rivoluzione, ma sono sempre stato troppo occupato in vita mia per farci caso. C'era sempre la terra".
Queste parole di Wang Lung possono riassumere il romanzo. Il legame strettissimo, materno, con la terra da quando si nasce fino alla morte rappresenta il filo conduttore delle vicende dell'esistenza del contadino Wang Lung e della sua famiglia. La storia prende il via dal matrimonio di Wang Lung con la schiava O Lan e trascorre poi narrando, con scrittura piana e scorrevole, le alterne vicende della famiglia. Il sottofondo storico è indefinito, a parte questo riferimento alla rivoluzione che fa pensare all'ambientazione ai primi del Novecento. Il finale è amaro, a sottolineare una cesura tra la vecchia generazione ed il mondo moderno. In complesso un buon romanzo, che si fa leggere d'un soffio. Unica nota dolente è la traduzione, pessima, e l'impaginazione, con ripetuti errori, salti di lettere e sillabe finali di parole in intere pagine, troppo trascurata.

خواندن كتاب عيشِ مدام بود . توصيفات فوق العاده از زندگي روزمره
اينكه ما فكر ميكنيم اين مرحله از زندگي رو بگذرونيم به آسايش خواهيم رسيد ولي در ادامه ميبينيم كه آسايش ابدي اي وجود نداره و زندگي يه مشكل جديد جلو پامون ميذاره رو به خوبي در طول داستان توصيف ميكرد

an epic life of a farmer

all good and bad said

many life wisdom from each character

G9 LL: I am a Thai-Chinese. Chinese culture has always part of my family because my grandfather was the one who came from China to Thailand. When I read the book, this book showed accurate Chinese culture and how people used to live like in China in my opinion. But on the other hand, the book is very difficult to understand and difficult to read. And it portraits very stereotypical thinking of China. This might portrait China in the wrong way for other cultures to see. Which could cause confusion and how other cultures really view Chinese culture.

The story is absorbing and exquisitely written. A memorable classic that is a must for any book club or readers who enjoy well written historical fiction novels.

The Good Earth is a novel by Pearl S. Buck published in 1931 that dramatizes family life in a Chinese village in the early 20th century. It is the first book in a trilogy that includes Sons and A House Divided. It won the Pulitzer Prize and is considered a classic.

The novel is set in a timeless China and provides no exact dates although the author does provide subtle hints that the novel that it is just before the revolution. This is the story of Wang Lung a poor farmer in a small village who in the opening chapters of the book marries O-lan. They have four children together, three boys and one girl. With hard work and determination Wang Lung and to O-lan he build a life for their family but not without struggles and hardship.

This is my second reading of this classic and when this came up as an online group read I really looked forward to re-visiting this story because when I read a book like this with a reading group I tend to immerse myself more in the story and get a better understanding of the novel from the discussion after reading.

I think the characters are beautifully imagined and the story flows from beginning to end.
A novel that educates the reader about China, the Chinese people and their traditions and customs.
This is a novel that can be read and re-read and still the reader will never tire of its message and characters.

A great discussion novel and a book sits proudly on my real life book shelf.

This is the story of Wang Lung, a Chinese farmer who makes his way from a simple agrarian life to a life of wealth and the warnings about what such a life can mean. We see Wang's life in contrast to that of the House of Hwang, the wealthy, but worthless, rich men of his town. Wang begins, a moral man who is tied to his land and appreciates the life he makes through his labors. He marries a good, but simple, woman O-Lan, who helps him work the fields and produces his children. He begins with an appreciation for this woman and values her contributions to his life. Then a turn of events leave him with money and as "the love of money is the root of all evil", Wang begins to change, until he morphs into the same corrupt man as the Hwang's whose place he assumes.

As a daughter of missionaries, I think Buck was intentionally writing a cautionary moral tale. She means us to see that Wang's wealth, which he comes to by stealing it from another person, removes him from what is important and good in his life. He loses his connection to the land, and in doing so loses all his happiness, peace and purpose. O-Lan, who might serve as a moral compass for Wang, is tossed aside for someone prettier, but whose outer beauty masks nothing but greed and indifference to Wang's welfare. In Wang's children we can see how deep the deterioration has gone and in the last pages of the book they are already looking toward selling the land, an act which will plant the seeds for their own downfall.

I cannot profess to like Buck's characters, with the exception of O-Lan, who is so unjustly mistreated and unloved that one feels despair for her sake. I do not see this, as some do, as a portrait of China. Even in this time, China and the Chinese may well have varied greatly from Buck's view of them. She was an outsider looking in, and from a view she would have held to be superior, I suppose. What I do see here is a very accurate portrait of what unearned wealth can produce in a man, what separation from nature and the natural order can do to man, and a rule that still holds true so much of the time...greed and corruption ultimately destroy. The happier man is the Wang who goes to take O-Lan for his bride and toils in the earth during the day and revels in the birth of his sons and the taking care of his elderly father. The man in the end is just a shell. He has no peace from his greedy children, his wealth is squandered on superficial material things, and he wants desperately to go plant his feet in the rich soil but cannot because it would be "unseemly" for a rich man to do so.

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.

A classic "must read" story of passion, romance, love triangles, and the desire for improving one's life is set in rural China during the early 1900's. Pearl Buck captures the readers interest immediately and holds it throughout the story providing insight into the universality of human desires, passions and dreams. This is one of my favorite books and recommend it to everyone for the insight into China and insight into everyone's own life choices and temptations.
--Cheryl

Book club read #24, August 2019.

What's left to say about a classic, a Pulitzer Prize winner, that hasn't already been said? Maybe nothing, but it is probably worth repeating just how wonderfully special it is. Had not read this before but saw the movie years ago, then about 10 years ago I picked up a paperback copy at a used book sale and didn't get around to reading it until a GR friend mentioned it recently as a book club option. So my book club agreed to try it when no one else had any suggestions.

This is about a farmer who loves what he does, feeling a connection to the land, feeling it in his bones, owning that land, providing for his family and the community through that land. Even though it's in a remote area of China, the messages are universal. Buck doesn't give us any specific years in which this takes place, so it remains timeless. She gives us characters who some may not care much for, but whose interactions give us a full idea of life and living, struggling and thriving in early twentieth century China. The lives of women, class differences, traditional vs modern ways, the rich and the poor man. The story seems simple on surface, but the more I think about it the more I see.

The first book in a trilogy that I do hope to continue on with.

پرل باک، نویسنده‌ی امریکایی این کتاب نیمی از زندگی‌اش را در چین گذرانده، در کودکی همراه پدرش برای زندگی به چین رفته و همین باعث شده با خرافات، آداب و رسوم و راه و رسم زندگی آن‌ها بیشتر آشنا بشه و ظاهرا آثار زیادی در باب فرهنگ چین نوشته و داستان‌هایی در مورد این کشور داره. این کتاب هم برنده‌ی جایزه نوبل شده. داستان کتاب از آن‌جایی شروع می‌شود که ونگ لانگ جوانی است که جای خالی مادرش را در زندگی بسیار حس میکند و همراه پدر پیرش در روستایی زندگی می‌کند. زندگی آن‌ها با فقر و مشقت همراه هست ولی آن‌ها به یک چیز امید دارند و آن‌ هم زمینشان است. ونگ لانگ ازدواج می‌کند و طی سالیان ثروتمند می‌شود؛ البته با سخت‌کوشی و انرژی و وقتی که برای کار کردن و فرزندانش میگذاره و همینطور گذراندن روزهای سخت‌تری که همون روزها باعث رسیدن به این ثروت شده... ولی در وجود هر آدمی سایه‌های تاریکی وجود داره که وقتی بیدار میشن، خودشم از درک آن‌ها عاجزه... کتاب خوب و روانی بود.

أحد أمتع الكتب التي قرأتها في حياتي، قصة تدور أحداثها في الصين، وتروي صعود رجل صيني وتحوله من الفقر إلى الغنى وعلاقته بزوجته المسكينة، قرأت الكتاب مراراً

"Parecia-lhe, enquanto caminhava à luz crua do Sol, pela rua poeirenta, que não havia homem no mundo tão feliz como ele.
Esta ideia inspirou-lhe primeiro alegria, mas depois um movimento de temor. Não é bom ser muito afortunado nesta vida. O ar e a terra estão cheios de espíritos malignos que não toleram a felicidade dos mortais, especialmente dos que são pobres."

Farta de ler o oriente a grande distância, achei que seria boa ideia apostar numa visão mais próxima (não necessariamente endémica, mas sobretudo, ideal e fisicamente próxima) da terra, da cultura e das gentes da China por oposição ao retrato que um estranho faz em terra alheia. Pearl S. Buck é uma boa aposta para fazer essa transição e Terra Bendita uma boa obra para ficar a conhecer um velho mundo, uma população milenar e hábitos que nos são, sobretudo hoje, perfeitamente estranhos, mas que moldaram uma nação que a autora apenas se enganou em cunhar de imutável (embora, a sua essência talvez seja qualquer coisa verdadeiramente eterna).

"Os chineses não morrem por uma ideia.(...)
Apegados ao seu velho senso comum, os chineses nem sequer se apressam a livrar-se dos tiranos. Acreditam que o Céu e a Natureza desempenharão tal tarefa. E como sabem eles que o Céu ordenou a queda da tirania? Através do simples facto de o preço do arroz ir além do que o homem comum pode pagar. Um bom administrador conserva baixo o preço do arroz. Quando já não tem capacidade para o manter, é tempo de abandonar a cargo.
A democracia chinesa é tem sido sempre simbolizada pela família. O conceito chinês sobre as relações do povo com o chefe do governo e seus conselheiros é o mesmo que regula as relações existentes no seio da familia, entre o pai, o irmão mais velho e os outros membros. A democracia chinesa, quando tiver adquirido a sua forma final, não repousará sobre a máquina politica mas sobre os individuos paternalmente democratas, e o chefe será
um homem paternal, permanecendo nas suas funções enquanto souber manter o respeito e a confiança do povo, pela conservação do baixo preço do arroz.
(Prefácio)

Assim, assente em valores conservadores e patriarcais, na estratificação social e familiar, no temor religioso, na ignorância das massas, permitindo e incentivando o concubinato, a exploração e desumanização das mulheres cresceu uma China que hoje conhecemos como capitalista, brutalmente industrial, bélica e, no entanto, capaz de expressar uma profunda união enquanto comunidade e um sentido de dever como nenhuma outra. Esse sentimento de unidade provém precisamente destes velhos tempos como os vividos por Wang Lung e O-lan em Terra Bendita, tempos nos quais se espera que o casal, como a terra, seja fértil e deixe semente para o futuro. Aqui, onde não há lugar para o "eu", cada um deve cuidar de assegurar o futuro comum sem olhar aos sacrifícios pessoais que isso mesmo implica, entregues aos deuses e deles aceitando os desígnios, nascendo, vivendo e morrendo sem fazer ondas, sem deixar marca maior do que a de fazer perdurar a utilidade dos seus corpos por um bem maior.
Pelo menos assim é até que esse mundo, lento e previsível, abalado pelo futuro inevitável, veja nascer novas gentes, com novas ambições e um sentido de dever para consigo mesmos.

"Apaixonaste-te por tua mulher e apaixonaste-te excessivamente, pois um homem não deve preocupar-se tanto com a mulher que seus pais lhe deram. Não é decente que um homem ame sua esposa com um amor louco e absorvente, como se fosse uma meretriz."

Mas Buck traz-nos tudo isso embrulhado numa fabulação com reminiscências de As Mil e Uma Noites, em que o/a narrador/a, qual Xerazade, mantém o leitor em suspenso entre capítulos com um sabor antigo como a terra que lhes dá mote, numa narrativa desligada do eurocentrismo e do individualismo nossos contemporâneos, e que nos mostra (muito embora Buck seja uma crítica silenciosa de muitos costumes) que a vida é possível de viver, e já foi outrora vivida (para melhor ou pior), em comunidade e em comunhão com a natureza.