The Good Earth

Rating:
Summary: Good stuff, yo!
Review: The Good Earth, is about Wang Lung's plights with the earth. Many other things occupy Wangs life, but the earth is his main concern. He works the land as his father did before him. When famine strikes Wang Lungs land, he and his family are forced to go south for the winter. They have to work hard and beg all winter, and if they had not been so lucky as to be at the city when a revolution was occurring, which enabled them to loot the rich mans house, they might still be very poor. His new found riches gave him the ability to buy for himself a concubine from a teahouse in town. This started Wang Lungs Downward spiral. I thought this book was very good. It was like a window into the Chinese culture. My favorite part of the book was when Wang-Lung says to the old teacher in regard to his boys that he is sending to school, "So if you would like to please me, beat them." I also think that The Good Earth is indispensable to any person that fancies himself well read. I think that because of what I said previously about it being a window to the Chinese culture.

Rating:
Summary: A PULITZER PRIZE WINNING CLASSIC...
Review: This 1932 Pulitzer Prize winning novel is still a standout today. Deceptive in its simplicity, it is a story built around a flawed human being and a teetering socio-economic system, as well as one that is layered with profound themes. The cadence of the author's writing is also of note, as it rhythmically lends itself to the telling of the story, giving it a very distinct voice. No doubt the author's writing style was influenced by her own immersion in Chinese culture, as she grew up and lived in China, the daughter of missionaries.

This is the story of the cyclical nature of life, of the passions and desires that motivate a human being, of good and evil, and of the desire to survive and thrive against great odds. It begins with the story of an illiterate, poor, peasant farmer, Wang Lung, who ventures from the rural countryside and goes to town to the great house of Hwang to obtain a bride from those among the rank of slave. There, he is given the slave O-lan as his bride.

Selfless, hardworking, and a bearer of sons, the plain-faced O-lan supports Wang Lung's veneration of the land and his desire to acquire more land. She stays with him through thick and thin, through famine and very lean times, working alongside him on the land, making great sacrifices, and raising his children. As a family, they weather the tumultuousness of pre-revolutionary China in the 1920s, only to find themselves the recipient of riches beyond their dreams. At the first opportunity, they buy land from the great house of Hwang, whose expenses appear to be exceeding their income.

With the passing of time, Wang Lung buys more and more land from the house of Hwang, until he owns it all, as his veneration of the land is always paramount. With O-lan at this side, his family continues to prosper. His life becomes more complicated, however, the richer he gets. Wang Lung then commits a life-changing act that pierces O-lan's heart in the most profoundly heartbreaking way.

As the years pass, his sons become educated and literate, and the family continues to prosper. With the great house of Hwang on the skids, an opportunity to buy their house, the very same house from where he had fetched O-lan many years ago, becomes available. Pressed upon to buy that house by his sons, who do not share Wang Lung's veneration for the land and rural life, he buys the house. The country mice now have become the city mice.

This is a potent story, brimming with irony, yet simply told against a framework of mounting social change. It is a story that stands as a parable in many ways and is one that certainly should be read. It illustrates the timeless dichotomy between the young and the old, the old and the new, and the rich and the poor. It is no wonder that this beautifully written book won a Pulitzer Prize and is considered a classic masterpiece. Bravo!


Rating:
Summary: A Remarkable Story
Review: This is a well thought out story with a certain balance and symmetry. In many ways it is a classic tale of rags to riches but in a turn of the century pre-revolutionary Chinese agrarian setting. Although the book is now over 70 years old, it remains fresh and is a compelling and surprisingly good read. No wonder the book brought fame and fortune to the author including a Nobel Prize.

I have recently attempted to fill in a few literary holes in my background and as such have read a number of the well known novels such as Kerouac's On the Road, Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, and A Clockwork Orange by the well known British writer Anthony Burgess, to name a few. Many of these books are interesting and of course they are all well written. Kerouac's book and Burgess's Clockwork Orange have certain novelty factors in the tempo and the sentence structures and the vocabulary. Steinbeck's writing gives a very detailed description of the smallest details and it is fascinating to read his works but at the same time depressing because the characters suffer without a hope for the future (at least in the Grapes of Wrath).

What is interesting here is the combination of rural Chinese customs with a universal story of man, his goals, determination in the face of adversity, and the common mistakes that men and women make generation after generation. The main character is a young but poor farmer Wang Lung who is working a family plot. He is poor but ambitious and he marries a young but unattrative and hard working wife O-lan who is equally ambitious. Together they develop and expand a small plot of land until they become a leading family and landowners in a small Chinese town. It is a one generation rags to riches story going from a couple that cannot afford to buy shoes to the family patriarch and his sons that can live off the rental income of many farms. The story remains focused on Wang Lung from his late teen years to his early seventies; it covers the death of O-lan and ends just before his death. Included are the details of how the other family members and relatives handle the finacial success. It is a beautifully written book with lots of local color and detail about timeless and universal problems of life.

It is a book that everyone should read and I am very pleased to have been reminded by other Amazon.com reviewers that it is an excellent book, and took their recommendations to read this classic. By the way, this printing contains a short 20 page biography of Pearl Buck, and has a collection of black and white photographs of Buck and sample period photographs of rural China. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a good novel.

Jack in Toronto