Rating: 
Summary: Still on my mind after 9 years!
Review: I first read this book in 1989 for an English class in the 9th grade. I was surprised at how this book captured my attention! The culture, being so different from mine, is so captivating. The author also captures the heart of the reader by allowing us to to really see into the hearts and minds of the characters. Kudos to Buck! I've read this book 3 times already. As I get older, I begin to notice new things and really understand all the pleasure and pain. I love it when a book moves me!
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I am in the ninth grade, and just read Pearl Buck's, The Good Earth, and I really enjoyed it. From a student's point of view, the book was not only an excellent literary work, but also a great source as far as Chinese history goes. I found it to be historically accurate the way Wang Lung treats O-Lan and his children, and the customs and such that the characters follow.The whole book was just a pleasure to read. The Good Earth is simply a masterpiece for students and adults to enjoy and really learn about Chinese culture. I would surely recommend this book to anyone looking for a quality, well-written book!
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Summary: I had forgotten . . .
Review: what a book really is, what it really does until I read THE GOOD EARTH. Surely somewhere back in high school I'd combed over it along with the other books on the list, but this time, with a little living behind me, I could appreciate it, accepting its gifts. The first gift was the reminder that a book is not a movie on the page. Even with our short attention spans gorged on TV and computers (myself included) and our starved imaginations, taking the time to think through a book like this raises the mind from its slumber. An ordinary tale of a Chinese peasant who goes from a poor farmer purchasing a slave from a rich man to a rich man himself, THE GOOD EARTH, shows the cycles of mankind with all their rejoicing and regrets. There are no contrived right turns or easy wrap-ups, neither for the land-thirsty Wang Lung or the reader who follows his journey. I think I will spend this summer revisting my high school AP reading list and be much better for it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good and solid
Review: "The Good Earth" is justly called a classic. Its straightforward language makes it a breezy read, while its scope remains broad, telling more or less an entire life story. The story is notable for its painstaking, flat realism; its tone remains almost the same whether its protagonist Wang Lung, a peasant farmer, is in good times of prosperity or harsh times of near-starvation, whether he expresses his good side (honesty, hard work, kindness) or his bad side (indulgence, anger, thoughtlessness). For all his faults, we end up caring about the main character. In this the book is a very human, and apparently realistic, view of turn-of-the century China. The cyclical and ever-changing fortunes of its characters mirror the cycles of the land for which the book is named. Somehow the story remains engrossing as it rambles on for page after page about matters both large and small in one man's life. Despite a few inconsistencies (at one point it says "many years later" and proceeds to describe something that is happening in the very same year), loose ends (why did Pear Blossom hate men so?) and frequent stylistic repetitions ("of this and of that," "well, and..."), the book holds up as sturdily in the long run as the land itself.
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Summary: Land Ties
Review: The Good Earth was considered the masterpiece of Pearl S. Buck. It was only one out of dozens of books that she wrote. Buck lived in China for most of her childhood and many of her books were about the Chinese culture. The Good Earth follows the life of one farmer, Wang Lung, who begins as a poor peasant, and follows him through his hardships and triumphs. The book portrays the land as a vital part of Chinese culture, and shows that there is a special bond between a man and his land. To the Chinese farmers land meant life and without it they would surely die. Chinese civilization rested on the backs of their farmers. At the beginning of the story it is Wang Lung's wedding day and he described it as the "Earth would bear fruit" to show that having a good family is the same as having good land. After he was married good fortune came to him and his wife gave birth to a son which led to even more good fortune. After a good harvest Wang Lung was able to buy land from the House of Hwang, which was the one of the Great Houses and was very wealthy, and "this parcel of land became to Wang Lung a sign and a symbol". This event showed the rise of his family's prosperity with the expansion of his land. The Chinese saw the birth of a man child as good luck and the birth of a girl child as bad luck " He groaned aloud. It was an evil omen". Even in times of famine he still refuses to sell his land because he feels that without it he has no life. After the famine, they returned to their land Wang Lung's wife ,Olan, brought back many jewels and with those jewels he bought more land and he made his sons work "at what labor their little hands could do" to make sure that his sons did not become lazy and spend too much like in the House of Hwang. When his family became wealthy, Wang Lung bought another wife and he spent time on her instead of caring for his land, but in the end his love for his land prevailed " Then a voice cried out in him, a voice deeper than love cried out in him for his land.". This characterizes Wang Lung as always caring about his land first and pleasures second even though sometimes he falters his land remains the most important possession in the end. His land was a place away from troubles and worries " For seven days he thought of nothing but his land, and he was healed of his troubles and his fears", his land healed him and the earth was like a mother to him and helped him recover. After he left his house on the land his troubles began again and because he had become separated from his land he was no longer as strong so his troubles returned. At the end of the book his children are grown and he even has grandchildren but Wang Lung is scared to leave because his children will sell the land and "if you sell the land, it is the end". At the end of the book the land is still a symbol of life to Wang Lung and his children plot behind his back to still sell the land out of their own selfishness. So at the end of the book his own house has become like the Great House of Hwang and is in a stage of collapse because of his children's disrespect for their land. In The Good Earth the land symbolizes life and plays an important part in Chinese culture and the bond between man and land is clearly portrayed. Pearl Buck has written over seventy books and The Good Earth is a part of a series about Wang Lung and his life. I think people that like reading stories about Asian culture and a families rise to wealth.
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Summary: An unknown classic.
Review: "The Good Earth" is tragic and makes you feel good about yourself and what you have. Pearl S. Buck wrote Wang Lung, in opinion, as a man who started out as a simple man, but became a selfish man who didn't want to worry himself over anything. In doing so, it severed his family. I became disgusted with him when he took in Lotus, and was tempted to stop reading the book. But, I had gone that far, so I went further. His sleeping with Pear Blossom made me nauseous. I don't know if I'll read the rest of the trilogy, but this book was interesting, nonetheless. I recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Ill-Advertised, yet Poignant and Wise
Review: It must be admitted that I read this book for my high school Sophomore Honors English class, and that I had heard mixed reviews. Thus, I began reading this book without any expectations. However much my classmates incessantly wine about their hatred for "classics," I tend to love them. THE GOOD EARTH proved no exception.
However, I did find the Introduction to this edition quite misleading. I read it before starting the book itself, and it prepared me for something which the book did not deliver, in my opinion. The Introduction claimed that Pearl S. Buck had, with this book, dispelled myths and stereotypes surrounding the Chinese culture and history. However, I found, especially in the opening of THE GOOD EARTH, that she did just the opposite. Portraying Chinese women as close-minded and simple through her heart-rendering character O-lan and in some ways making the male main character, Wang Lung, seem stupid and naive only built upon the pre-conceived stereotypes many Westerners are thought to have toward the Chinese.
While I do understand that, with this book, Pearl S. Buck attempted to portray the Chinese people as normal humans dealing with the same hardships and triumphs as everyone else, it is also my personal opinion that she went a bit too far in this endeavor.
It also must be taken into account, though, that Pearl Buck wrote this book when ignorance about Asia and its people was perhaps more acute than it is today, and in some ways those far removed from the Chinese culture probably did learn something about the people and their ways of life. In this, Buck has certainly triumphed.
And despite the Introduction which I view as being misleading, I did find this book rich in some aspects of history as well as fulfilling and wise. I viewed THE GOOD EARTH as a parable, and thus as a fully-developed story in which one can find little pearls of knowledge as well as insight into the Chinese culture.
This said, I truly enjoyed THE GOOD EARTH and would recommend it to anyone. The characters, as the book goes on, become more well-developed and do not appear as simple as they did in the opening of the book. The hardships of pre-revolutionary China are subtly revealed, while readers become familiar with the lives of an ordinary, hard-working Chinese man and his family.
At times, Buck's characters infuriated me, at times they made me cry, and I even experienced a few bouts of laughter while reading THE GOOD EARTH.
In summation, I feel that THE GOOD EARTH is a classic for a reason. Of course, it is flawed, but it also affords its readers great insight into the culture and history of the Chinese people and is additionally a wonderful, wise, and poignant story.
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Summary: An excellent story of pre-revolutionary China
Review: Pearl S. Buck's novel of China at the turn of the 20th century, seen through the eyes of one peasant family, is a masterpiece of contemporary literature. It's the rags-to-riches story of Wang Lung, a subsistence farmer whose aged father purchases a wife for him to bring him children to carry on the family line. The old man finds him a wife who spent her childhood as a servant in a rich house. O-lan was too homely to be raped by the rich master or his sons, but her virginity is prized by the old man and Wang Lung. She is the perfect wife for the younger man, hardworking, self-denying, bearing him children with clockwork regularity. For a few years, the family prospers. But a peasant farmer is always at the mercy of the elements, and a disastrous drought sends them south to beg in the streets for their survival. A chance find of a rich man's hidden treasure by O-lan means not only their salvation, but the end of poverty. Wang Lung brings his family home to prosperity and buys more land to consolidate his wealth; eventually, he owns the house and land of the same wealthy man who sold him O-lan. But as Wang Lung's fortunes prosper, he undergoes an insidious transformation. A rich man like him has no need for an ugly peasant wife like O-lan. He buys himself a concubine and sets her up in his house. Ashamed of his own illiteracy, he sends his sons to school. They grow up rich and spoiled, and take rich, spoiled wives. The sons don't want to work on the land; they look down their noses at the peasant class they came from. The family moves into the big house the rich man used to live in, and to the discomfiture and resentment of the villagers, Wang Lung becomes every day more like the rich man he so resented when he was poor himself, despising the unwashed masses. It is only as he grows old that Wang Lung's ties to the land assert themselves above everything else; his sole wish is to die in his father's home on the farm he grew up in. It's the curse of his life that his sons are indifferent to the land he loves. Pearl Buck was raised in China and her love of the land and its people is evident throughout the book. Through her story of Wang Lung and his family we see the beginnings of the transformation of China from an agricultural to an industrial society and the profound changes this will bring on the country and its society. She continued the story through two sequels, but neither has the simple power and brilliance of the first. "The Good Earth" is her finest book.
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Summary: Book Review for "The Good Earth"
Review: ¡§The Good Earth¡¨ is a classic book people definitely from all ages have to read. The language isn¡¦t too complicated to understand, but Pearl Buck uses vivid details and descriptions to inform the reader the entire life of the main character, Wang Lung. Through this book, Pearl Buck takes you into another dimension, back in time while China was encountering the Boxers Rebellion. She reveals to you the pain and agony the majority of the population were experiencing. The book portrays the life of Wang Lung, the protagonist of the book. He is a peasant farmer, who goes through the stages of affluence and property. From a well-off farmer with a few properties, to being forced to leave his hometown with nothing but his cow and family. Forced to start a new living in another area, he strives to support his children and wife with a new job. The family worked together to rebuild their lives, as they gradually found prosperity through the pre-revolutionary China in the 1920s. In the end, Wang Lung buys more property from the house of Hwang, where his loyal wife, O-lan used to work in. Their family has finally come back on track, and climbed all the way to the top, with children well educated, and wealthy.
Reading this book allows me to feel very relaxed because it doesn¡¦t make me feel as if it is another school-required, tedious, book; with incomprehensible language that always requires a dictionary at hand. It allows the reader to comprehend a different culture people hundreds of years ago lived like. I enjoyed this book greatly, and recommend to all readers who are patient enough for one excellent detailed story. In addition, readers who long for a meaningful, relaxing, educational, detailed, and exciting book to read.
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Summary: Pride Leadeth to a Fall
Review: This is a well-crafted, complex tale of a man's rise from povery and subsistence to wealth, and the metamorphosis this transitions brings about in his personality and interpersonal relationships. The more he rises, the more he loses, and the ending is inevitable and predictable to everyone but him. The story is very detailed and should not be tackled by impatient readers. But, the detail that makes this story a challenge also brings the reader into a different time, a different culture, a different belief-system. Reading "The Good Earth" gives the reader as much of a taste of an alien, unfamiliar world as any well-written science fiction, other-planet novel.
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