The Good Earth (Oprah's Book Club)

by Pearl S. Buck

Paperback, 2004

Collection

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Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML: This Pulitzer Prize-winning classic tells the poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the land and its workers; but they will soon meet their own downfall. Hard times come upon Wang Lung and his family when flood and drought force them to seek work in the city. The working people riot, breaking into the homes of the rich and forcing them to flee. When Wang Lung shows mercy to one noble and is rewarded, he begins to rise in the world, even as the House of Hwang falls..

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(3205 ratings; 4)

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LibraryThing member Smiler69
"And what will we do with a pretty woman? We must have a woman who will tend the house and bear children as she works in the fields, and will a pretty woman do these things? She will be forever thinking about clothes to go with her face! No, not a pretty woman in our house. We are farmers.
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Moreover, who has heard of a pretty slave who was virgin in a wealthy house? All the young lords have had their fill of her. It is better to be first with an ugly woman than the hundredth with a beauty."

When we meet Wang Lung, he is a poor farmer taking care of his elderly father. On this day he is preparing for a special event: today is the day he will go get himself a wife, and he looks forward to his new life, when he will no longer have to boil the water for his father to drink in the morning, nor have to prepare food, nor clean house, as there will finally be a woman by his side to take care of all these things. Wang Lung feels in a celebratory mood, so he puts a few tea leaves in his father's water and goes as far as taking a bath, even as his father objects to such waste and luxury. Indeed, what if the new wife comes to expect these things? All the same, Wang Lung has in mind to have a feast that night and works out that with his few coins, he might be able to afford some meat and even perhaps to get a shave from a barber. He makes his way to the town, and eventually presents himself to the great House of Hwang, which is owned by a wealthy family, and where even the man who guards the gate makes him feel inferior. Wang Lung is there to collect O Lan, the woman who is to be his wife. O Lan has been a slave in the kitchens of this house for the better part of her life, which is all a man in Wang Lungs's position can expect for a wife. O Lan will sacrifice herself completely for her husband and the family she gives him, as is expected of a woman in China in these pre-revolutionary days. And so we follow this family and the great saga that unfolds in clear and simple prose that belies the complexity of human relations, the great struggles and changes, and the timeless themes explored in this novel which well deserves to be regarded as a masterpiece of the twentieth century. Pearl S. Buck said she only wrote about what she knew, and that China was all she knew about, and part of her genius is in creating a story set in a China known to few people in the West, with it's people and customs and values so very foreign and strange to a modern Western reader, yet exploring universal themes which make us empathize with the characters and live through their struggles right alongside them. A thoroughly enjoyable reading experience, this novel deserves to be read at least once.
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LibraryThing member jolerie
Wang Lung is an average Chinese farmer whose life and livelihood is tied to the land. His father and his father before him were all farmers and in their footsteps, Wang Lung attempts to build a life that will hopefully, god-willingly, one day provide a better life for his sons after him. O-lan is
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his plain looking, humble, and industrious wife who bears her burdens silently alongside her husband. Her hope is to provide Wang Lung with heirs to carry on the family name and to be impeccable in her duties as a filial wife and mother. There is nothing spectacular about the family, nothing that sets them apart from the millions of other farmers and their families trying to scrape a life out of the land, but it is their common story, their common griefs and joys, that resonates and speaks of a world long past but deeply unforgettable.

I have always been mesmerize by the stories of Ancient China. There are folklores, legends and myths galore that speak of virtues, morality, and ethics, and yet this story of one family and their struggle to thrive, speaks volumes about the values that the Chinese culture holds in high regards - filial duties, perseverance, honesty, and long-suffering. All those aspects make The Good Earth a compelling read, worthy of all the accolades and awards that it has garnered, but at the heart of it all, it is a story of human weakness, human frailties, human expectations, and how the human spirit is the rarest gift, worth cherishing and passing onto the next generation.
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LibraryThing member emily_morine
Reading The Good Earth was a clarifying experience for me: Pearl S. Buck's novel is a famous and well-executed example of a mode of novel-writing that I personally dislike, and as such, it helped me understand my position towards books like it. Buck is quoted, on the back of my edition, as having
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said "I can only write what I know, and I know nothing but China, having always lived there." To me this seems exactly true: the story of farmer Wang Lung and his wife O-Lan is about China, not about individuals who happen to be Chinese. It reads, to me, as more of an educational primer on traditional Chinese culture than a novel about real people. Wang Lung functions as a kind of Platonic ideal of pre-revolutionary Chinese peasantry (and, later, of pre-revolutionary Chinese wealth); every impulse or priority he possesses can be generalized to the populace at large. So he is healed and sustained by his connection to the land, because his culture lives by the agricultural economy of the time. He seeks a sturdy, hard-working wife because these are the qualities generally prized in peasant women, and spares a moment of regret that she cannot be pretty, because everyone desires physical attractiveness in a partner. He exults in her ability to bear sons because males are valued in traditional Chinese culture, and fears as a bad omen when she bears a girl, because females are culturally devalued. He works hard, because the peasantry is hard-working. He yearns to buy land and take the place of the formerly-grand family in his district, because he lives in a hierarchical social structure and all those on the bottom would rather be on the top. And so on.

Even Wang Lung's flaws and weaknesses are presented as typical, rather than exceptional. As he amasses wealth he starts spending more frivolously, as upper-class people (according to this analysis) typically do. One year, when the land is flooded and can't be worked, he becomes restless and snappish, eventually going into town and becoming enamored of a young prostitute. The implication is that when the Chinese peasants have money to spend and are not working the land, they will get into trouble:

"Now if the waters had at this time receded from Wang Lung's land, leaving it wet and smoking under the sun, so that in a few days of summer heat it would need to have been ploughed and harrowed and seed put in, Wang Lung might never have gone again to the great tea shop. Or if a child had fallen ill or the old man had reached suddenly the end of his days, Wang Lung might have been caught up in the new thing and so forgotten the pointed face upon the scroll and the body of the woman slender as bamboo.

"But the waters lay placid and unmoved except for the slight summer wind that rose at sunset, and the old man dozed and the two boys trudged to school at dawn and were away until evening and in his house Wang Lung was restless and he avoided the eyes of O-lan who looked at him miserably as he went here and there and flung himself down in a chair and rose from it without drinking the tea she poured and without smoking the pipe he had lit. At the end of one long day, more long than any other, in the seventh month, when the twilight lingered murmurous and sweet with the breath of the lake, he stood at the door of his house, and suddenly without a word he turned abruptly and went into his room and put on his new coat, even the coat of black shining cloth, as shining almost as silk, that O-lan made for feast days, and with no word to anyone he went through the fields until he came to the darkness of the city gate and through this he went and through the streets until he came to the new tea shop."

Wang Lung's behavior and mental health always suffer when he is away from the land, and he is always healed as soon as he gets back to working it - because, again, the life blood of the peasantry is the land, and Wang Lung is the ultimate peasant. When he finds economic success and moves to the town (because his society prizes those from the town over those from the country), he feels less happy and present: "Everything seemed not so good to him as it was before." Here is the Protestant idea, shared by Maoists and embodied by Wang Lung, that true virtue and happiness consists in hard, manual labor, and the pursuit of material opulence is a false quest.

O-lan, similarly, is the Platonic Chinese peasant wife: she is made unhappy by Wang Lung's new consort, but she bears it humbly because that is what's expected from her, only exercising her culturally-mandated prerogative to cut the second woman when she sees her. She bears each child alone and silently, returning to the fields later the same day, because the ideal wife labors beside her husband without complaint. When Wang Lung begins to amass wealth, she binds the feet of their daughter because the feet of upper-class women are bound. She is an excellent household administrator, because a wife should be, but she never makes herself conspicuous, because women should keep a low profile. Et cetera.

There's nothing wrong with this type of storytelling; some people like their characters to seem universal in this particular way. This story-type was very popular in the socialist-minded 1930's (The Good Earth came out in 1931), because it so neatly prioritizes class conflict and typically glorifies the working classes, in addition to being written in a widely-accessible style. Personally, I find it's not to my taste. I am probably displaying my western-ness in my preference for stories with highly individualized characters who are engaged in more complex and subtle ways with the mores of their societies. Nevertheless, Buck's novel is well-written, with a quiet, well-balanced plot, and I can understand its enduring popularity even if it won't become a favorite of mine.
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LibraryThing member writestuff
Pearl Buck's novel The Good Earth was published in 1931 and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932. It has been surrounded by controversy (mostly in China where Buck's work was banned for many years because of the perceived vilification of the Chinese people and their leaders). Having arrived in China as the
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child of missionaries, Buck grew to love the country. In 1935 she returned to the United States with hope of one day returning to the Orient...but this was never to be. She was denounced by the Chinese government in 1960 as "a proponent of American cultural imperialism." Later, just nine months before her death, her visa to return to the country of her childhood was denied. In 1938 she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature.

The Good Earth is the saga of Wang Lung, who is a poor farmer dependent on the land for his survival, and his extended family. The novel begins with this complex character as a young man when he marries a slave girl, and then follows him as he grows into a man with a family and wealth beyond his imaginings. Wang Lung is a man with a compassionate heart. I was touched by the love of his children, especially that of his developmentally delayed oldest daughter who he calls "the poor fool." In one scene, the family is faced with starvation and Wang Lung gives up his own food for his daughter...something that would have been highly unusual at that time in China.Later, as he gains wealth, Wang Lung loses his path - and his inner goodness is challenged.

Wang Lung's pragmatic wife O-Lan represents the strength of the Chinese women during a time when women were considered to be a man's possession and slave. Throughout the novel, the idea of the cyclical nature of life is repeated, establishing a natural rhythm for the story.

Buck writes in simple prose which reads more like the oral tradition of story telling than a novel. Her understanding of character is evident throughout - and no character is all good or all evil.

I immediately was captivated by Buck's story; and even though at times the abuse and mistreatment of women was hard to read, I found I could not put the book down for long.

Buck wrote two sequels to The Good Earth: Sons (1931) and A House Divided (1935). I have put both on my wish list for future reading.

The Good Earth is a book I can highly recommend for its insight into Chinese culture during the early part of the 20th century, and for its high readability.
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LibraryThing member theokester
My sister-in-law recommended this book after she read it (having found it on one of those "100 best books you must read" lists). I must admit to not knowing much of anything about Chinese history or culture, nor about the author. So I went into this book with a clean slate in terms of
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expectations.

The writing style is clean and simple while being complex at the same time. The sentence structures were particularly complex with very long meandering sentences. I found myself wondering if the sentence and paragraph style/structure was something of a commentary on Chinese existence as much as the plot and characters.

The characters are intriguing if a little flat at some times. The main character, Wang Lung, is a vivid character with a lot of inner reflection on how life works and how things should be. His wife, O-Lan, is more distanced from us but still has vital importance and as such is very interesting.

The overall story follows Wang Lung's life over many years…from late youth (his wedding) all the way through his death. There is a lot of exploration of Chinese traditions, family structures, social structures and life in general. I've read some commentary on the book that praises the accuracy of the level of detail for early 1900s China. To me it was both refreshing and enlightening to see many similarities between agrarian China and agrarian America. While there are certainly many differentiators, I found myself reflecting on books set around farm/land workers in America or Britain and finding many similarities of tone and feeling.

The uniquely Chinese elements were naturally foreign to me but the author did a great job of providing adequate detail and description to help me understand them easily. I appreciated that these descriptions were not merely expository but came in through natural commentary, internal monologue or action. It enabled me to feel like I was learning something about China without sitting through a social studies lecture.

The story arc certainly had its depressive and frustrating moments. It was heartbreaking to see Wang Lung's livelihood fall apart due to changes in the weather. It was harsh to see him scrape for survival. It was just as (or even more) heart wrenching to see his behavior once times changed and he was able to return to his farming and become very successful. The numerous plot twists that tore at his family made for very interesting reading. I found myself alternately feeling bad for Wang Lung and despising the things he was doing. As the pages turned, I moved between pitying him and praising him.

While this isn't a book I had heard of before and isn't necessarily the type of thing I would seek out, I was glad to have it recommended and I'm glad to have read it. It is a well written book that provides an educational overview of Chinese life while being emotionally stirring and intriguing. It provides many great illustrations of the pain and suffering felt while scraping by at the edge of poverty and striving to overcome hardships…coupled with the difficulties of balancing familial respect with personal self-worth and pride.

I can say that this book certainly wouldn't be for everyone. It's not offensive (at least as far as I can tell with my westernized ideals) but the content and tone could be a barrier to some readers. Comparing it to Western literature, I could see it in a similar vein with John Steinbeck or Thomas Hardy. To me, it felt similar in tone and content. If you're interested in Chinese culture and life, or find yourself intrigued by the realistic hardship of life in the late 1800s/early 1900s, give The Good Earth a try. I think you'll enjoy it.

****
4 out of 5 stars
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LibraryThing member agnesmack
This book had it all - rape, arranged marriage, eating babies during famine! It encompassed about 50 years of a man in China who was just trying to make it in this damn world. I was fascinated. Basically, he starts out with a tiny plot of land, goes bankrupt, buys his land and a hell of a lot more
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land, becomes wealthy and falls. There's a lot about his attachment to the land and what it means to him. While I'm not into land ownership (that whole pesky Socialist thing rearing it's head...) I definitely loved how attached he was and how much it meant to him. I would recommend this book but it will seriously f*ck with your head. Seriously, THEY EAT BABIES!
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LibraryThing member herebedragons
#105, 2004

This is the current Oprah bookclub selection, so I decided to read it along with the millions of others who'll be reading it now. It was a beautifully written book, very evocative (for me, anyway) of its setting - pre-Revolutionary China, during the reign of the last emperor. It's an
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interesting look at the life of a country farmer, Wang Lung, and his family.

My Overall Review . . . with a a few SPOILERS

I really enjoyed reading this book, however, I found that I didn't completely lose myself in it because I had such difficulty with Wang Lung himself. He was often a really awful person, but I can't decide whether or not I'm judging him too harshly, considering that he is a product of his environment. Somehow, that particular argument has never really satisfied me. Just because you live in a sexist society where women are considered slaves, doesn't make it right for you to treat your own wife as one. Especially because it was clear that, at times, even Wang Lung himself questioned his behaviour and his attitudes. However, he usually (always?) ended up sweeping his doubts back "under the rug," found a way to rationalise his behaviour, and continued on as before, which I found greatly disappointing. I was also disturbed by the disrespect that he showed to his gods . . . particularly the earth gods. Such fickleness and disrespect does not speak well for one's character.

I also found him somewhat unlikable because of his excessive pride, and because of the hypocrasy he showed in so many areas of his life. Again, was he merely a man of his times? I think that in order to really connect with this book, I would have liked to have seen either Wang Lung go through a powerul and lasting transformation, or even to have received a more tangible come-uppance. Of course, this would have changed the whole focus of the book. As it is, it's a lovely "snapshot" of this man and his life in a particular era of Chinese history. As such, it is beautiful. I just disliked Wang Lung enough that the positive things about the book weren't quite enough to satisfy me on the whole, and make me able to really love it.

Bookclub questions and LJ Discussion
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LibraryThing member imperfectionist
Wang Lung and O-lan is a poor couple in rural China who both work hard to support their family. With some luck and help from his wife, Wang Lung is able to build his fortune and eventually becomes a wealthy, respected lord with three sons.

As Wang Lung ascended to his wealth, he left a lot of his
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past behind, becoming a different person; he becomes more arrogant and superficial in contrast to his past humble and simple self. Unfortunately, this change in personality only drives him to yearning for peace and contentment later on, proving that money really does not buy happiness. However, what remains consistent with Wang Lung throughout the story is his loyalty to the land; it is the land that makes him rich, explaining the title "The Good Earth".

I had to read The Good Earth for English this year, and truthfully, I was horrified by it from beginning to end. I understood the messages of the book, but I could never relate to the protagonist. I just couldn't bring myself to enjoy the book, and it wasn't a book I would have chosen if I had a choice. Wang Lung emotionally mistreats O-lan just because of his poor opinion for her looks, despite her faithfulness to him and her effort to support the family. As he became wealthier, he buys a concubine for himself, Lotus Flower, who he treats like a goddess. Lotus Flower, in turn, acts as a spoiled brat, sucking up his wealth. Because of Wang Lung's character, it was hard for me to feel sorry for him during his misfortunate times.

The characters were well-fleshed out and complex; perhaps, it was because they were so real to me that I was horrified by the novel. It had many strong themes, the strongest one (to me) telling about the power of wealth and corruption.

This wasn't a horrible book, but perhaps it wasn't the book for me.
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LibraryThing member jwhenderson
I have been rereading The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. For many years this well-known novel was an unexplained void in the inventory of books that I had read. Yet, in less than two years I find myself having read and reread this amazing novel. It is amazing for several reasons, not the least of which
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is the deceptive simplicity of its' style. The story begins on Wang Lung's wedding day and he remains in the fore of the novel presented to the reader by the narrator as the hero of the story. However, I began to grow gradually fonder of O-lan as the story progressed. Her dedication to the marriage in almost complete silence and fortitude in both work and bearing and raising the children provided her an almost mythical aura. The most moving moments of the book come when she fights to prevent her young daughter from being sold into slavery, when she is forced to give up her pearls, and when she dies. Even in death she continued to demonstrate a stoical character that made me wonder at its power and source. Surely this was not simply the result of her determination to never return to the slavery that she endured as a youth in the great house of the Wangs.

But I said that the simple style was deceptive and by that I meant that hidden in the simple every day events, and a few that were not so common, is a picture of a culture and ethos that Wang Lung and his family lived. The work ethic of Wang Lung and his devotion to the land, "the good earth", that would keep him and his family safe was part of this culture. The depth and contrasting relationships within the family and without are displayed slowly, simply, through the actions taken and events that impinge on Wang Lung.

There is more to this story than these events and actions alone can account for. There is the action of fate through the impact of the cycles of the weather that lead to famine for those, like Wang Lung, dependent on the earth. The patronymic "good earth" turns ironic when the land lays fallow for lack of rain or the crops rot because of flooding. The vicissitudes of their life find the family of Wang Lung fleeing to the South to escape the famine, but they do not have the skills to successfully cope in the city where they end up begging until saved, through another turn of fate, by the war and the looting of the wealthy landowner's estate. It is this event that becomes a turning point in the lives of Wang Lung and O-lan as through their own loot of gold and jewels they are able to establish what will become a different life than the simple farm that they left when they fled to the South. It is this different life that, among other things, ultimately changes the family in ways that seem to prove the adage about the corrupting effect of power.

Ultimately The Good Earth is a morality tale, a parable-like story that suggests the dreams of avarice demand that the price paid is more than the silver and gold traded for land and mistresses. While most of the story seems steeped in a combination of ancestor worship and attention to evil spirits and omens, there was one episode that I found reminiscent of a parable in the New Testament when just as O-lan is dying the eldest son is recalled to be married. The celebration upon and importance of his return can have no other antecedent than the return of the prodigal son. Perhaps that moment along with others in the closing section of the novel are precursors of changes in the future greater than any experienced by Wang Lung and his family. I do not know how true the book is to the culture of pre-revolutionary China, but I do know that the beauty of the earth and the story reward its readers.
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LibraryThing member lauralkeet
Pearl Buck's classic novel is an epic portrayal of agrarian China near the turn of the twentieth century, leading up to the 1912 Revolution. The novel opens on the wedding day of Wang Lung, a poor farmer. His wife, O-lan, has spent her youth as a slave for a wealthy family in town. Up to this time,
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Wang Lung has had to care for his father in addition to farming the land, and he is simply glad to have someone to cook, clean, and tend to his father while he works the land. His relationship with O-lan develops, in a traditional way, as she bears him children and works with him in the fields. During a time of widespread crop failure, they migrate to a southern city and learn to survive in far different conditions. But the pull of the land is strong, and eventually Wang Lung and his family return to their home town and prosper as farmers and landowners.

Over the years the family experiences birth, death, marriage, and war; happiness as well as suffering. Buck brings the characters of Wang Lung, O-lan, and their children to life. Wang Lung could be rather distasteful by modern, western standards, even when he was simply trying to provide the best for his family. At other times, he was motivated by selfish desires and made decisions which would be harmful viewed through any cultural lens. And I felt sorry for O-lan, who was helpless under his partriarchal rule.

Towards the end of The Good Earth, Wang Lung prepares to pass his land to his sons, just as China is preparing to pass over into a new era of its own. My edition of this book included a reader's supplement with cultural notes and photos of weddings, markets, and ordinary people which helped bring the story and the time period to life. This book is more than just an epic family saga, it also paints a fascinating picture of the life and customs of a country on the brink of dramatic change.
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LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
Okay, it's come to my attention that "carpetbagger" doesn't mean what I thought it did, but what I meant to convey by using that word in my original review is that Pearl S. Buck used her quasi-insider status as the children of missionaries growing up in China (speaking Chinese and all, but only
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because she picked it up from her amah or whatever) to sell a putative special access to the "real" Inner Workings of the Middle Kingdom, and this book is powerful in a James Michener/Edward Rutherfurd epic sweep/small lives kind of way, but it borrows so much Biblical cadence and dips sometimes into Chinasploitation (the stuff about how women are "only slaves" and a girl child is a moderate letdown, I mean, I wasn't there and I don't doubt that it's true--I understand such attitudes persist--but my spidey sense seems to feel that Pearl S. Buck is playing it up, emphasizing it a bit more than needed both as a way of shoehorning in exposition of the "Wang Lung, as you know a girl is only a slave and not as good as a boy, but still, congratulations from me, your neighbour Ching! Thank you for the hardboiled egg" kind, and also as a way of cloaking salacious exoticism in realism, of course). This still makes it a fairly enjoyable light realist read as long as you don't take Pearl S. Buck for the final authority on China in the early 20th century or god forbid, "the Chinese" as a whole, but in this day and age, who would? (Read Lu Xun!) It also makes the introduction and reviews included here an uncomfortable experience, as the Chinese and Korean reviewers who took issue with some of Buck's depiction of Chinese culture and Asian mores are dismissed in sneering fashion by a consensus of snooty Ivy League professors (in tweed) and degenerate New York critics (seersucker) and also when Pearl S. Buck herself joins in to do the same (in some kind of dress that goes from neck to ankle, as I imagine her), asserting perfunctorily, since she knows the US literary establishment will back her to the hilt kneejerk fashion, that Chinese writers who quibble with her portrayal are just bourgeois reactionaries who don't want to admit their glorious civilization has such a thing as a peasantry. And granted, there is likely a grain of truth in that too; but the effortless assumption on the part of the everybody of the day that this was the Great Chinese Novel and only an American could write it really could only seem socially progressive in the context of a recent past where novelists referred to the Chinese as "celestials," inscrutable, etc.
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LibraryThing member ghneumann
Once upon a time, many if not most people lived a predominantly agrarian lifestyle. You were born on a farm, you lived on a farm, you died on a farm, and while you were alive you ate the food you grew. Money for things you couldn't grow came from selling the things that did. And then the Industrial
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Revolution happened, and cities boomed, and no matter how much presidential candidates like to say the opposite when they're spending time in Iowa at the beginning of the campaign cycle, the era of the small family farm is effectively over and it's never coming back. That's not to say that no one in America lives on a family farm anymore, obviously, but the numbers are small and declining every year.

Besides Iowa, why is it that we romanticize those days so much? For my money, there's a very profound appeal of a time when it seemed like life was so much simpler, when you worked with your hands to get what you needed. Especially in this day and age, where I'm sitting at a desk typing this into a computer, but the sentimental attachment to that time seems to have been around for quite a while, because when Pearl Buck won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Good Earth, the Dust Bowl hadn't even happened yet.

The Good Earth takes place in China in the early 1900s, and tells the story of the rise and subsequent decline of Wang Lung. A peasant farmer, the book opens with his marriage to O-Lan, a former slave for the Hwang family (the wealthiest landowners in the town close to where Wang Lung lives). O-Lan is not beautiful or clever, but she's just as hard of a worker as Wang Lung himself, and together the two of them manage to run his farm well enough that they are able to buy some of the Hwang's lands. They have two sons, but just after their first daughter is born, a terrible famine strikes. When there is no longer anything to eat and the countryside is turning to cannibalism to survive, the family sells most of their possessions (but Wang Lung refuses to sell their land) and moves south to survive through cheap labor and begging in the city. When a peasant uprising happens, Wang Lung and O-Lan grab money and jewels and return north. Having learned a powerful lesson about having reserves, the family buys the rest of the Hwang land and farms diligently, to the point where Wang Lung is wealthy and can send his children to school instead of keeping them in the fields. Indeed, soon Wang Lung himself doesn't need to be in the fields, and that's when the problems start.

The book is not subtle about its equation of land and manual labor with virtue...the farther removed Wang Lung and his family get from the labor of their own hands on the earth they own, the farther they morally decline. Wang Lung becomes infatuated with a spoiled young prostitute and buys her for a concubine, putting aside his faithful wife. His school-educated sons marry petty women and have no interest in farming or running their father's holdings...like the once-wealthy and powerful Hwangs in the beginning, they just want to get rid of the land and seeking their fortunes elsewhere. It's actually pretty socialist in its depiction of money as evil and corrupting and the glorification of the proletariat lifestyle.

At the end of the day, I just didn't like it very much. The characters aren't people, they're symbols who are used to illustrate Buck's parable. And they're not even particularly compelling symbols: Wang Lung is never all that sympathetic, O-Lan is a doormat, the sketchy uncle and his wife are terrible and gross right from the start. If reading all that Joseph Campbell recently taught me anything, it's that symbols done right can be incredibly powerful (for instance, Francis Ford Coppolla's The Godfather, and I'm specifically referring here to the great film rather than the mediocre book, tells a similar story about a man who becomes what he once despised in a much more interesting and emotionally resonant way). Not so here for me. The writing is solid, but not anything special enough to drive interest in the lack of a good story and characters. This particular piece of classic literature (which is a genre I've been exploring over the past few years) doesn't do it for me.
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LibraryThing member rkinch
This book is set in China and follows the life of an honest, hard working farmer, Wang Lung, and his wife, O-Lan, through famine and then prosperity. And, in a rich and heart breaking way shows the consequences of a path from poor and simple to rich and needy.
LibraryThing member kattepusen
This is the first novel I have read by Pearl Buck, and after this experience it will not be the last. After finishing the last paragraph, I remain curious as to what will happen to the Great House of Wang Lung, and I am relieved that this is just the first part of a family-saga trilogy.

Read
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through my Western feminine eyes, the story of O-lan was of course gut wrenching. Even though the author never goes "inside her head" to reveal any of her thoughts, the reader develops an overwhelming personal sympathy towards her. She is the true tragic hero - almost excessively so. She starkly contrasts the main character, Wang Lung - her husband, with her good and dutiful qualitites nearly to the point of becoming a one-dimensional character. However, it can be argued that giving more "depth" to this character would have risen her above what she is to symbolize.

The main character, Wang Lung, whose thoughts and feelings we have access to, is more like a tragic "Greek Hero" complete with admirable strengths, good and bad luck, serious personal flaws, and eventually capacity for regrets. This multi-dimensional human being is able to both enrage the reader with his incredible cruelty (especially to those close to him), as well as delight us with his uncompromising stamina, aquired wisdom and unexpected tenderness (his relationship with his retarded daughter - "the poor fool" - is compelling reading and a great contrast to his views on women in general).

The language used by Pearl Buck is intriguing as well. It has a distinct and simplistic story-book quality about it. Furthermore, it has heavy sprinklings of terms like "hither and dither", "this way or that" and "to and fro". I suspect it has an oriental influence, and in my view it adds a sort of whimsical charm to the story itself.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in pre-communist Chinese peasant life; however, its themes are not as exclusive as that - this tale is quite representative of the human conditions throughout the pre-industrial world.
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LibraryThing member lahochstetler
This is the saga of Chinese farmer Wang Lung's life on the land in northern China. From desperate peasant to renowned landowner, Wang Lung's fortunes are tied directly to the earth he tills. This is no mere physical connection, Wang Lung's spirit is tied to the land too. Whenever he finds himself
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despairing, tired of life, or travelling down the wrong path, the land renews him, and reinvigorates his spirit.

Buck writes about a rural Chinese community with remarkable sympathy. She explains the worldview of an early-twentieth century Chinese farmer well, particularly to a largely unknowing English-speaking audience. That said, I did sometimes feel like the land theme was sometimes overdone. Still, and interesting and worthwhile read.
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LibraryThing member sturlington
The Good Earth is unusual for a Pulitzer Prize winner, in that it is not about America or the American experience. Instead, its subject is about as far from that as it can get: pre-Revolution agricultural China. The novel follows the life of a Chinese peasant farmer, Wang Lung, beginning with his
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modest wedding to a slave girl given to him by the local lord. Wang Lung and his family soon experience hardship as a famine hits the land, and they must flee to a Southern city to beg, steal and do menial labor in order not to starve.

While there, a revolution overtakes the city, and Wang Lung’s wife finds a cache of jewels in the chaos. With this lucky find, they are able to return to their land and buy more land from the destitute lord. Eventually, Wang Lung builds himself up into a rich man who doesn’t need to fear starvation again.

Even though these incidents occur near the beginning of the book, they are its climactic high point. The problems Wang Lung faces after becoming rich seem trivial by comparison: he must move his mistress into the house without overly angering his wife; he must deal with rebellious sons and relatives wanting to leech off him; he grows old. But he has land now, and the good earth never fails to provide. Without so much at stake, these pages tend to drag. And Buck writes in a singsong style—perhaps emulating a Chinese storytelling style; I’m not sure—that can become tedious. But this classic is still a fascinating portrait of a culture that is very foreign to our own.
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LibraryThing member amandacb
This book breaks my heart every time I read it, but I always come back to it every year because it is so engrossing and well-written. I fully sympathize with the wife in the story, and at the beginning, there is much admiration of the husband. However, he becomes despicable by the end. It's a hard
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journey, both literally and figuratively, and beautifully written.
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LibraryThing member PaulaGalvan
In my quest to read all the books in my inherited library, I finally decided to read this one. When I opened it, I found my grandfather's name written on the inside next to my mother's, so I know I'm the third generation in my family to enjoy this extraordinary masterpiece. The copy I have is very
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old—10th printing in 1942—and I had to hold it gently while reading since the pages are yellowed, thin, and easy to rip. It was a joy to read. The writing style is simple, yet each sentence tells two stories. The first one is about the life of the farmer, Wang Lung, and the second tells us about human nature.

Although the story gives us a fascinating view into old Chinese culture when just surviving was a struggle, it also tells the story of how success can warp a person's perception of what's essential and what is not. Wang Lung and his wife, O-Lan, work hard to feed their growing family, always believing the land is their most important possession. They sacrifice everything to give their children a better life. However, by taking the struggle out of life, their sons lose sight of what's important. They demonstrate this in the end by planning to sell the land their father struggled so hard to acquire—the very thing that gave them the wealthy life they now live. I suppose it's human nature for parents to want their kids' lives to be better than theirs. But, it sometimes backfires big time.
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LibraryThing member LibrarysCat
This is perhaps my most beloved book. Having read it many times, it feels like home. This is the saga of one man and his family trying to survive in China. Worthy of the Pulitzer Prize.
LibraryThing member cvlibrarian
The Good Earth is an epic tale about changing lives and values in China in the 1900’s. Wang Lung is the main character who begins this story as young man on his wedding day. He and his father are very poor and excited that they are about to get a female addition in the household. One must have a
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certain status to get a wife. This story is important for upper-level high school students to read so they can have an idea about Chinese culture and what was valued in the middle 1900’s. Although it is fiction, it could be used as an addition to a history class because it has many true events within its story.
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LibraryThing member TheBentley
Although this book, on the surface, is about revolutionary China (and there are many place- and time-specific details), it's really a tremendously universal book about life and death and all the stuff in between. I really liked it. It feels almost Biblical in its tone and scope and distance. A very
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wise book.
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LibraryThing member CarylGonzales
The book gives us a glimpse of the patriarchal society of rural China with emphasis on a woman's status and worth. I appreciate the obvious heart of the author for farmers and the poor and the plight of women in Old China which is still true in some cultures now in our already modern times.

I have
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no deep knowledge of Chinese culture, only the art and food as I experienced today. Pearl S. Buck has given me a peek into the "old ways" of China which may seem barbaric to us now with the slavery of young girls, arranged marriages, concubinage and women's binding of the feet. But she has presented it in a descriptive way, free of criticism and only attempting to narrate the facts of life as seen in the eyes of a proud patriarchal farmer in such times and through the eyes and heart of a rural poor wife in such era.

I admire how the author has given power to the first wife character that even with her silence and seemingly blind obedience to her husband, she has the most profound grasp of their life and is the actual pillar of the family during their troubled times. She is a true matriarch with no voice, whose value is acknowledged by the husband only at the end. Her giving soul is so touching that a woman reader may question her own parenting and domestic capacity and duty as a wife.

I recommend this book as a good slow read, that will give you an appreciation of the land, its toils and value both to the well-being of a person's body and soul.
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LibraryThing member michcard
not the book I was thinking of, but a good read.
LibraryThing member realbigcat
This is an excellant book and it's easy to see why Pearl Buck won the Pulitzer for this great novel of pre-revolutionary Chinese life. The beauty in the book is that no single section stands out above the rest. The greatness is in the sum of the parts. You appreciate it's true beauty after
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completing the book and reflecting on it for a while. Buck wonderfully creates the tension in the main character Wang Lung as he struggles between his own conscience and the traditional Chinese values. It's easy to become engrossed by the characters as you see the rise of a poor CHinese farmer and family to become rich all by living off the land. Anyone interested in traditional Chinese culture and a good story as well will definately like this classic book.
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LibraryThing member brsquilt
Sorry, I know it is a classic, but I found it extremely depressing and tedious.

Publication

Washington Square Press (2004), Edition: Washington Square Press Trade Pbk. Ed, 368 pages

Original publication date

1931-03-02

Pages

368

ISBN

0743272935 / 9780743272933

Language

Original language

English
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