Published: 1931
Categories: Classic, China
Source: My own copy
Description:
Wang Lung, rising from humble Chinese farmer to wealthy landowner, gloried in the soil he worked. He held it above his family, even above his gods. But soon, between Wang Lung and the kindly soil that sustained him, came flood and drought, pestilence and revolution….
Through this one Chinese peasant and his children, Nobel Prize-winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life, its terrors, its passion, its persistent ambitions and its rewards. Her brilliant novel beloved by millions of readers throughout the world is a universal tale of the destiny of men.
My Thoughts:
There aren’t enough words to accurately describe my feelings about The Good Earth. Simply put, it is one of the best books ever penned.
The book begins on the morning of his wedding to a slave girl named O-Lan. As he prepares himself we get a sense of the simple, proud, and hardworking man that he is. He is fiercely attached to his land, devoted to his father, and eager to start a family.
As the old saying goes, behind every great man is a great woman. O-Lan is crucial to Wang Lung’s success. Her skills and smarts make all the difference in the fortunes of their family.
Captivating characters and irresistible prose have made The Good Earth one of my favorite books of all time.
“But Wang Lung thought of his land and pondered this way and that, with the sickened heart of deferred hope, how he could get back to it. he belonged, not to this scum which clung to the walls of a rich man’s house; nor did he belong to the rich man’s house. He belonged to the land and he could not live with any fullness until he felt the land under his feet and followed a plow in the springtime and bore a scythe in his hand at harvest.”
“Then Wang Lung, without comprehending it, looked for an instant into the heart of this dull, and faithful creature, who had labored all her life at some task at which she won no reward.”
The Relentless Reader 