I'm 2/3 of the way through.
First off, I want to say I'm thoroughly enchanted, it's a rich and powerful book, complex in its simplicity. Those who have read it will get what I mean by that.
I'd like to touch on some points that nobody has mentioned. This book, written in the early 1930's, and set in rural China in the 1920's, predates most of us. Has this book given you pause to think, and to reflect? It's not just entertainment value here - this book is incredibly powerful, with the simplest of prose. It's not only about whether or not you think Wang Lung is a good or bad man, or sympathize with this or that character. The characters are a product of their time - with very little ability to break out of the cast that had been set for untold generations.
For one, don't you think about the fact that we, in our "advanced" society, which has existed only for decades, or a century at most, have a totally different concept of what LIFE is all about than the characters in The Good Earth? We wonder what we should do with our lives, why we are here, how we can be happy. Who ever thought about being happy, when they are struggling every day just to eat?
Before the advent of modern communication, transportation, and education, why, the idea of marrying someone of your own choice - and for LOVE no less - was absolutely preposterous. There was no necessity to love your spouse. A marriage was a contract - a bonding of two families, arranged by the head of the household, years before the marriage took place.
The idea of having access to all the goods you want and more - incredible.
The concept of choosing your own profession or career, based on what you want to do - insane.
There is all that, and I think on it quite a bit. We are living the fantasy now. The Good Earth is closer to reality - for the tens of thousands of years of human society. And it can't last! We should count ourselves as miraculously fortunate to live now, even in this crazy world with all its ills. We do stuff, simply because we "feel like it".
And then there is a whole 'nother aspect to this book, and that is the "LAND". There is an implication in the book that the LAND is the only thing really worth owning. That silver, gold, and jewels are temporary wealth and come and go. You are poor and then rich and then once again poor. But if you own LAND you are never truly poor because the land is permanent.
I don't know if Pearl Buck implied this sincerely or ironically - I have not yet finished the book. But it's clear to me that this is a total fallacy.
But, to me it's obvious that the LAND can NEVER by OWNED. The right of ownership is conferred only by a seal on a document, and is only as good as people's willingness to accept it lawfully. Anybody with enough strength can deny your ownership and take what they want for themselves - as we saw happen when the poor overrun the rich in the southern city, in the first part of the book.
The land is permanent - that much is true - but it has the power to sustain only if the weather is cooperative, and one's back is up to the labors of wrenching sustenance from it, and if the robbers, locusts, lords, and whomever, leave you alone to it. Land will pass from hand to hand over centuries - read the poem "Hamatreya" by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
So Wang Lung is deluded if he thinks he really owns his land. But Pearl Buck knows this (?)
In any event, a very thought provoking book. A MUST READ!!!!!
Pearl S. Buck has a simplistic writing style, but it drew me in and the story intrigued me too. It was one of those books that I didn't want to end.
