The Good Earth

by Pearl S. Buck | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 0743272935 Global Overview for this book
Registered by KF-in-Georgia of Marietta, Georgia USA on 11/8/2004
Buy from one of these Booksellers:
Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon DE | Amazon FR | Amazon IT | Bol.com
1 journaler for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by KF-in-Georgia from Marietta, Georgia USA on Monday, November 8, 2004
I read this years ago, but I've forgotten much of it. I've bought a new copy to reread.

Note: This picture is of one of the early covers for this novel. What goes around comes around...

Journal Entry 2 by KF-in-Georgia from Marietta, Georgia USA on Saturday, December 11, 2004
I first read this novel when I was a teenager. I don’t remember how I felt about the book, then. But I’ve reread it now, and my feelings are mixed.
_____Buck has written a tale of pre-revolution China, and she’s written from the point of view of a Chinese man—an effort that originally triggered some controversy since she was writing from a different cultural perspective as well as gender perspective. The tale is powerful—terror, passion, and ambition throughout the life of Wang Lung. But Wang Lung himself is something of a simpleton; and I find myself wondering: Is he “simple” because he is uneducated? Or is he “simple” because a Westerner is writing her view of his life? Would he have been so “simple” if the tale had been written by a Chinese author? Would Buck have made her lead character so “simple” if he’d been an American farmer?
_____But it may be that none of those questions matter. To Wang Lung, in the end, the only thing that mattered was the land. Buck has written a story where that love of the land is so clear that it transcends the question of culture:
_____As he had been healed of his sickness of heart when he came from the southern city and comforted by the bitterness he had endured there, so now again Wang Lung was healed of his sickness of love by the good dark earth of his fields and he felt the moist soil on his feet and he smelled the earthy fragrance rising up out of the furrows he turned for the wheat. He ordered his laborers hither and thither and they did a mighty day of labor, ploughing here and ploughing there, and Wang Lung stood first behind the oxen and cracked the whip over their backs and saw the deep curl of earth turning as the plow went into the soil, and then he called to Ching and gave him the ropes, and he himself took a hoe and broke up the soil into fine loamy stuff, soft as black sugar, and still dark with the wetness of the land upon it. This he did for the sheer joy he had in it and not for any necessity, and when he was weary he lay down upon his land and he slept and the health of the earth spread into his flesh and he was healed of his sickness. (p. 212)

ISBN 0-7432-7293-5 (trade paperback / 357 pages)

Journal Entry 3 by KF-in-Georgia from Marietta, Georgia USA on Thursday, December 16, 2004
The book is on its way (media mail) to lovie313 in Florida as a RABCK. Enjoy!

Are you sure you want to delete this item? It cannot be undone.