The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

 

"He had no articulate thought of anything; there was only this perfect symphony of movement of turning this earth of theirs over and over to the sun, this earth which formed their home and fed their bodies and made their gods. The earth lay rich and dark and fell apart lightly under the point of their hoes.... Each had his turn at this earth. They worked on, moving together---together---producing the fruit of this earth---speechless in their movement together."

           -thoughts of Wang Lung, from the novel

Wang Lung is a poor farmer with quite a passion for land, "the good earth." When he needs a wife, he must go to the Great House of Hwang to buy a slave, who is called "the woman" for many pages before one can learn her name is O-lan. She turns out to be loyal, hard-working and a woman of few words. She gives Wang Lung children---3 sons and 2 daughters---and helps him make enough success of the farm to afford to buy more land.

In the course of this story, Wang Lung must leave his precious land and move the family south due to a terrible famine produced by drought. In the city, Wang Lung is humbled to pull a jinrikisha and others of the family must beg on the streets to survive. Always in Wang Lung's mind and heart is the desire to get back to his land.

Long story short, they return to the land, acquire more and more wealth and, as one might predict, it all goes to Wang Lung's head. He suddenly finds O-lan unattractive and brings home a concubine/wife, Lotus, who is very high maintenance. I suppose this was culturally acceptable in China at the time, but this reader was angered by Wang Lung's treatment of O-lan who had been the biggest factor in his success. I hoped he would get his comeuppance and I believe he did. But far be it for me to reveal any more!

This book was the Page Turner's designated classic for 2022. Perhaps it was a poor choice. We will see when the group meets in a few weeks. I did not enjoy this book. When it wasn't depressing, it was infuriating. I am rating it a 2. Had I not been the one to put it on our list, I likely would not have completed it. Sometimes after discussion, our group likes the book better than before. I am thinking this may NOT be the case with The Good Earth.

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As it turned out the Page Turners group liked The Good Earth. The average rating: 4.0. The group found a number of things to like about this classic, for example the writing style, increased awareness of Chinese culture and universal life lessons like the corruption of wealth and dynamics of family relationships. We could agree that we admired O-lan and were often angered by Wang Lung. The group felt the book illustrated very well the importance of land and the inescapable effects of nature. After the discussion, I might have given a higher rating. Maybe I was hoping for entertainment and failed to experience the novel on a deeper level.