"The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck---Book Review

Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth (New York, NY, Washington Square Press 1931)  

Pearl S. Buck, Photo By Arnold Genthe

For nearly sixty years, I have been an avid reader and, at times, during that stretch I have read as many as 100 books a year.  My "To Be Read" shelf is always overloaded and I am always behind.  Yet, somehow, after all that reading and frequent writing about my reading, I have still missed out on many books which I want to read, know I should read, and keep pushing to the back of my mind until later.  Two or three still unmet goals on my mental reading list have been to read all the recipients of the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes along with the recipients of the Caldecott Medal and the Newberry Medal.  I would also like to read most, if not all, the books written by the various presidents of the US.  While I have read numerous works on all those lists, I am a long way from completing any of them.  As a result, I often find myself finally getting around to reading some classic work that I should have completed decades before.  Lately I have completed two works on that list which I should read many moons ago.  Today, I am writing about "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck which was a major factor in her receipt of both the Nobel Prize and the Pulitzer Prize.  Additionally, I specialize in Appalachian Literature and Appalachian writers.  While many people argue that Pearl S. Buck was not an Appalachian writer since she wrote most of her body of work about her life in China there is no disputing that she was a native of West Virginia and Appalachia.  She was also educated at Randolph-Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Virginia.  Based on birth and education, she deserves as much attention in the greater body of Appalachian writers as anyone else.  

"The Good Earth" is the first work in the Good Earth Trilogy or the House of Earth Trilogy.  The central character and protagonist in the novel is the Chinese farmer Wang Lung who progresses from landed poverty to great wealth during the time frame of the novel.  Wang Lung is Buck's personification of the Chinese farmers she knew during her years with her missionary parents in China from the early 1890's to about 1914 when she was sent home to attend college at Randolph-Macon College.  She returned to China and lived there until about 1934 but was eventually pilloried as an American Imperialist after the Chinese Revolution.  But China was always the central force in her life and her writing.  Wang Lung, due to his poverty, is forced to buy a slave woman, O-lan, from the wealthy House of Hwang to be his wife.  Through their mutual hard work and parsimony, they eventually grow wealthy and after the death of O-lan, Wang Lung is able to buy the House of Hwang following the loss of most of their wealth by the sons of Lord Hwang.  In many ways, "The Good Earth" and the character Wang Lung are an every man character and story. 

 The novel delves into Chinese culture without making that culture a primary element but was disputed often by Chinese scholars as being more of a caricature of Chinese life.  But, speaking as a student primarily of Appalachian Culture and Appalachian Literature, I see elements of both in the novel.  Upon the death of his aged father, Wang Lung chooses a piece of his own land on a hilltop to use as a cemetery for his family and his friend and overseer Ching. Pearl Buck also chose to be buried along with her husband, Richard John Walsh, on the family farm in Bucks County Pennsylvania.  While I have not studied the life of Pearl Buck deeply enough to fully defend this point in my argument, that choice of a burial ground on a hilltop on the family farm in the novel as is a very Appalachian thing to do.  Many of my own relatives including my parents, maternal grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles are buried on two such cemeteries in my native Knott County Kentucky and I have written about such cemeteries in this blog.  Additionally, the way in which the protagonist Wang Lung cares for his mentally handicapped daughter, who is only referred to as "my poor fool", is uncharacteristic of the widely publicized way in which both handicapped individuals and female babies are dealt with in China.  This particular character, "my poor fool", is dealt with by her father Wang Lung in much the same way Pearl Buck cared for her only biological child, Caroline Grace Buck, who was mentally handicapped due to the presently treatable genetic condition phenylketonuria.  That type of care, love, and guarantee of personal safety for a handicapped person is much more Appalachian than Chinese.  

As the novel progresses, Wang Lung accumulates wealth and land.   He is tied deeply and permanently to his land and chooses to move back to it before his approaching death taking both his young slave/concubine and his "poor fool" with him to the old Earthen House on the original family farm he inherits from his father.  His three sons and the wives of two of them nurture deep conflicts between them and the last few chapters of the novel are used to set up the remaining two books in the trilogy, "Sons" and "A House Divided".  I sincerely regret waiting so long to read this book and to begin my study of both Pearl S. Buck and her voluminous body of work.  Her place in the greater body of world literature is undisputed and deservedly so.  "The Good Earth" is a classic novel of a man, a family, and the land and in some ways is reminiscent of "East Of Eden" by John Steinbeck.  Its characters are fully developed.  The story is universal in farming communities worldwide.  The themes of family conflict are also universal and deeply human.  This is a great novel and should be required reading for every student or lover of literature. I cannot wait to finish the trilogy.