Product Description

Pearl S. Buck's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of a China that was -- now in a Contemporary Classics edition.

Though more than sixty years have passed since this remarkable novel won the Pulitzer Prize, it has retained its popularity and become one of the great modern classics. "I can only write what I know, and I know nothing but China, having always lived there," wrote Pearl Buck. In The Good Earth she presents a graphic view of a China when the last emperor reigned and the vast political and social upheavals of the twentieth century were but distant rumblings for the ordinary people. This moving, classic story of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his selfless wife O-lan is must reading for those who would fully appreciate the sweeping changes that have occurred in the lives of the Chinese people during this century.

Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life: its terrors, its passions, its ambitions and rewards. Her brilliant novel -- beloved by millions of readers -- is a universal tale of the destiny of man.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #229191 in Books
• Brand: Remainder
• Published on: 2004-09-15
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Review
Boston Transcript One need never have lived in China or know anything about the Chinese to understand it or respond to its appeal.

About the Author
Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker was born on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Her parents were Southern Presbyterian missionaries, most often stationed in China, and from childhood, Pearl spoke both English and Chinese. She returned to China shortly after graduation from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1914, and the following year, she met a young agricultural economist named John Lossing Buck. They married in 1917, and immediately moved to Nanhsuchou in rural Anhwei province. In this impoverished community, Pearl Buck gathered the material that she would later use in The Good Earth and other stories of China.

Pearl began to publish stories and essays in the 1920s, in magazines such as The Nation, The Chinese Recorder, Asia, and The Atlantic Monthly. Her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, was published by the John Day Company in 1930. John Day's publisher, Richard Walsh, would eventually become Pearl's second husband, in 1935, after both received divorces.

In 1931, John Day published Pearl's second novel, The Good Earth. This became the bestselling book of both 1931 and 1932, won the Pulitzer Prize and the Howells Medal in 1935, and would be adapted as a major MGM film in 1937. Other novels and books of nonfiction quickly followed. In 1938, less than a decade after her first book had appeared, Pearl won the Nobel Prize in literature, the first American woman to do so. By the time of her death in 1973, Pearl had published more than seventy books: novels, collections of stories, biography and autobiography, poetry, drama, children's literature, and translations from the Chinese. She is buried at Green Hills Farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Customer Reviews

The Good Earth - Compare and Contrast
I read this book as part of my summer reading for American Literature class (high school). I enjoyed this book and plan to read the remaining two books in the trilogy. I would recommend this book for high school aged students+. This is a book for people that have read and liked works such as Cry, the Beloved Country and When Things Fall Apart. I learned a lot about that time period, Chinese culture and as American's, the basic freedoms we take for granted. Below is the paper I wrote as part of my assignment for the class.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST: THE GOOD EARTH

Pearl S. Buck, author of the Nobel Prize-winning book, The Good Earth, was an American writer born in West Virginia to Southern Presbyterian missionaries to China. She wrote The Good Earth to unveil to Americans pre-revolutionary Chinese culture and religion. The story begins to unfold when Wang Lung, a poor village farmer, goes to purchase his future wife, a slave, from the House of Whang. Through the life of the fictional character Wang Lung, the Earth, women, and wealth are all major themes in his life, being portrayed differently at different times.
For some, the Earth is what makes their life worthwhile, but for others, it's just something they live on and get food from. But for all, it can provide and it can withhold. For Wang Lung, it gave prosperity to him, but it also took away livelihood from him. The Earth can have relationships. Wang Lung knew the Earth. It was what he loved, even after he became wealthy. But for the House of Whang, the rich people of Wang Lung's village, they didn't have a care for it; they only cared about money that came from it.
The treatment of women in pre-revolutionary China is so completely different from how women are treated now, it's shocking that it was roughly a century ago. In the story of Wang Lung's life, it is obvious that women were usually treated more as property instead of a husband/wife relationship. Also, the desire for women was a lust satisfier and a male offspring supplier. Women's beauty and family status were more important than character. If she was not pretty or from a wealthy family, she generally didn't have a promising future in securing a husband.
Wealth was a fate that determined your friends, how you conducted your every day routine, what you would eat, and influenced your desire for more material things. As Wang Lung became more materially wealthy, he began to resemble Old Lord Whang, who used to be the head of the House of Whang. Wealth corrupted his family. First, it caused Wang Lung to become discontented with his first wife. Wealth made his elder son have a sense of arrogance and conceit. Additionally, Wang Lung's wicked uncle tormented his life and also caused Wang Lung's offspring to lose respect for their elders, land, and religious foundation. Wealth can be good, depending on how you use it, but it can always be bad.
The Good Earth, the first in a trilogy, through the characters, the readers will find many similarities between the treatment of women, the influence of wealth, and the view of the Earth. But there are also many differences, such as a the expectation of a wife and the characters view of the Earth and the influence of wealth. There is still much that can be learned by comparing and contrasting the themes found in The Good Earth.

Excellent Prose, Dismal Plot
I know I read The Good Earth in high school - but I wanted to re-read it as it is on my son's high school reading list. I am struck by the almost poetic nature of Buck's writing, but I must confess that the storyline was of such a nature so as to leave me wanting to take a mental bath. Such hopelessness and helplessness of Wang Lung to overcome the downward spin of his pagan destiny was hard to read.

I recommend this book to mature readers (I am going to select a different book off of my 15 year old's reading list) as there is candid discussion of sexual desire and its fulfillment. If a parent is not sure about whether or not a young person would be ready for a book of this depth, I highly recommend pre-reading it.

I do ultimately recommend this book as I think it can reveal much about human nature.

Excellent!
A friend recently passed this book on to me. I had no interest in reading about China, and in fact delayed reading this book because I was not particularly interested in that subject. However, once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down! I intend to recommend it to my book club!