“The sun beat down upon them, for it was early summer, and [O-Lan’s] face was dripping with her sweat. Wang Lung had his coat off and his back bare, but she worked with her thin garment covering her shoulders and it grew wet and clung to her like skin. Moving together in a perfect rhythm, without a word, hour after hour, he fell into a union with her which took the pain from his labor. He had no articulate thought of anything; there was only this perfect sympathy of movement, of turning over thi...

The story is absorbing and exquisitely written. A memorable classic that is a must for any book club or readers who enjoy well written historical fiction novels. The Good Earth is a novel by Pearl S. Buck published in 1931 that dramatizes family life in a Chinese village in the early 20th century. It is the first book in a trilogy that includes Sons and A House Divided. It won the Pulitzer Prize and is considered a classic. The novel is set in a timeless China and provides no exact dates althou...

The livelong interest in Asian culture manifests on each page of this unique novel.Living what one writesSome authors have the ability to absorb the mentality of cultures they live in and are fascinated by to create works that are simply impossible to copy because they stand unique in their style, language and deep, hidden messages, references and innuendos. Similar to Arthur Goldens' work Memoirs of a Geisha, Buck´s work integrates key elements of Asian mentality, history, and the authentic lif...

There is a gush of red, marvelous, and mysterious blood running through my veins. I am part Chinese. A race that has given me these small eyes and this yellowish complexion. A race that I have associated with frugality, hard work, mass production, internet restrictions, and Jackie Chan. China, I've only been there once as a tourist when I was a bit younger. And as much as I'd like to think that I am familiar with the Chinese culture, I have to admit that my knowledge about that is limited and my...

Wang Lung on his wedding day gets up at dawn as usual, a poor Chinese farmer's son, who lives with his widowed old father, but is a very hardworking, strong, and ambitious young man, they occupy, a three room house made of dirt bricks, with a straw thatched roof. After getting his ill father hot water, feeding the ox and doing the rest of the chores, Wang for the second time in the year, takes a bath secretly, with the precious water , ashamed to waste it, for such an unnecessary thing, hiding f...

‘[T]urning this earth of theirs over and over to the sun, this earth which formed their home and fed their bodies and made their gods.’Humans owe everything to the Earth. It has given us shelter, food, water, informed the creation of our societies and even today our lives are affected by the cycles of the planet. The Good Earth, the Pulitzer Prize winning book from Nobel Prize winning author Pearl S. Buck is an epic family saga that explores the power of the land and humankinds connection to it....

This is almost spiritual in it's beauty and simplicity. First published by Pearl Buck in 1931, this later won the Pulitzer Prize and had a significant affect on Buck’s winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1938.The author displayed her genius ability to observe and relate the cultural and day-to-day lives of Chinese peasants at the turn of the century. This American Christian missionary told the story of a rural Chinese man and perceptively embraced vast cultural differences, while at the sa...

I really, really wish I hadn't google-searched 'foot binding' after reading this book. In the tradition of a beloved college professor, I give The Good Earth a subtitle which reveals more of the moral stuff which fills it. Ahem. :The Good Earth: Mo' Money, Mo' Problems. The Good Earth is packed with cautionary tales of wealth and idleness, tradition and progression, and lust. Wow, the character studies one could do in this book! Just things I noticed:- The very thing Wang Lung detested, O-lan's ...

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT THE EARTH AND IT IS GOOD.

It's difficult for me to explain how much I hate this book, and even harder to explain why. I don't think it's just because I hated the main character so much, and in this case at least, I don't think it's because of the weirdness that arises from a Westerner writing about a colonized country.I do know that *part* of my intense dislike for this book comes from how it is viewed by other people (usually non-Chinese). Read the reviews and you'll see one word come up over and over again: "portrait."...