The Good Earth

by Pearl S. Buck
(an Oprah Book Club selection)
reviewed by Byron Merritt

Much praise has been heaped upon this novel, with good reason. It won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize, and the Howells Medal in 1935. Many colleges use it as required reading, “A true classic” the professors will tell you. And now the estimable Oprah Winfrey has picked it as a “Book Club” selection for 2004. The latter surprised me greatly because Ms. Winfrey tends to pick stories that have a strong female protagonist. This one, by all means, is male-driven because of the time and location it focuses on (pre-revolutionary China).

The story starts with Wang Lung, a poor farmer on his way to meet his bride. His needs are far removed from those of our 21st century world: he wants someone to help take care of his aging father, to bear him children, and to run the household while he tills the soil. Love doesn’t enter the equation. So Wang Lung travels to the House of Hwang in his small village, and there he meets O-lan, his future wife; a slave girl in this rich house. She’s not that attractive, but she appears stout and strong.

Wang marries her and they soon fall into a routine. But bad weather is on the way. There’s been no rain for two seasons and nothing is growing on the farm. They now have four children, too, and must flee the terrible heat and head to “the Big City.” Here Wang and his family find the corruption of mankind (people steal to survive—even his children do this—and those with the most horde their wealth). The Wang Lung family finally return north and resettle their home again. The weather becomes more temperate, and the rains come.

Soon, Wang Lung saves money thanks to his bountiful harvests, and he buys more and more land. The family becomes wealthy, but more trials and unrest await Wang Lung. He struggles and fails against sins of the flesh; his sons battle one another over money and posterity; soldiers invade the countryside and take what they like; O-lan takes ill and it appears nothing can save her; Wang Lung’s father ages and becomes more and more forgetful; and a cycle of buying and selling the land threatens the very fabric of his family.

It is worthy to note that this story’s cadence is unlike any that modern-day readers are used to. Pearl S. Buck (the author) grew up in China thanks to her missionary parents, and it is from the Chinese language that she basically translates what happens to Wang Lung and his family. (Example from page 171: ‘Now there was in the town a great tea shop but newly opened and by a man from the south, who understood such business, and Wang Lung had before passed the place by, filled with horror at the thought of how money was spent there in gambling and in play and in evil women.’)

Times change, and writing styles change with them. But it’s always the characters in the story that draw me in. And this book pulled me in immediately. Pulitzer Prize winner? Oh yeah. Definitely.