The Good Earth (Enriched Classics) | Pearl S. Buck | If You Are Going to Read This Book . . .

The Good Earth (Enriched Classics) | Pearl S. Buck | Mentally Challenged Character

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The Good Earth (En...

	The Good Earth (Enriched Classics) Pearl S. Buck Pocket Books, 2005 - 448 pages average customer review:based on 464 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

If You Are Going to Read This Book . . .

This book does exactly what the author intended: It creates a picture of the Chinese culture right before the arrival of the revolution, providing a view of a world quite different from our own. I have read several of the negative reviews, and my advice is, if you cannot for one moment let go of your attitude that the only right way is the way we do it now--the Christian American way--then you're going to have trouble with this book. Also, if you think that all writing has to be at the level of modern pulp fiction, then you also will be sadly disappointed. But if you read the book for what it is, a picture of a particular place and time, then this is an excellent book to develop a certain sense of understanding of the Chinese culture, particularly the agrarian part of it. These are not good people or bad people; they are just people of a particular ethnicity, with their own set of motivations and traditions. They are going to do things we don't like or understand, but then that is the purpose of a book like this--to make us think not in terms of right and wrong but in terms of why.

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Mentally Challenged Character

Really liked this book, but hated how Wang Lung and his family treated his oldest daughter. She is never given a name. She's only referred to as "The Fool". The family leaves her to play alone, outside, with her piece of cloth. Rarely do they check up on her. And, if nobody thinks about it she is sometimes left outdoors. She's treated this way just because she is mentally challenged. It's bad enough that Wang and the other does this. But, it's really hurtful, that O-lan, the mother, does this. You would think that maternal instinct would cause her to feel differently. However, it doesn't.

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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.

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It's all here, in The Good Earth

This is a classic novel about the human condition. The innocence and tentativeness of unproven youth; the rise and fall of an individual's fortunes (monetary and otherwise); the boredom and potential for dissolution that middle age can bring; and finally the nodding, smiling dotage at the end of a life. All the seven deadly sins as well as the seven virtues are illustrated in this novel and it achieves greatness through its beautiful and tragic depiction of each. This book transcends cultures as we can all relate to the feelings these characters experienced.

My book club recently read this and while several members had read it previously, some, including me, had not. It was an absolute delight and I wish I had picked it up sooner.

If I had to make any criticism of the book, it would be that the end was a bit abrupt after all that I felt I had invested in the main character of Wang Lung.

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Classic required HS book