The Good Earth (Enriched Classics)

A poignant tale about the life and labors of a Chinese farmer during the sweeping reign of the country s last emperor.

• A concise introduction that gives readers important background information

• A chronology of the author's life and work

• A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context

• An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations

• Detailed explanatory notes

• Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work

• Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction

• A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience

Wang Lung is a farmer, barely able to survive, but it is time for him to marry and produce a grandchild for his aged father, who lives in his simple farm hut and is shown great reverence, as was the way in China at the time.
The only way that Wang Lung could afford a wife at all, and a virgin, which was highly desired, was to purchase an ugly female slave from the great house. All of the pretty slave women were defiled by the master and his sons early on; O-lan was so ugly that she was spared. Harsh? Evil? Yes. But the story is told with such simplicity, from the viewpoint of Wang Lung, who knows no other life. Which is one of Buck's points: the simple Chinese peasant, struggling to survive, had no wherewithal to stand back and say, "I should not be buying an undefiled slave from a corrupt landowner who keeps me in virtual slavery as well." It just didn't happen that way.

O-Lan turns out to be the perfect farmer's wife, hardworking, efficient, and, it turns out, wonderfully fertile. The scene where the young woman painfully gives birth in the field during harvest time and then goes back to work without missing a beat is almost a cliche by now. But in the book, it gives great insight into the strength of character that the silent O-Lan possesses, a strength that will save her family time and again, during good years and famine times, when she is forced to murder a newborn daughter so that the rest of her children might survive.

Against the framework of tremendous social change, the simple story of this one family gives us a framework within which we can observe its effect on ordinary people. The tremendous difference between the innocent and humble Wang Lung of the beginning of the book, and the prosperous and slightly corrupt elderly man at the end, is simply astoundingly written.
This book is Pearl Buck's single greatest work. She went on to become a prolific writer, and many of her books were brilliant, but none ever touched the simple genius of "The Good Earth."


Pride is his undoing~   March 10, 2005
M. Stahl (Kent, Ohio)
20 out of 20 found this review helpful

This is an easy book to read. The story is one that is totally universal; power corrupts and distorts us, on any level. The main character is a poor farmer who works hard but is just holding even with life. When he takes a bride, a slave girl who is plain quiet, his life turns around. As Wang Lung's fortunes change for the better - mostly due to the additional help of his new bride, his character shifts with his growing purse. Greed, pride and materialism take root in his soul. This isn't about a man who goes mad as he becomes a king; this is about the slow slide down as a man goes from being a poor farmer to a landowner. Not grandly wealthy by "city" standards, but wealthy from his own perspective. He is unable and unwilling to grasp how it's his wife's work that has brought him to this wealth. It's a story about how having nothing, and then getting a little something can make us want more and more. Pride and greed rob Wang Yung of his daily joys.

This story has staying power. I read it a few months ago and it continues to wind its way through my mind. I have re-examined my own desires and my own definition of wealth. It's worth the read, easy to digest and a very pleasurable tale.



A Modern Classic That Will Touch Your Heart!   September 17, 2004
Jana L. Perskie (New York, NY USA)
19 out of 23 found this review helpful

In 1931, John Day published Pearl Buck's second novel, "The Good Earth," which became a bestseller in both 1931 and 1932. This extraordinary novel won the Pulitzer Prize and the Howells Medal in 1935. And in 1938 Ms. Buck won the Nobel Prize in literature, the first American woman to do so. I am including this information because not only does "The Good Earth" provide a wonderful reading experience, but it has been recognized worldwide as a novel that has had an impact on everyone who reads it. And it continues to do so. "The Good Earth" is a true modern classic. Ms. Buck depicts life in China during the reign of the last Emperor. It is the period before enormous political and social change would transform an agrarian society into a technological world power. Pearl Buck lived in China for most of her life and her familiarity with the people and culture is evident in her writing.

Wang Lung is a simple peasant, a poor man. And he is a man of many complexities, demonstrated by the way he interacts with his family - his wife, children, elderly father, and with those who live in his village. It is also the story of the Chinese peasants' deep and abiding love of the earth; their strong attachment to the land, and to traditional Chinese values.

The author takes us through Wang Lung's life, from his youth when he seeks a wife, to his marriage, and the good years when his land brings forth relative abundance and his wife bears him many children. Then come the years of famine and abject poverty. It is Wang Lung's strength of character, and his refusal to give up his land, that carries his family through to better times. And then history intervenes.

The author develops her characters so realistically that they come to life on the page. Wang Lung, his wife O-Lan, his sons, the concubine Lotus Flower, the evil uncle and cousins - all have their stories, their individual motives, and their manner of action and reaction as the changing times impact their lives. Ms. Buck's prose is simple and elegant and the story will touch your heart!
JANA