Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth contains a wealth of detail about daily life in rural China at the end of the nineteenth century and in the first quarter of the twentieth century; it shows what people ate, what clothes they wore, how they worked, what gods they worshiped, and what their marriage and family customs were. The novel is written in a simple but elevated, almost Biblical style, which lends dignity to the characters and events.
The protagonist of The Good Earth is a young man named Wang Lung. He begins life as a poor farmer and marries O-lan, a slave owned by the Hwang family. Wang Lung maintains a fierce attachment to the land. However, he is also extremely ambitious and envies the material success of the wealthy Hwangs. He is increasingly drawn to the Hwangs’ decadent lifestyle, and in the end, his piety and love of the land is only partially successful in helping him maintain his good character and moral standing. I found Wang Lung annoying and dislikable because of the way that he treats his family.
The Good Earth covers a great deal of time -- about forty years -- in a quite unusual way. As long as things are going well, spans of years will pass by in a single sentence. Only when trouble strikes does the narrative shift into a more focused, plot-oriented approach. The effect echoes the life of a farmer. While the cycle of seasons occurs smoothly, the rhythm of life is also cyclical. However, when this cyclical rhythm is disrupted, by flood, famine, or human factors, life must work through problems in a more linear fashion. Wang Lung, as he ages, yearns for the peaceful connection to cyclical, seasonal life, but does not achieve this until the novel's end, as crises consistently interfere.
To put it simpily, I think that The Good Earth teaches us that it is the little things in life that we should appreciate, and to be happy with what fate hands us.
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