Book Review: The Good Earth: Part 1
I am a fan of the Good China, and of all the histories I have explored, Chinese history fascinates me the most. My interest began with the movie ‘Red Cliff’ and expanded into reading the ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms,’ one of the four great Chinese epics. I am particularly captivated by the history surrounding the Qin Dynasty and the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, in particular, his ascendance and then his last few days, as well as the subsequent Han Dynasty and its eventual fall — these 600 years are truly intriguing to me.
Additionally, I am writing a series of poems inspired by Guqin music. The Guqin is a traditional Chinese zither with seven strings that are plucked to create sound. It is regarded as China’s most prestigious musical instrument and is significant in Chinese intellectual history. One of my manuscripts focuses on the ‘Cultural Purge’ period of the 1960s, during Mao Zedong's leadership.
For my 49th birthday, my friend and one of my patrons, Anagha Fernandes presented me with the book ‘The Good Earth’ by Pearl S. Buck. This book got Pearl Buck her Nobel Prize.
In 1938 the Nobel Prize committee awarding the prize said:
By awarding this year’s Prize to Pearl Buck for the notable works which pave the way to a human sympathy passing over widely separated racial boundaries and for the studies of human ideals which are a great and living art of portraiture, the Swedish Academy feels that it acts in harmony and accord with the aim of Alfred Nobel’s dreams for the future.
In her speech to the Academy, Buck took as her topic “The Chinese Novel”. She explained, “I am an American by birth and by ancestry”, but “my earliest knowledge of the story, of how to tell and write stories, came to me in China.” After an extensive discussion of classic Chinese novels, especially Romance of the Three Kingdoms, All Men Are Brothers, and Dream of the Red Chamber, she concluded that in China “the novelist did not have the task of creating art but of speaking to the people.” Her ambition, she continued, had not been trained toward “the beauty of letters or the grace of art.” In China, the task of the novelist differed from the Western artist: “To farmers, he must talk of their land, and to old men he must speak of peace, and to old women he must tell of their children, and to young men and women he must speak of each other.” And like the Chinese novelist, she concluded, “I have been taught to want to write for these people. If they are reading their magazines by the million, then I want my stories there rather than in magazines read only by a few.
As a fan of Chinese philosophy, intellect, and culture, I find “The Good Earth” fascinating because it documents the history of the early 20th century from the common man’s perspective, beyond its outlay as a literary masterpiece.
Historians often overlook the lives of everyday people in any era, but novelists highlight these anonymous souls who are often lost in the struggles of life. ‘The Good Earth’ is an ode to the humble lives of those anonymous Chinese peasants.
This is a story about many things. It tells the tale of China, focusing on the lives of peasants and the journey from rags to riches. It explores themes of silver and money, land ownership, societal changes, and the roles of women and sons in this context. We will begin with the historical and societal background, followed by the materials, and finally, we will delve into the people involved.
The China
In the 1920s and 1930s, China underwent a tumultuous period as peasants and workers became increasingly dissatisfied with the monarchy. This unrest ultimately led to the downfall of the Qing Dynasty, marking the end of centuries of dynastic rule in China. The Qing Dynasty faced defeat against Western and Japanese forces, which resulted in a chaotic era where warlords attempted to establish their local hegemonies following the collapse of the once-mighty empire.
As a result, the workers and peasants grew weary of the warlords’ dominance, leading to the start of the Communist revolution. “The Good Earth” is set during this hegemony era, before the Communist revolution, as the book does not depict a peasant-worker revolt. However, it does highlight the suffering of workers in Soochow City as part of its narrative.
The book describes foreigners in the city, particularly when Wang Lung gives them a ride. They are tall, have fair skin, and possess green-grey-blue eyes. They speak in broken Chinese that he does not understand.
There is also mention of war spreading across the country. Wang Lung’s uncle’s son, who embodies lust and chaos, brings home trouble in the form of soldiers who pillage their house for a time. Meanwhile, Wang Lung’s third son is swayed by colorful tales of beautiful women, wine, and the treasures of plunder, leading him to join the war — an indication of his attraction to anarchy.
The mention of fire dragons that groan and shake while traveling hundreds of miles overnight, carrying Wang Lung and his family from their village near Anhwei to Soochow, which is almost 200 miles apart.
The City, The Town, and the Village
The book discusses Kiangsu as the city and Anhwei as the village-town. It is important to understand the urban and rural scenarios of those times to enjoy the novel in depth.
The Village
Wang’s is a non-descript village that is lost in the heart of 19th-century China. The village has a dozen of ‘small scattered houses’.
A temple, a small structure made of earthen bricks and covered with tiles, with the plaster withered and painting of hills now almost invisible. Inside two earthen figures, looking over land — one male, one female. Incense sticks.
The men of the village come together for feasts. Wang Lung’s uncle and his impudent son live in the village, while his neighbor, Ching, is more reserved. Both Wang Lung’s uncle and his wife are often seen in disheveled clothing and keep untidy homes.
The villagers are frugal and generally avoid gambling or spending money on extravagant feasts. As a result, the men tend to appear awkward and shy, especially when asked to participate in a feast. Many of them face financial difficulties and sell their grains during the harvest at lower prices. In contrast, Wang Lung saves his grains and sells them at higher prices during the winter.
There is a tendency among the villagers to envy one another’s successes, which often leads to gossip. This is apparent in Wang Lung’s uncle’s criticism of him regarding his poor condition. During times of famine, the men gather in the village street, looking up at the sky in hope. However, when famine strikes, his uncle and neighbors turn against him, revealing the fragile nature of rural friendships. The men talk about him in envy, and his uncle boasts of his nephew as the rich Wang who has an inner court for his second woman.
During the locust attacks, he tries to alert the villagers to prepare, but most of them curse their fate. Meanwhile, their women burn incense sticks. For seven days, Wang Lung, along with Ching and the young laborers, fights the locusts by burning their fields.
His second son prefers a village girl to manage the slaves and household, rather than the city woman his elder brother is married to.
The Town:
The novel begins with Wang Lung preparing to visit the town, specifically the House of Hwang. As he walks through the Streets of Barbers, he negotiates for a haircut and cleansing. During this experience, he senses that the townspeople, including the barbers, treat the villagers with disdain and regard them as inferiors.
The farmers in the village sell their grains at the town's grain market. There is a booth where a storyteller recites old tales. A tea house provides warm tea and a space for gambling. In the town market, you can find eggs, shoes, robes, dresses, pork, and white sugar.
During the famine, the poor eat human flesh in the town, while the rich hoard food. When the uncle brings some of these rich town men, he sees them as sharks dressed in silk robes, soft hands, and long nails.
The tea shop serves as a hub for gossip, where the shopkeeper discusses the decline of the House of Hwang. The House of Hwang was once the notable wealthy family in that town.
The town is a morally bankrupt and self-serving place. The hardworking peasants get a raw deal because they are uneducated. He realizes that the town accountants would take advantage of him due to his lack of understanding of letters and numbers. To rectify this, he sends his children to school in the town to learn both.
As he becomes wealthier, he stops visiting the old tea stall and goes to the great tea shop, where people drink, dine, and gamble. And, of course, there are the women on the upper floor. The tea shop is situated on the main street and is called the ‘House of Flowers.’ Here, he is willing to spend his silver. The men are dressed in silk robes.
At some point, after O-lan’s death, his sons want to rent a small portion of the House of Hwang, and they stay in the house, the largest in the town.
The tea houses in the town help find a suitable maiden for his first son. The place also serves as an opium den, from which Wang Lung buys enough to entice his uncle and aunt into addiction.
The men in the town refer to his family as the Great Family Wang, a reputation that the eldest son values as a form of social currency. In contrast, the younger son is frugal like his father, which creates tension between the brothers. This conflict revolves around the struggle between pursuing a superficial reputation and the importance of saving money. Tension also arises between the elder son’s wife and the younger son’s wife, further complicating their family dynamics.
The City:
The city is where Wang Lung and his family arrive after escaping the pillaging and marauding men from their town. Their first experience of the city is with fire wagons, which are steam engine-pulled wagons.
In the city, he sets up a tent made of mats against the gray wall of a large house. His family is taken aback by this unfamiliar setting. The Southerners are pale and greasy, and they consume pork throughout the day. Merchants stroll by on the cobbled street but avoid eye contact with him and people like him. Laborers pass by, carrying bricks or baskets of grain.
It seems to be a land of plenty. People seek food in public kitchens, where the wealthy serve meals out of vanity or a desire to contribute to a higher cause. The public kitchens are equipped with large earthen stoves, and the aroma of cooking rice stimulates the hunger of the poor, causing them to rush in en masse.
O-lan decides that she, the children, and the old man will beg while Wang Lung takes on some hard labor. He notices the rickshaws—men sitting in two-wheeled carts that are pulled by other men. By hiring a rickshaw, one could earn some copper and save a bit after paying back the owner.
He is paid less by a city dweller, who wants to go to the Confucian temple, and another puller points him out. He is told that the foreigners pay more. Foreigners are missionaries from the West. They pay him twice without thinking. They look straight, tall, color-eyed and their skin color is lighter — rose-white. He is scared of this experience.
As he pulls his rickshaw through the streets, he realizes that he resides on the outskirts of the city. Behind the walls of the grand buildings lie spaces for education and entertainment. In the mornings, women head to the market while men pursue learning and business. In the areas of leisure, the sounds of music and the clatter of dice fill the air.
He lived in the rich city as alien as a rat in a rich man’s house that is fed of scraps thrown away, and hides here and there, and is never a part of the
real life of the house.
Here people look similar to them, but speak from their upper lip and faster. They fertilize the land and sow many crops a year, unlike Wang Lung’s country where they go with one crop a year. They eat a sumptuous meal while a loaf of bread and garlic could suffice. The Southerners wince at the garlic smell and smirk at his pigtail.
He finds the city to be abundant with food, meat, fish, pork, duck, and vegetables from across the country. All they had to do was to pilfer and steal a bit. Wang Lung is shocked to discover the boys learn thievery, especially the second son.
But there is no food for him. While the city is rich in silk and food, men who transport or make them don’t have clothes to cover their bones and a morsel to fill their stomachs. The rich are richer, the poor are poorer. The rich-poor disparity is huge. While the young of the city express their anger from the street corners and public squares, Wang Lung makes up his mind to return to his land someday.
In one of their get-togethers, one man points out the opulence inside the house. When the war sets in and chaos prevails, the people who live in the tent that leans on the walls that separates the house, break open and loot the riches inside the house.
In short, the city is a place of abundance, but the rich-poor divide is too much. The revolution in China starts from the discontent of the urban poor; at the same time, the war spills into the city, resulting in loot and chaos.
Land and Silver
Now, the land is the asset and silver is the currency for the peasant. It has always been Wang Lung’s dream to own as much land as possible. The land is the titular entity of the novel — the Good Earth.
The Land:
A peasant understands only the land, the oxen, and the hoes. The land must be fertile and productive, the oxen should be strong and well-fed, and the hoes must be sharp. The heart and soul of the peasant belong to the land — the Good Earth, where feet are planted in the soil, soaking up its nutrients, while hands hold the whip and the hoes to plow. There is no peasant without the land. For generations, Wang Lung has been one of the countless individuals who have tilled the earth, transforming its dust into grains, nourished by rain and sunshine, and blessed by the two earthen gods at the edge of the village.
We will look at four situations when Wang Lung connects with his land.
Wang Lung buys Huang’s Land:
At first, he could not believe that the Huangs were selling their land. One could become poor, but one should never sell their land.
‘She is to marry the second son of a Shanghai magistrate,’ said the woman, and then after a long pause she added, ‘They must be getting poorer, for the Old Mistress herself told me they wished to sell land, some of the land to the south of the house, just outside the city wall, where they have always planted rice each year because it is good land and easily flooded from the moat around the wall.’
‘Sell their land!’ repeated Wang Lung, convinced. ‘Then indeed are they growing poor. Land is one’s flesh and blood.’
Then slowly he sees the opportunity. He won’t buy any land. He is a peasant He understands what constitutes good land. The soil must be rich and fertile, and there should be a water source nearby. He would never buy his uncle’s land, which is barren and neglected, much like his uncle's decrepit family. Huang’s land provides him with both prestige and wealth.
‘That land of my uncle’s,’ said Wang Lung loudly, ‘I would not have it. He has been dragging a crop out of it in this way and that for twenty years, and not a bit has he put back of manure or bean-cake. The soil is like lime. No, I will buy Hwang’s land.’
Migrates to the City, and holds on to his lands:
Once they had eaten the last of their grain, the oxen, now reduced to skin and bones, were reluctant to continue. Although Wang Lung wished for his family and himself to lie down in the graves that had been dug in their land, he was eventually convinced to go to the city. When his uncle and his friends, including his neighbor Ching, arrived to seize their possessions, Wang Lung took a defiant stand against them.
‘I shall never sell the land!’ he shrieked at them. ‘Bit by bit I will dig up the fields and feed the earth itself to the children and when they die I will bury them in the land, and I and my wife and my old father, even he, we will die on the land that has given us birth!’
This steadfast principle of land being his alter ego persists even when he is in the city. He struggles to support his family by pulling rickshaws, while his wife O-lan and their children beg. He comes to understand that the fast-paced and abundant life of the Southerners stems from their contrasting approach to farming. They have no genuine love for the land; instead, they exploit it.
“…where Wang Lung’s fields spread out in slow and leisurely harvest twice a year of wheat and rice and a bit of corn and beans and garlic, here in the farms about the city men urged their land with perpetual stinking fertilising of human wastes to force the land to a hurried bearing of this ve- getable and that besides their rice.”
It felt akin to speeding up a woman’s pregnancy by getting her pregnant more frequently. As violence and chaos erupted in the city due to the war, the impoverished residents living in tents against the walls made a desperate attempt to raid abandoned houses on the other side of the wall. With the jewelry and riches they managed to gather, Wang Lung and O-Lan returned to their land.
The life in the shadow of the great wall was not the life Wang Lung loved. There was his land waiting for him.
Amid the glamour of city life, he felt unfazed and longed to return to the land—to till, sow, and reap. He desired an honest life, in contrast to the petty thievery his sons had engaged in.
The Good Earth and the Riches:
The author emphasizes the strength of unwavering manifestation. The peasant dreams of owning land throughout the day. If he could get his hands on gold and silver, his greatest wish is to buy land. The power of visualization often strikes him unexpectedly—especially when he is sitting with the dirty beggars who dwell by the city wall.
Wang Lung cried out suddenly: ‘If I had the gold and the silver and the jewels, I would buy land with it, good land, and I would bring forth harvests from the land!’ … … …
Being possessed continually by this thought of his land, Wang Lung saw as in a dream the things that happened about him in the city every day. He accepted this strangeness and that without questioning why anything was, except that in this day this thing came.
I never realized this was the popular visualization technique today’s gurus often discuss until I wrote this part. This is the essence of the narrative: the land he envisions becomes a tangible opportunity, which he seizes wholeheartedly. He acquires numerous properties, including the now-abandoned house of Huang, as the elderly owner needs money for opium and the Old Lord seeks funds for his lavish lifestyle. Over time, he becomes the master of all the fertile land that can produce various crops throughout the seasons.
‘As for that, the sons have told him to sell when he can. The land is where no one of the sons wishes to live and the country is run over with bandits in these days of famine, and they have all said, “We cannot live in such a place. Let us sell and divide the money.”
The sons of Huang persuade his Old Lord, who is now in the hands of Cuckoo, a gold digger willing to stick on and consume everything that the old Huang has to offer.
As the Good Earth blesses him from here on, he raises his standard of living. He asks his wife to apply oil to his hair.
‘I mean, cannot you buy a little oil for your hair as other women do and make yourself a new coat of black cloth? And those shoes you wear are not fit for a land proprietor’s wife, such as you now are.’
Here he makes a decision. His first two sons are sent to school to become scholars (which means they no more work on the land) and the third son is put to be his heir to manage the land.
When O-lan is in the throes of her death because of decaying internal organs, he recognizes her faithfulness — like the land, O-lan has been with him during his difficult days, feeding and healing him and bearing his success.
At last one day when she said this, he could not bear it and he burst forth: ‘This I cannot bear! I would sell all my land if it could heal you.’ She smiled at this and said in gasps, whispering: ‘No, and I would not — let you. For I must die — sometime anyway. But the land is there after me.’
She was the one who encouraged him to invest in the land and stood by him throughout the process. Now, he regrets neglecting her and, for just a brief moment, places her above the land he cherishes so much. However, she, being a pragmatist and realist, advises him to be frugal and to keep the land with them.
Towards the end of his life:
Towards the end of the novel, he begs his sons not to sell the land. He overhears them discussing their plans to sell the land.
Wang Lung: ‘It is the end of a family — when they begin to sell the land,’ he said brokenly.’ ‘Out of the land we came and into it we must go — and if you will hold your land you can live — no one can rob you of land.’
He has witnessed everything that transpired with the House of Huang. In the days when the wealthy Old Lord still dared to take new concubines, he began to sell off his land as their income dwindled. Meanwhile, the young lords squandered their inherited wealth on drinking, gambling, and women. He benefited from the House of Huang’s decline and held onto the lessons he learned through that experience. For the peasant, the land is paramount — the only asset that can withstand storms, floods, and droughts, enduring through generations, just as it did for his father and grandfather, who were both peasants.
His sons, however, have different ideas. They view the land as a one-time asset to be exploited for profit. The first son is a government official, while the second is a grain trader; both possess alternative means of income and knowledge about those avenues. This generational shift alters the perspective and relationship between people and the land.
Ironically, as we will see, the events that unfolded in Huang are about to repeat themselves as the story ends.
The Silver:
Not many people understand land. A few understand silver. I have taken up silver as a separate topic because it was what other characters understand — the sons of Huang, the sons of Wang Lung, Cuckoo, and Lotus.
But Wang Lung saw silver in two ways:
Wang Lung sat smoking, thinking of the silver as it had lain upon the table. It had come out of the earth, this silver — out of his earth that he ploughed and turned and spent himself upon. He took his life from this earth; drop by drop by his sweat he wrung food from it, and from the food silver. Each time before this that he had taken the silver out to give to any one, it had been like taking a piece of his life and giving it to some one carelessly. But now for the first time such giving was not pain. He saw, not the silver in the alien hand of a merchant in the town; he saw the silver transmuted into something worth even more than itself — clothes upon the body of his son.
There are two important aspects to consider: where the silver came from and where it went. The silver was a grandchild of his land—The Good Earth—and a product of the grains he cultivated there. Although parting with a piece of silver was painful and felt like a tear to his soul, giving it up for his son made him feel a sense of worthiness in letting it go. Understanding the parent-child relationship between the earth and silver is essential to grasping the evolution of silver throughout the story.
But as he gets the land from the Old Lord of Huang, he regrets that he has emptied the hole in the wall, but on the other hand, he feels that he wants to surpass the Old Lord — not in terms of silver but in terms of the land.
He was filled with an angry determination then, and he said to his heart that he would fill that hole with silver again and again until he had bought from the House of Hwang so much land that his own would be less than an inch in his sight.
The grandchild of the land, the silver, now turns out as the parent that spawns more land. With more silver, he could own more land than the Old Lord. His perspective on using silver to purchase land ultimately proves to be significant when he leaves the city with the jewels he and O-lan discover in an abandoned house.
for they are such fools they do not know the proper price of anything, but let the silver run out of their pockets like water…
Rarely was the word silver upon their lips because rarely was silver in their hands.
In the city, he observes how people regard silver. There are two distinct classes of people: one group consists of foreigners who are indifferent to the value of silver and therefore spend it lavishly, while the other group comprises individuals who have never seen or touched silver in their lives — particularly those who live in tents propped against the walls.
He owns land that he purchased with jewels. During prosperous years, his land produced goods, and those goods generated more silver, reflecting a grandparent-parent-child relationship. However, instead of the silver leading to the acquisition of more land—a reverse parent-child dynamic—it gives rise to desire.
He was the only rustic-looking man in the tea house, smelling of earth and garlic. The appearance of silver captivated him, especially from a lady with small feet, and eventually led him to consider adding another woman to his life. After all, silver could not only buy land but also a woman that he desired so much. He envisioned Lotus as the concubine and Cuckoo as her attendant.
…the silver came out of the wall and out of the sack, and O-lan who in the old days might have said to him easily enough, ‘And why do you take the money from the wall,’ now said nothing, only watching him in great misery, knowing well that he was living some life apart from her and apart even from the land, but not knowing what life it was.
Here silver plays a key role: It tells O-lan that something is going on. Silver is now worthless in front of his desire for Lotus. How things change! Silver, whom everybody desires, buys him his desire, and in a sense, O-lan’s demise.
Silver makes him confident and deserving, and when O-lan asks him, he gets angry about it.
when he reasoned it, there was no need for shame and he had done no more than any man may do who has silver to spare.
Finally, O-lan succumbs to the illness that she had been hiding, and Wang Lung’s negligence of her health. When he realizes, the same man who threw money in bringing on the situation in the household that wrecked her life, now says he would throw money at the doctor…
‘I will have no death in my house and I can pay the silver.’
He pays only ten silver pieces to the doctor who goes away happy. O-lan dies, after seeing his first son’s marriage.
However, soon after, trouble arises when his uncle, a member of the red-bearded robber gang, comes into the picture, along with his younger cousin who is infatuated with his eldest son’s wife and other women. Realizing that both the older man and woman could be driven to opium addiction, he decides to take action. With a bag of silver, he purchases a substantial amount of opium and supplies it to his aunt and uncle.
the courts were filled with the sweetish smell of the smoke, and the silver for this Wang Lung did not begrudge because it bought him peace.
The same thing, silver buys him peace with his uncle’s son going to war. Then comes the turn of his very own sons, with the first son, being a government official seeking honor and status befitting his circles, while the second son, handling the grain sales and collection, hence handling the silver that came in and went out. Trouble brewed between the two.
First son to Wang: ‘Men in the town are beginning to call is the great family Wang. It is fitting that we live somewhat suitably to that name, and if my brother cannot see beyond the meaning of silver for its own sake, I and my wife, we will uphold the honor of the name.’
The second son, on another occasion, pays Cuckoo only two pieces of Silver. She sneers at the thrifty second son.
Wang Lung then goes through a dilemma when he takes in Peach Blossom as his third woman, he asks himself this question.
‘Am I not master in my own house and may I not take my own slave I bought with my silver?’
Despite the troubles that silver caused him and the challenges it helped him overcome, he eventually realizes that others cherish silver, while he values the Good Earth above all.
‘This field we will sell and this one, and we will divide the money between us evenly.”
He pleads with his sons. They agree with him, but behind his back, they decide to sell the Good Earth and buy silver.
Good Earth, Bad Silver
A landowner does not make a rich man. He still smells of earth and garlic, but a little more silver gets him the pleasure.
Silver brings a fleeting and transient status, but it is the language the world understands. Everybody else, whether it is the rickshaw puller or the white alien in the city, whether it is the women at the tea house or his sons, everybody wants silver.
Silver is the fruit of the land that Wang Lung cherishes. Wang Lung’s unwavering belief that land is eternal and productive, while money is fleeting, ultimately proves to be true.
While revisiting the book for my review, I noticed that the theme of land versus money emerged as a significant element. I say — Good Earth, Bad Silver.
What about the people? The Women, The Uncle’s Family, The Sons… And how do they all add up in Pearl S Buck’s novel — The Good Earth? Wait for Part 2…
~Ashok Subramanian © 2024
