Title: The Good Earth
Author: Pearl S. Buck
Do you really need a synopsis for this one? If so, Wang Lung comes of age as a simple peasant farmer in 19th-century China, and finds his life complicated as he prospers.
Anyone else see The Good Earth as an melding of The Book of Mormon and King Lear? At the beginning, Wang Lung is poor and happy. He and O-Lan work hard and are prospered (if you can count stealing gems as a blessing from heaven, lol). Anyway, once they gain wealth, he gets bored, proud and materialistic. Instead of being happy, like he was when he and O-Lan worked hard in the fields together, he spends his days worrying. His kids fight and don't know how to work themselves. And as he ages, they discuss how they're going to split up the goods once he's gone.
I've probably read The Good Earth five times. I always dread starting it, thinking it's not going to have any power for me on the third or fourth or fifth reading. But every time, I'm sad when I'm done. This time, I was sad and a little bit scared. For our entire marriage, Eddie and I have either struggled as he went to school, or eked by as he's done his training. But in a little more than a year, he's going to have a good job. We've always dreamed about how cool it will be to have money, but if our lives are anything like Wang Lung's (and since we're human, I have a feeling that they are) I'm guessing that while the money will be good, it will bring its own set of challenges for us too.
Do you really need a synopsis for this one? If so, Wang Lung comes of age as a simple peasant farmer in 19th-century China, and finds his life complicated as he prospers.
Anyone else see The Good Earth as an melding of The Book of Mormon and King Lear? At the beginning, Wang Lung is poor and happy. He and O-Lan work hard and are prospered (if you can count stealing gems as a blessing from heaven, lol). Anyway, once they gain wealth, he gets bored, proud and materialistic. Instead of being happy, like he was when he and O-Lan worked hard in the fields together, he spends his days worrying. His kids fight and don't know how to work themselves. And as he ages, they discuss how they're going to split up the goods once he's gone.
I've probably read The Good Earth five times. I always dread starting it, thinking it's not going to have any power for me on the third or fourth or fifth reading. But every time, I'm sad when I'm done. This time, I was sad and a little bit scared. For our entire marriage, Eddie and I have either struggled as he went to school, or eked by as he's done his training. But in a little more than a year, he's going to have a good job. We've always dreamed about how cool it will be to have money, but if our lives are anything like Wang Lung's (and since we're human, I have a feeling that they are) I'm guessing that while the money will be good, it will bring its own set of challenges for us too.
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