The Good Earth a Book Review

The fascination with The Good Earth began in my high school years, when the novel was required reading.

I loved reading of simpler times, adventure, the family dynamic and life's tragedies.

The book is the first in a trilogy, The Good Earth published in 1931, Sons in 1932 and A House Divided in 1935, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and in 1938 Pearl S. Buck won the Nobel Prize in Literature becoming the first American women to do so.

Of course my first reading of The Good Earth was by assignment, and in my youth, so I didn't capture the true heart of the book until I had lived, loved, lost and regained relationships, and faced painful trials causing me to contrast my life with that of the main characters in the novel.

MY PARAPHRASE of the first few paragraphs.

A bath meant a dipper of water heated in a bowl over a fire made with straw and twigs, unless it was your wedding day, then the bowl could be filled and the entire body washed. The same flame would heat water for the ailing father in the other room, and today it would have a few tea leaves, even though he would protest about the expense.

Pearl S. Buck wrote from the heart and from life's experiences, making a person grateful for each of life's genuine blessings including relationships with friends, family, community and God. The daughter of a missionary was raised in a non-traditional home at the turn of the 20th century. Her observations are thorough and assist the reader in comprehending the times. The reader finds himself stepping into the dirt floor cabin owned by the main character, actually discovering why anyone would sweep a dirt floor. The character descriptions take you into their hearts and homes and captivate you to, "the end."

My best recollections of the first chapter include the introduction of a single man on his wedding day realizing this is the last time he will have to light the fire to heat his own bath water, the last he'll have to care for his aging father, because tomorrow there will be a woman in the house. In addition to mending his tattered clothing, caring for his ailing father and preparing all their meals in a timely fashion, his wife gives birth during the harvest time and in short time returns to his side reaping the harvest they plowed and planted months before in the good earth. As life rolls on the tragic heartache of death and betrayal, their prosperity and industry, her housekeeping, the greater community and the events of the world around them is folded into this compelling story underlined by the simplicity of earth to earth, and dust to dust

Farm in China photo credit on Flickr

Pearl S. Buck, born June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia, died 1973, buried in Bucks County, Pennsylvania

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Not.

Arranged marriage.

Since the family was made up of an aging father and adult son, the wife/mother passed 6 years before, the poor farmers who had nothing to offer the bride of the younger, purchased a slave from the Great House in the city behind the wall.

Love after marriage?

I'd say yes, it happened. When the elder becomes a grandfather and the son becomes a father, the woman endears them, having already gained their approval by plowing in the fields, preparing meals and gathering manure along the road for fertilizer without being told. Yet she had a plan.

To return to the Great House and display her "success." To walk into the presence of the Ancient One with silk garments on her back, and a fine son dressed in fine clothes in her arms. A rite of passage of sorts. Arriving, we would call it.

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It is an ancient tradition. Not one that is done much these days, knitted socks do wear think around the heals and at the toes. Know how to mend socks was not a woman's job but the job of men and women, out of necessity.

We had two sons when we bought property and began farming it with mules. It was hard work but we had a plan and it worked. We built a new house on the property, remodeled the barn, chicken coop, fencing, and couldn't find enough people to come and help us with harvest. We share-cropped our hay since we were unable to harvest it, but could throw bales of hay onto the wagons.

Going "back to the land," was in theory our survival plan when it seemed our world was crashing in around us. We plowed a field with mules and pull behind tools, to plant a 1/4 acre garden.

Reaped a fine harvest, canned and froze vegetables, and I learned the fine art of killing chickens, plucking feathers and "putting up" the meat.

In addition to the fields prepared for harvest and the animals placed in the freezer after butchering, we brought in the wood for the wood stove for winter and prepared for living off the grid, as it is now called. Dropping out of society is what we called it. I had a wringer washing machine, but our sump pump and well needed electricity, and I did acquire an electric dryer, although I hung out clothes to dry on a clothesline as much as possible trying to stay true to our unwritten code of simplicity.

In the photo our sons pose at the back of the house with a wagon of wood dropped, cut and loaded from our back 20 wooded acreage. No they didn't have to cut it or do much to haul it, they were a part of the process though, and worked as hard as their little bodies allowed, to keep up with the required chores. They loved the warmth of the wood stove after a hard day in the woods.

Their version of stories from "the farm days" are much different from ours, today.

I strongly feel teenagers today, at least in America, have no concept of the coping skills it took to survive in the time period of the book.

Realizing a torn garment would have to be repaired because the wages it would take to replace the item would mean sacrificing food, water, and lost days of work in the fields all eaten up by the time it took to travel to the city in order to purchase the item's replacement.

In modern society we struggle comprehending chores like storing food for harder times in a handwoven basket, picking bugs out of the stuffing of long underwear and re-sewing the fabric to provide warmth for another season, mending socks and making our own shoes, heating the water for tea with scraps of twigs and dried grass, and only having a few tea leaves for hot tea when its the only thing that clears up a serious cough.

When the fourth child comes along the story takes a tragic turn. I believe the main characters, although they had an arranged marriage, grew to love each other. I also see in the book that the trials of life shoved them into an immorality that they didn't see coming. Faithfulness to each other seemed a goal in the beginning - and probably gnawed away at them as poor decisions were made and unfaithfulness destroyed.

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Amazon carries Kindle, paperback and hardback copies of The Good Earth, also study guides, the movie version and the book on cd.

I'll highlight some incidents in the book to spark interest.

• WEDDING DAY. The book begins with a wedding day, a poor young farmer must provide not only for his father, but also, now for a wife. But most of his apprehension begins dissipating within days of bringing the slave woman into the home. The economy and his own financial situation dictated what type of woman he would marry, and his father was the one who paid the dowry and selected the bride.
• WINNING RELATIONSHIP. Coming to terms with the task before him, and wondering in the back of his mind if this woman likes him, he realized this thought had never entered his mind before. Now he's hoping someone, a certain woman, liked him. All his thoughts had been, "Will I like her?"

  Now he will be a father, making his own father a grandfather. Will the land yield enough for a family of 2 that has just become 4?

• SEASONS CHANGE. The seasons cycle, and lives of the family, neighbors and extended family all change as their families grow, rain and drought tease them making the unpredictable harvest a hardship unless they planned and stored. Births and even deaths come their way.
• TROUBLED MIND. The wife, the mother of his children has a secret, a silent pain. How does a man who's never lived around another woman other than his own mother comprehend this wife's dark side?
• SUCCESS BREWING. An opportunity - one of more land and future prosperity steps into the path of their little family.
• CULTURE STUDY. The continued detailed description of the life and times of the turn of the century China unfolds as decisions are made and consequences are paid. In the defense of choices determining our future, reaping what we sow and being sure your sins will find you out, this book has the under-girding of biblical proportions. A glance at the 10 commandments would have served each party well, but they were in survival mode when they gloated in prosperity and ran in desperation.

Have you read the book in the past?