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The Good Earth

by Pearl S. Buck

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: The House of Earth Trilogy (1)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
13,780265424 (4.02)676
Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML:

This Pulitzer Prize-winning classic tells the poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the land and its workers; but they will soon meet their own downfall.

Hard times come upon Wang Lung and his family when flood and drought force them to seek work in the city. The working people riot, breaking into the homes of the rich and forcing them to flee. When Wang Lung shows mercy to one noble and is rewarded, he begins to rise in the world, even as the House of Hwang falls.

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… (more)
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    The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (John_Vaughan)
  2. 80
    Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (mcenroeucsb)
    mcenroeucsb: Both are well-written novels set in late 19th/early 20th century China.
  3. 61
    East of Eden by John Steinbeck (John_Vaughan)
  4. 40
    Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Ellen_Elizabeth)
    Ellen_Elizabeth: Another classic, historical fiction novel that explores a traditional culture through the story of one man and his family. Both were written in English and illustrate the author's perceived strengths and weaknesses of the subject culture in a way that is accessible to western readers.… (more)
  5. 20
    Dragon Seed by Pearl S. Buck (deeyes)
    deeyes: Dragon seed is similar but better pearl buck book
  6. 42
    Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang (ominogue)
  7. 10
    The Pearl by John Steinbeck (Authoress)
    Authoress: Families who go through times of both wealth and poverty are featured in both works
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    The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre (orangewords)
  11. 00
    The Keys of the Kingdom by A. J. Cronin (charlie68)
    charlie68: Another book about the soul of China.
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  13. 11
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  16. 12
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  17. 12
    Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (charlie68)
    charlie68: Certain thematic elements are similar.
1930s (4)
Asia (19)
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» See also 676 mentions

English (247)  Spanish (5)  German (4)  Finnish (3)  Italian (1)  Dutch (1)  Portuguese (Brazil) (1)  Danish (1)  All languages (263)
Showing 1-5 of 247 (next | show all)
Social Conditions
  BooksInMirror | Feb 19, 2024 |
Right. So...I really liked this book quite a bit. Except that it really made me mad a lot of the time. I kept thinking, "Aw. Good. Now i can like the main charactor." And then he'd do something stupid again, and i'd be mad at him all over again. Totally stereotypical old Asian man. Gr.

But. I really loved O-Lan. I'd love to read a whole book written from her point of view. ( )
  karenhmoore | Jan 1, 2024 |
I had to read this in HS and did NOT enjoy it. Maybe because I had to read it. Everyone loves it so I might try it again but I really didn't care for it the first go around. ( )
  MsTera | Oct 10, 2023 |
This is the story of a poor farmer who married a slave girl. Buck was the daughter of missionaries in the late 1890s through the early 1900s, and so I don’t doubt she describes the average life of a poor man in China, and the role of women. Perhaps it is so striking to know that the book may accurately describe the treatment of women then. The farmer, a hard worker with immense love of the earth, becomes prosperous thanks to his wife’s stoic selfless sacrifices she makes to work the fields beside her husband up to the moments of giving birth. She was endlessly giving of herself. But the farmer only belatedly learned her value only after breaking her heart for years. I was hoping this was a story of love and sacrifice, but it became a story of what happens when a hardworking-successful man cares more about what others think than the one who saved him in the first place. ( )
  KarenMonsen | Sep 18, 2023 |
Like poetry ( )
  schoenbc70 | Sep 2, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 247 (next | show all)

» Add other authors (57 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Buck, Pearl S.primary authorall editionsconfirmed
DAMIANO, AndreaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Heald, AnthonyNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kortemeier, S.Cover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Malling, LivTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Mendes, OscarTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Mulder de Dauner, ElisabethTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Simon, ErnstTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Zody, BepTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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Epigraph
...This was what Vinteuil had done for the little phrase. Swann felt that the composer had been content (with the instruments at his disposal) to draw aside its veil, to make it visible, following and respecting its outlines with a hand so loving, so prudent, so delicate and so sure, that the sound altered at every moment, blunting itself to indicate a shadow, springing back into life when it must follow the curve of some more bold projection. And one proof that Swann was not mistaken when believed in the real existence of this phrase was that anyone with an ear at all delicate for music would have at once detected the imposture had Vinteuil, endowed with less power to see and to render its forms, sought to dissemble (by adding a line, here and there, of his own invention) the dimness of his vision or the feebleness of his hand.
— Swann's Way, by Marcel Proust
Dedication
First words
It was Wang Lung's marriage day.
Quotations
He had no articulate thought of anything; there was only this perfect sympathy of movement, of turning this earth of theirs over and over to the sun, this earth which formed their home and fed their bodies and made their gods. The earth lay rich and dark, and fell apart lightly under the points of their hoes, Sometimes they turned up a bit of brick, a splinter of wood. It was nothing. Sometimes, in some age, bodies of men and women had been buried there, houses had stood there, had fallen, and gone back into the earth. So would also their house, sometime, return into the earth, their bodies also. Each had his turn at this earth. They worked on, moving together — together — producing the fruit of this earth — speechless in their movement together.
…he said nothing still, she looked at him piteously and sadly out of her strange dumb eyes that were like a beast’s eyes that cannot speak, and then she went away, creeping and feeling for the door because of her tears that blinded her.

Wang Lung watched her as she went and he was glad to be alone, but still he was ashamed and he was still angry that he was ashamed, and he said to himself, and he muttered the words aloud and restlessly, as though he quarreled with someone, “Well, and other men are so and I have been good enough to her, and there are men worse than I.” And he said at last that O-lan must bear it.
My house and my land it is, and if it were not for the land we should all starve as the others did, and you could not walk about in your dainty robes idle as a scholar. It is the good land that has made you something better than a farmer’s lad.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
This is the book; do not combine with the film.
Film ISBNs: 0792803825, 0790793083
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML:

This Pulitzer Prize-winning classic tells the poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the land and its workers; but they will soon meet their own downfall.

Hard times come upon Wang Lung and his family when flood and drought force them to seek work in the city. The working people riot, breaking into the homes of the rich and forcing them to flee. When Wang Lung shows mercy to one noble and is rewarded, he begins to rise in the world, even as the House of Hwang falls.

.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
La buona terra, che viene universalmente considerato il capolavoro della Buck, ripropone, con I'ingegno coerente e I'umana solidarietà proprie di questa scrittrice, il tema della vita patriarcale - legata alla terra e a tradizioni millenarie - del contadino cinese. Rifuggendo da artificiosi esotismi, l'opera, che rivela una profonda conoscenza della Cina così com'era agli inizi del secolo, narra la vicenda di Wang Lung a di sua moglie O-Lan, dell'eroica lotta che essi conducono contro la siccità, le devastazioni, l'avidità e il disamore dei figli per il lavoro dei campi. La terra significava per il contadino cinese il benessere, l'unione della famiglia, le tradizioni più sacre che da essa provenivano e ad esse erano legate, le virtù delle generazioni passate, le speranze di quelle future. Ormai vecchio Wang Lung così ammonisce i suoi figli: « Quando si comincia a vendere la terra è la fine di una famiglia. Dalla terra siamo venuti, e alla terra dobbiamo tornare... Se conserverete la terra vivrete... Nessuno potrà mai portarvela via... ».
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