The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck is ranked 274th on The Greatest Books of All Time, it was the best-selling novel in the United States in both 1931 and 1932, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1932, and was influential in Buck's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, though I did not find it on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, or any of the other important lists

 

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck is ranked 274th on The Greatest Books of All Time, it was the best-selling novel in the United States in both 1931 and 1932, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1932, and was influential in Buck's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, though I did not find it on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, or any of the other important lists

 

 

<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg07xtKX7lHAExP_Jd9tUAmuUv1T9tEZPDun9Y8s04P1h_ymcabHURlHiBTAk4tX3h5apfBNaGBB5fXWYDg1l1PMbDwe-sxOmKgHu7jqonTYqMbLN3sn8v4IK9tYpTOhoU9QskQOdfmHmuOO__7VxE7VMYk03zQZcPnKpMjQIKR7NN_lL3TbJuoZZsASVLO/w177-h316/image.jpeg" />

9 out of 10

 

The Good Earth has reminded me of The Rickshaw Boy https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/08/rickshaw-boy-aka-camel-xiangzi-by-lao.html perhaps because the heroes of both novels have to work pulling the rickshaw, albeit in one, that is the defining trait, seen in the title

 

Wang Lung is the main character, and he makes the reader see that people are ‘the same’, even if writing this I hesitate and dispute it, everywhere, and despite the fact that I am hostile to China – and the apparatchiks, those dominate, the communists – this man (fictional personage in fact) deserves compassion

This is not The Magister Ludi https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-glass-beads-game-by-herman-hesse.html from Glasperlenspiel, a majestic chef d’oeuvre, Wang Lung has quite a few flaws, a number of them can be explained by the epoque, the traditions, but he is quite mean to his first wife O-Lan, and he belatedly admits it

 

We meet the protagonist on the day of his wedding, he is just a peasant, poor, and thus he does not afford a ‘normal wife’, he has to buy a ‘slave’ from a rich house, where he is treated with disdain and arrogance, he takes one who is not beautiful, his father saying that the attractive ones have been with the masters, and other servants

Confucius https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-analects-by-confucius-8-out-of-10.html might be part of the problem, nay, he surely is, in the sense that Wang Lung’s father gets to be rather spoiled and obnoxious, just because there is this (exaggerated?) reverence, veneration for the older ones, respects for tradition

 

I know I am using hyperbole here, and there is so much to say in favor of that philosophy, I am at the age where I could be biased, and say, sure: Confucianism is best, younger ones should stop and listen, wait for me to pass, and so on, but that old creature expects his son, O-Lan, to see to his every whim and serve him

When they are out of food, they have to leave everything and go South, because otherwise they would be starving, one child is killed by O-Lan, and they consider giving the ‘fool, a girl, into slavery, at the last minute, they stumble into a sort of fortune, during this uprising, they get money and jewelry from a rich man, afraid for his life

 

Stumbling on Happiness https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/02/stumbling-on-happiness-by-david-gilbert.html shows us that there is Hedonic Adaptation, the jewels that O-Lan found are used to buy land, alas, she is not allowed to keep two pearls, and her husband will give them to Lotus, a second wife he buys, literally

 

Here is the link to my blog, if you are interested

 

https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/08/do-you-have-any-suggestions-how-to-make.html

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