The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck was published in 1931 and went on to receive the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. Based in a Chinese village before the World War I, the novel follows Wang Lung and his family, their rise and downfall as well as whatever problems a typical family in that age and day could have.
Reading the novel is like listening to an old whisper that has existed all along but is just revealing itself. It is surreal. The characters, situations and even the dialogues are set beautifully and in the most convincing manner.
Buck has done a magnificent job of making the world understand that be it a Chinese village or city or, for that matter, any place on the world, beliefs, values and human instincts are the same.
The clear, brisk prose endears us to the characters, however cruel, dishonest or indifferent they are.
The author, who lived in China during her childhood, drew heavily from her experience to write this magnum opus. Her biographer mentions that Buck thought she was Chinese till she turned eight. It was in Shanghai that she saw poverty, famines and even the death of her siblings.
What she wrote about society still holds true. The protagonist of her novel was a man who worshipped the land and was at a complete loss when he migrated to another city to fend for his family.
There they witnessed theft, corruption and also found themselves in a sea of people who belonged to the same country but could not have been more different from them.
REFERENCE:
June 03, 2016.A journey to The Good Earth.The Hindu.retrieved from
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/A-journey-to-The-Good-Earth/article14380706.ece
