Classic and for a reason

The Good Earth
by Pearl S. Buck

At times I was listening with fists clenched in fear and fingers crossed in hope. At times I had to grit my teeth to keep from hollering--don't do it, stupid!  At times I was amazed to think that people could have subsisted on so little food and saddened to know that they did.  When drought strikes the whole land, if the rich used their silver to bring in food and share it with the hungry, would their goodness be remembered?  We'll never know.

I was so caught up in the powerful story that even as I shuddered at people's foolish decisions, I didn't get angry at the author, only the people.  There were only two really 'good' people in the whole book and I never fully understood what made them tick, but they weren't the story--the story was of Wang Lung and his father and his sons.

Actually, I'm not sure I want to use the term, 'good'.  It's not about good vs. evil, it's about human beings and what they do to survive. If I call Wang Lung's wife 'good', I'm ignoring her whole role in life. She exists to serve--she's a wife and a mother and she meets the obligations as she has been taught them. She seems to be grateful for what she's been given and seldom envious of what she can't have. She's simply a survivor.

But you never know what's going on inside her. If Pearl Buck had written this book forty years later (it was published in 1931), would she have considered writing from the woman's perspective?  Did she feel that to be taken seriously she had to write about men?  Was it verboten to show a woman's true feelings--would that have typecast her work as chick lit and trivialized its existence?  I'm not sure we'll ever know, and it's a pity.

Wrong again--we might know!  She wrote a series of essays,  Of Men and Women, and is considered a feminist writer by some people.  I'm going to check this out!  See you later.