Pearl Buck in China (in Nanjing)

When we decided to go to China, I talked my book club into reading Pearl Buck's The Good Earth.  Since we're going to Skype tonight, I wanted to share some of the things I've learned about this book and about Pearl Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973)).  She was the daughter of American missionaries and spent most of her life before 1934 living in China.  In fact she lived on the Nanjing University campus from 1920-1933, where she and her husband taught.  I walked up to the house today and took a couple of pictures.  In 2012, the 110th anniversary of the University, the house was dedicated as a memorial to Buck  She loved the Chinese people and dedicated her life to helping the west understand the people and the country.

Buck is know in China as Sài Zhēnzhū.

Most of us probably read The Good Earth  in high school, but this was not the book I read in high school.  I read it with new eyes and a new heart.  Published in 1931, Buck won the Pulitzer prize for literature in 1932.  It tells the story of a rural Chinese family in the early 20th century, before World I.  During the Cultural Revolution, because she was an American writing about Chinese peasants, Buck was called an "American cultural imperialist," and the book was banned in China for many years.  It is widely available in China now, but not with anything near the popularity the book garners in the U.S.

I grew to love O-lan, a former slave who marries the young farmer Wang Lung.  She spends a lifetime dedicated to improving her husband's and children's lives and receives nothing in return.  She lived her life never expressing her feelings or pain.  ". . .she would not be hastened.  Words were to her things to be caught one by one and released with difficulty."

Friends, pick up this book again!

Pearl Buck's House on the Nanjing University campus.

The front door of the house.