Anyone Wang Lung Tonight?
If you don't know, Wang Lung is the protaganist of Pearl Buck's Good Earth. Closing it the other day, well, I did have to say Good Book.
I bought this book when I bought The Book of Illusions last November. Every year or so I feel some obligation to put one of the classics in my 'brain library', and coming across this book in the bookstore, decided, well...
Though I mentioned in some earlier blog that this book was eyeballing me, and the book was eyeballing me, in another way the story wasn't eyeballing me at all... In some way I still wanted something gothic... And may I say I had some erroneous expectations from The Good Earth. For some reason I was expecting Rita Hayworth in a nun's outfit, or as a missionary's daughter. It wasn't this at all. In fact though I believe a white person does make a cameo appearance in one paragraph, the rest of the book exists without any hint of western civilization.
One issue while reading this book was that it sits under the cloud of being a Nobel winner. Though I don't think the Nobel is typically awarded for a particular work of art, rather is for the artist, I believe it is widely rumored that Ms. Buck won for this work. As a result I kept scanning the pages somewhat wondering what the Nobel committee found there...
One thing I noted was, there wasn't anything really quotable. The language is very simple, and though there was one scene where Wang Lung was making fun of and otherwise disrespecting the earth gods that was humorous, and might be something I would considering sharing, the language itself wouldn't've conveyed any of this, outside of the context the rest of the story...
I don't think there was anything particularly 'wonderful' about the rest of the story, or should I say narrative. This is basically a 'life' story, or a marriage to death story, with Horatio Alger overtones. I've had the same experience with other books. One that comes to mind is Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth, but there are many others that follow this narrative pattern. This is not to say it wasn't a good story. And I should add, I was very entertained.
If there was a particular lesson to take away from the book, well there was the good earth lesson..., but it would seem to be that ignorance will never hinder success in life. Wang Lung's primary character quality was probably his work ethic and love for his own usefulness, but second to this quality and standing only an inch shorter and just over the work ethic's shoulder was his ignorance.
The back of my mind that kept wondering about the Nobel committee basically came to the conclusion that it was the matter of factness in Ms Buck's language that won the day. First of all there is a vacuum in which Wang Lung's village exists that makes it sort of an anthropological study. There is no real sense of 'judging' Wang Lung. He cheats on his wife, and then on his mistress, all women are treated and considered to be slaves. At the end he has his 'last' affair with a very young girl. The only 'judging' that came along with this, came from Wang Lung himself, and typically this came on the back of justification. Either it was because wealth justified it, or his fellow villager's respect (or disrespect) justified...
Despite all of his faults ultimately you do leave Wang Lung behind with a feeling of respect. It is that despite his ignorance and human failures, that driving need to be useful/productive raises him regardless. A few weeks ago I caught Disney's Big Red on TV, and there was a line in there that was quotable. This starred Walter Pidgeon (one of my fav's) and a young french canadian kid (Gilles Payant) as an orphan that Pidgeon befriends. Pidgeon is having a conversation where he's telling the kid he needs to go to school. Pidgeon asks or tells him that education was most important. The kid thinks about this and says, It is important, I think, monsieur, but I think it is 'most' important to be useful... That quote, I think, was The Good Earth in a nutshell.
I bought this book when I bought The Book of Illusions last November. Every year or so I feel some obligation to put one of the classics in my 'brain library', and coming across this book in the bookstore, decided, well...
Though I mentioned in some earlier blog that this book was eyeballing me, and the book was eyeballing me, in another way the story wasn't eyeballing me at all... In some way I still wanted something gothic... And may I say I had some erroneous expectations from The Good Earth. For some reason I was expecting Rita Hayworth in a nun's outfit, or as a missionary's daughter. It wasn't this at all. In fact though I believe a white person does make a cameo appearance in one paragraph, the rest of the book exists without any hint of western civilization.
One issue while reading this book was that it sits under the cloud of being a Nobel winner. Though I don't think the Nobel is typically awarded for a particular work of art, rather is for the artist, I believe it is widely rumored that Ms. Buck won for this work. As a result I kept scanning the pages somewhat wondering what the Nobel committee found there...
One thing I noted was, there wasn't anything really quotable. The language is very simple, and though there was one scene where Wang Lung was making fun of and otherwise disrespecting the earth gods that was humorous, and might be something I would considering sharing, the language itself wouldn't've conveyed any of this, outside of the context the rest of the story...
I don't think there was anything particularly 'wonderful' about the rest of the story, or should I say narrative. This is basically a 'life' story, or a marriage to death story, with Horatio Alger overtones. I've had the same experience with other books. One that comes to mind is Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth, but there are many others that follow this narrative pattern. This is not to say it wasn't a good story. And I should add, I was very entertained.
If there was a particular lesson to take away from the book, well there was the good earth lesson..., but it would seem to be that ignorance will never hinder success in life. Wang Lung's primary character quality was probably his work ethic and love for his own usefulness, but second to this quality and standing only an inch shorter and just over the work ethic's shoulder was his ignorance.
The back of my mind that kept wondering about the Nobel committee basically came to the conclusion that it was the matter of factness in Ms Buck's language that won the day. First of all there is a vacuum in which Wang Lung's village exists that makes it sort of an anthropological study. There is no real sense of 'judging' Wang Lung. He cheats on his wife, and then on his mistress, all women are treated and considered to be slaves. At the end he has his 'last' affair with a very young girl. The only 'judging' that came along with this, came from Wang Lung himself, and typically this came on the back of justification. Either it was because wealth justified it, or his fellow villager's respect (or disrespect) justified...
Despite all of his faults ultimately you do leave Wang Lung behind with a feeling of respect. It is that despite his ignorance and human failures, that driving need to be useful/productive raises him regardless. A few weeks ago I caught Disney's Big Red on TV, and there was a line in there that was quotable. This starred Walter Pidgeon (one of my fav's) and a young french canadian kid (Gilles Payant) as an orphan that Pidgeon befriends. Pidgeon is having a conversation where he's telling the kid he needs to go to school. Pidgeon asks or tells him that education was most important. The kid thinks about this and says, It is important, I think, monsieur, but I think it is 'most' important to be useful... That quote, I think, was The Good Earth in a nutshell.
posted by quantom qurkington at 8:28 AM
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