If you sell the land, it is the end...

The Good Earth is about just that, the good earth, the land that brings forth prosperity or devastation. Pearl S. Buck won the Pulitzer for this work in 1932. Interesting enough, the entire work takes place in China before the revolution and the last emperor still reigned.
We meet Wang Lung on his wedding day. His father had arranged the union with the lady of the House of Hwang. He will marry a servant not to pretty as Wang Lung is not in need of a pretty woman and the trouble she brings. Her name is O-lan, and upon their union, she spends the rest of her days selflessly providing for her less than endearing husband. A hard worker, Wang Lung falls into fortune as the gods bless his fields. Instead of saving the money for hard times, he invests it in the land, slowly buying pieces of soil from the House of Hwang until he owns it all. Even the house itself.

At first meeting, Wang Lung is likable enough, a poor farmer plowing the fields. However, as he grows in his wealth and reputation, he moves into the House of Hwang and way from the fields, becoming lazy and idle and throwing money at problems to make them disappear. Wang Lung returns to the land time and time again to sooth his suffering. It is the land that provides, and while he understood that, it was a lesson he failed to pass on to his sons.  In the end (spoiler alert!!), the sons' knowing smiles imply that they will not heed their father's advise, and as soon as he dies, the land will be sold. The end, in this case, it two fold.

Buck aptly describes what happens when wealth is simply given and not earned. While Wang Lung worked the land to bring forth fruit, his sons merely enjoyed the benefits. Wang Lung wanted better for his sons; they should have better than he, toiling in the fields was for no son of his. My how the circle keeps on turning, and there is nothing new under the sun! It is from the earth that life is sustained, fed and nurtured. Wang Lung's trouble came when he deviated from that. A lesson more easily observed from the outside than from within.

While daunting in size, The Good Earth is a fairly easy read with simple writing and a somewhat engaging plot. There were even a few things I could take away from the novel... maybe, dare I say it, what not to do as a parent.

Up next, The Reivers by William Faulkner, winner of the Pulitzer in 1963. Until then... Happy reading.