Angry Wife [Import] [Hardcover]

Pearl S. Buck (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Severn House Publishers Ltd; New Ed edition (November 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0727806904
• ISBN-13: 978-0727806901
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,215,364 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker was born on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Her parents were Southern Presbyterian missionaries, most often stationed in China, and from childhood, Pearl spoke both English and Chinese. She returned to China shortly after graduation from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1914, and the following year, she met a young agricultural economist named John Lossing Buck. They married in 1917, and immediately moved to Nanhsuchou in rural Anhwei province. In this impoverished community, Pearl Buck gathered the material that she would later use in The Good Earth and other stories of China.
Pearl began to publish stories and essays in the 1920s, in magazines such as The Nation, The Chinese Recorder, Asia, and The Atlantic Monthly. Her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, was published by the John Day Company in 1930. John Day's publisher, Richard Walsh, would eventually become Pearl's second husband, in 1935, after both received divorces.

In 1931, John Day published Pearl's second novel, The Good Earth. This became the bestselling book of both 1931 and 1932, won the Pulitzer Prize and the Howells Medal in 1935, and would be adapted as a major MGM film in 1937. Other novels and books of nonfiction quickly followed. In 1938, less than a decade after her first book had appeared, Pearl won the Nobel Prize in literature, the first American woman to do so. By the time of her death in 1973, Pearl had published more than seventy books: novels, collections of stories, biography and autobiography, poetry, drama, children's literature, and translations from the Chinese. She is buried at Green Hills Farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Reading!, September 20, 2005

By 

Squirrely "Essy" (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Angry Wife (Paperback)

Pearl Buck is my favorite author! Angry Wife was different from most of the others I have read by Buck, but, in its own way, it held my interest as do all of her books! Buck's writings are so well described, you feel like you are part of the story, and she has just enough romance to make it interesting.

3.0 out of 5 stars Lucinda Delaney is the most racist human being ever, December 20, 2011

By 

Craig Rowland (Mississauga) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Angry Wife (Paperback)

The Angry Wife is one of Pearl S. Buck's lesser-known novels. During my work I often come across books that are donated to the library but which we cannot use. A donor had given us three Buck paperbacks, not in the best of condition, and after I read and enjoyed The Good Earth a couple months ago I decided to read these.

The character of the angry wife refers to Lucinda Delaney, a prim and proper Southern belle. She suspects her husband Pierce of having an affair with their slave Georgia. Although the reader knows that nothing ever happens between the two, Lucinda can't help feeling suspicious of her husband's betrayal. She is constantly aware and reminded of the scandal--more a scandal in her own mind--caused by Pierce's own brother, Tom, having an affair with their other slave, Bettina. Tom is banished from the Delaney estate and although they are no longer on site, Lucinda is fearful that her children will start to ask questions about their biracial cousins.

Lucinda wears the metaphorical pants in this household, and even though Pierce was in command of a whole army during the Civil War, he can offer no resistance to his overbearing, indeed angry, and hatefully prejudiced wife. Tom and Bettina find peace and happiness in Philadelphia, living as equals in a colorblind post-Emancipation America. Lucinda, however, lives in constant fear of town gossip and the tainting of her pure white reputation by slave blood. When her own daughter elopes with a Brazilian, she throws fits of hysterics, wondering about the skin colour of her new son-in-law. In portraying Lucinda as so innately racist, Buck wisely avoids painting her in a comical light, as John Waters did with the character Prudence Pingleton in the original movie "Hairspray". Lucinda quite frankly cannot cope with even the idea of anyone in her family associating with blacks on any basis other than that of mistress over slave.

In The Angry Wife, Buck herself wrote what today would seem to be antiquated and even misogynistic ideas of women. The descriptions however would seem fitting for their time, although I could not repress a chuckle when I read this passage about Lucinda and Pierce:

"He sat ruminating and idle on the terrace, putting off his riding about the farm, listening to her. Like most women she kept on talking after she had really finished everything she had to say. He let his mind wander. Then suddenly he was drawn back to attention by her changing the subject completely."

Like The Good Earth, The Angry Wife was a rich and rapid read. Books like this are a pleasure to read but a disappointment to finish, as I wished the story would go on longer. I am happy that I have two more Buck novels to start off 2012.

4.0 out of 5 stars Subtle and Extremely Well Articulated, September 7, 2010

By 

Neha Lehl (India) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Angry Wife (Paperback)

Pearl S. Buck is my favourite author and recently I had the great honour of visiting her home and resting place at Green Hills Farm, Bucks County. I had picked up this book from there and as such it has a special significance for me.

What surprises me is the fact that it's hardly known! For such a fabulous book, it hasn't had much fame. I love The Good Earth but it seems to me that it has over shadowed other equally brilliant books by this great author.

As someone correctly said, it's a gem of a book. It explores the mind of a post war Southern Gentleman, Pierce Delaney, who clings to the security and old world charm of the days gone by but is perceptive enough to know that things have changed and he has not allowed himself to change with them. A good man to the core - intelligent, loving, devoted and strong, yet perhaps not strong enough. His brother Tom Delaney on the other hand fought for the North and kept up his fight by marrying the woman of his choice and breaking all old world shackles to move on in a life of his own creation, utterly at peace with himself and prepared for the future and change which must come.
The past is represented in the form of Lucinda Delaney, Pierce's wife, the war was fought and won by the other side but she sees that as no concern of hers, she must have new satin for her upholstery.

What captivates the reader is the richness of the narration, the clear articulation of the vague thoughts which crowd a human mind, despite all the subjects it touches upon, it is not a melancholy book, on the contrary it's full of the good things in life and paints a vivid picture of beauty. This thin book covers almost three decades of a man's life and is quite complete in itself. It is a book of hope, of comfort, courage and change.