Customer Reviews

Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There are many different ways to review the writings of any kind.Here we have an old novel written by a woman who grew up in China and understood the cultural differences. It is by no means the most accurate description of Korean history or the way people lived of her time. However, I ended up admiring her attempt to know better and in the end to have understood the people and the way of their living and struggle. Nobody can understand the cultural differences and the values of the society unless we live on both sides of the world. That was what she did and used it for her writing. It was a good writing as a novel and described exactly the way of living of the Korean people during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Unbelievable? That is because you have no idea of the real core of different cultures.For example, my family maintains 1,000 years of written history of family geneology of my clan.It shows how we died during the struggle and how we maintain our family by a written code of conduct based on Humanism. That is the reason why Korean are nationalistic.That was accurately described in her writing.

The book The living Reed is a good book worth reading if one want to know more about Korean history in fictional form. The Korean history is interesting since the country always has been the cultural center of the Far East, between countries like Japan, China and Russia; Chinese culture have always been transformed in Korea on its way to Japan. Several countries did recognize Korea important from both a geographical, political and cultural perspective. So important that these countries supported a war in Korea during the years of 1950-53. The two divided Korea is a living proof of this.

Pearl Buck is not a historical writer of accuracy but describes the Korean history and the Korean people in an interesting, fictional way that gives more understanding for the current situation on the Korean peninsula, a situation that have been neglected by the world too long. To say the less, Korea is still not well.known to the majority of Westerners, as much as Japan and China.

No, Koreans are not heroes more than anyone else but I truly believe that the people that contributed to the modern Korea of today should be remembered and acknowledged and Pearl Buck do it very well in this book.

"The Living Reed" is an epic novel that will take you on an emotional journey. Buck's language paints a colorful picture in your mind that you will not soon forget. Her characters are lovable and honorable. Buck brings a segment of history to the public that, sadly, is often forgotten or overlooked. I highly recommend this book if you are a lover of historical fiction.

She makes it possible to understand the Korean culture and to get 'inside' a Korean's mind. As a Korean living in the U.S., I have gained a sense of Korean nationalism, honor and respect that I never knew I had within me.

This book was informative about the History of Korea but lacked strong charactors. It improved towards the end but this is not a book that I will reread. I have love Pearl Bucks books in the past but not this time.

Although I am an avid browser of Amazon.com, I never thought I would write a review until I came across this entry for `The Living Reed'. I am a Korean scholar who is currently working on essays on novels about Korea written by Koreans, Korean-Americans, and non-Koreans, and I have to say that this novel is one of the worst pieces of crap ever written about the country. Of course, many people would think that I and other Koreans ought to be grateful for it because Pearl Buck takes an essentially sympathetic view of Korea and Koreans, but there really is no getting away from the fact that this is a badly researched, badly written, and badly plotted piece of sentimental crap that has nothing to do with Korea or Korean history in the late 19th through the first half of the 20th century. First of all, anyone who thinks that Pearl Buck was a good writer really has no appreciation of good writing since all of her works are such tear-jerking orientalist nonsense written in the manner of a soap opera. The reason she won the Nobel prize is really not for the writing but because she tried to forster East-West relations. And second, anyone who thinks that this is a good historical novel has no understanding of Korean history. Buck's introduction, where she introduces the `noble' people of Korea is this incredibly idiotic series of misconceptions and inaccuracies (to give you just some example, there is no Korean myth of how a bear and a tiger mated and gave birth to the Korean race - the founding legend says that a bear and tiger tried to turn into humans by staying in a cave for a hundred days but the tiger ran out. It was the bear who married a god and gave birth to the first Korean king. Also, a mad monk did not force the last king of Koryo to invade Ming China. The mad monk Sin Don, who may not have been so mad afterall, was exiled and executed during the time of King Gongmin, the father of King Ou who was the third from last king of the dynasty.) And the novel itself is full of such errors (Queen Min was not an adamant pro-Chinese, her father-in-law Daewongoun was). And then there some hilarious idiocies as well. I rolled on the floor laughing everytime Buck had someone exclaim - `In the name of the Buddha!' And then there are these more insidious idealizations of America at that time, how it was the most trustworthy of countries to deal with because unlike other countries, it never had imperialist intentions (!). The book is nonsense, based on a few months of travel through Korea by Buck who never was much of a writer or a historian. The only reason it should be read at all is for people who know something about Korea to get a big laugh of the nonsense.

It's a must. Buck, one of my favorite authors, portrays Korean culture decades ago and historical facts, such as the Japanese invasion, all through the eyes of a family, and unforgettable one.

I've never felt close to or understood Asian culture, but this book has brought me closer to it, and I'm grateful for that. Knowledge really is power. Every culture has great aspects.

As all of Pearl Buck's novels, this book is wonderfully written. She reveals such understanding of the people and history of Asia. The truly historical setting of this book makes it especially facinating.

I'm no expert on Korea or Korean history, though I did live there for six months some years ago. At that time, I learned enough about the country to realize that THE LIVING REED is a joke. If you like soap opera, uplifting prose about valiant people striving to overcome whatever, then this book could be for you. But, if you like reasonably authentic background and depiction of central characters who are not cardboard figures, then think twice before devoting too much of your time to such a book. Pearl Buck had a hit with 'The Good Earth', true. But she tried to capitalize on that and churned out more and more 'uplifting sagas' of this type. OK, so maybe she did it to increase understanding of Asia in the USA. It was for a good cause. But what we are doing here is reviewing books. This book is just not very good. Times have changed and it's out of fashion (happily) to regard individuals of any one nation as particularly charged with moral values, fighting spirit, special will power, etc. These traits are pretty well spread across the human race. You will not find this observation salient in THE LIVING REED. The Koreans are portrayed as a nation of heroes and heroines. That's bunk. They are people just like everyone else. However, it IS true that this is a second-rate novel just like a lot of Buck's others.

It's an OK story. Worth reading. As to its historical accuracy, it is a novel which is a work of fiction. Most historical novels are not accurate--the novelist just takes a place and point in time and uses it to tell his/her story. Whether or not it is historical accurate isn't an issue-it is fiction.