Customer Reviews

Pearl Buck in China: Journey to The Good Earth

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

 

 

How many average American readers know that Pearl Buck won a Pulitzer Prize, or that she was the first American woman awarded a Nobel Prize for literature? How many realize she was read by Gandhi, Matisse, and Eleanor Roosevelt? In fact, how many even know of her at all? "The Good Earth" remains one of my all-time favorite novels, and Olan stands out as one of my favorite female characters in fiction. My own travels in China only enhanced my enjoyment of the book, and my experience as a child raised in multiple cultures gives me empathy for Ms. Buck's own upbringing as an American-born child raised in China as the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries. Imagine my excitement to see a modern biography of this fascinating woman.

"Pearl Buck in China" gives a detailed and well-researched view into her upbringing, her struggles, and her influence as a novelist. Despite the slow first two chapters, much of which are devoted to her father's missionary zeal at the expense of his family, as well as his misogyny in the name of God, the book dives deeply into the psyche of young Pearl. By the age of ten, she had decided to be a novelist, finding escape in fiction from her parents' unrest, and enjoying connection with the Western world--particularly through Dickens' novels--which was still foreign to her. As we discover, she knew the street vernacular of the average Chinese, and grew to love them as her own. This familiarity caused a strain on her religious beliefs when fellow Westerners treated the Chinese with condescension. Later, she found a husband with a more practical approach to his missionary work, teaching the locals agricultural skills.

Although I appreciated the history of Pearl's stalwart mother and stubborn father, I grew more attentive as the book moved into her years as a young women, as a writer, as a wife and, later, a mother. She fought for the rights of women, of handicapped children, and of all races and cultures. She humanized the Chinese in America's eyes, even at the risk of losing her place with the missionaries she had grown up among. She was not perfect. She had physical, creative, and spiritual struggles. She left her husband after years of frustration. The book never glamorizes her life, and yet it causes me to appreciate her more than ever.

Pearl tells us: "Fiction is a painting, biography is photography. Fiction is creation, biography is arrangement." This book does provide snapshots of her life, arranging those scenes into some sort of sense. It's through her fiction, though, that we find paintings of her, both bright and bleak, creations of character and setting and moral fortitude that allow her to live beyond her earthly years. I hope "Pearl Buck in China" helps bring her to life for new readers, young and old.

Hilary Spurling is a wonderful writer. A Brit that writes about people few of us would follow like Matiisse, Paul Scott, Ivy Compton-Burnett and Therese Humbert. People listen, Spurling is very, very good, read her works. That brings us to her latest, PEARL BUCK IN CHINA: Journey to the Good Earth. This is a marvelous marvelous book. Spurling give us the whole story without editorializing but in great detail. This is an interesting story about a very interesting person, Nobel and Pulitzer prize winner. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Read This

Decades from now, the biographer Hillary Spurling will surely rate as one of the best writers of our time. This latest effort adds to an excellent list of achievements and might be her most successful book, yet. Given her much lauded two-volume biography of Henri Matisse, that is saying a lot.

In this book, Spurling brings to life a writer I had not much cared for. In fact, I knew Pearl Buck only for her titles publishes in volumes of the Reader's Digest Condensed Books, which had pride of place on my parents' bookshelves. My mental appraisal of her was simply horrid: drab, old-fashioned, famous mostly for being exotic in her time. How's that for my ignorance? Pretty good. As a result, I have always passed on opportunities to read Buck's writing. It shocked me to see that Spurling had chosen to exert her considerable talents in the direction of Buck's life story -- a surprise that evaporated in the book's first engrossing paragraphs.

One of Spurling's great strengths as a biographer is that she requires characters to speak for themselves; they tell their own story. She quotes liberally from primary sources with the result that Buck and others define themselves and each other. These individuals existed independent of the biographer, as is not always clear when a biographer attempts to "read" lives instead of writing about them. Spurling wraps history in the impressions and responses of the story's characters, and yet the difference between the historicity of events and people's recollections is plain. Recollections and impressions evolve, as she shows in the way Buck recasts autobiographical aspects throughout her works. When a biographer chooses this approach, the result can be a shapeless muddle of quotations and dates: not so here. Documentation is shaped into a cohesive story, where the evidence is unvarnished but assembled into the unmistakable likeness of the subject's life and times.

The narrative also makes a clear, but unobtrusive point that the author thoroughly immersed herself not only in events and even minutiae of Buck's life but also in her prodigious body of work. The unfolding life story connects here seamlessly to autobiographical and biographical elements of the subject's books. This is biography, not literary criticism, but what emerges is more than a reader's guide. Content has context. Spurling shows how writing, itself, is the great revealer of a writer.

Spurling writes with a justly authoritative voice. As is usual in her books, the iteration of sources and notes is impressive. Nevertheless, she avoids a dogmatic tone. It is possible to take away from the book the idea that Buck's story still plays out in current events. At a moment when the United States is still struggling to adjust to the global impact of China's economy, this story offers greater perspective. It is a book that could be read profitably by anyone with an interest in current events, history, or -- not forgetting -- literature.

The first part of this biography gives an account of Pearl Buck's life as a child and young woman in China, where her parents were missionaries. She and her family overcame survival conditions, which to us Westerners would have sent us fleeing back to the US with our young children. Her parents lost several babies but this didn't deter her father from proselytising away from his family in rural China.
Pearl survived to go to college in Virginia, then to return with her husband, an agricultural missionary, for more work in rural areas. The bulk of Buck's writing is based on her knowledge of China.
The book seems to me to be disorganized in content; there is no definite time-line nor a good map of where she and her family lived. There could have been more rigorous organization of content with footnotes or references to sources. The second part of the biography deals with Pearl's return to the US and her later work. Again there seemed to be too much allusion to hearsay and not enough academic research. There has already been much written about Buck and her papers are available to academics.
I would rate this book as an introduction to further study of this fascinating author.

I was very disappointed with this book for a variety of reasons.

First was the ping-ponging in spelling Chinese names and places the old way (Wade-Giles) and the current way (PinYin). Imagine that you're reading a story about China's capital and the author called the city "Beijing" one minute and "Peking" the next. I lived in China and could sort through this mess (although it wasn't easy), but for someone who knows little of China, it would be totally confusing.

Secondly, I'm appalled that Simon & Shuster did such a sorry job of editing, both fact-checking and in aiding the author to develop her material more evenly. Spurling, the author, writes that Pearl Buck's ancestors joined the Union during the Civil Way to "fight the Yankees." HUH??? What do major publishing houses pay their editors to do these days besides run a manuscript through spellcheck??

When the book gets to writing and publishing THE GOOD EARTH (the final chapter), the narrative falls apart. It's a difficult chapter to read because events are jammed together in an illogical way.

A disappointing book.

Raised in China by an over zealous missionary father and long suffering mother, Pearl Sydenstricker Buck had an extraordinary childhood. Her loving mother, Carrie, saw to her education and her stern misogynist father, Absalom, made a difficult life more difficult for the everyone around him.

At a young age Pearl saw extreme poverty, disaster and death in rural China. Pearl lost four siblings in ways that could be attributed to her family's living conditions. At times the family lived without running water or electricity (as Pearl did later with her husband in Nanxuzhou and as a refugee). She learned Chinese and English simultaneously, making her fully bilingual.

While most missionary children had sheltered lives in ex-pat communities with English language schools, Pearl spent her childhood with impoverished rural Chinese and at a very young age learned of their most intimate lives. Later, her husband's career in the study of Chinese agriculture connected her to China's academic/scientific communities and continued her connection with the rural poor. She worked these shared experiences with the Chinese people into thousands of pages of novels, speeches, articles and stories.

Hillary Spurling has produced a highly readable book, in many places it's a page turner. Its problem, from my point of view, is that the narrative has some holes and presents incohesive portraits of its subject, Pearl, and her father who is a determining influence on her life.

One narrative hole relates to finances. There is a big emphasis on the hand to mouth existence of the Sydenstrickers. Every penny Absalom can spare is going to his Bible translation or other projects. It is hard to believe that Pearl's four years at Randolph Mason (and transportation) are financed by her mother's hoarding of what can be saved in household expenses. Similarly, as the Lossing Buck's are scrimping while Lossing works on his MA, there is somehow money for Pearl's MA too. There is a lot of trans-oceanic travel, there is her sister's start of a college education, there is at least one summer long vacation for Pearl, her mother and sister, there is a period of residential medical care for her mother and there are medical expenses and travel costs for Carol. These do not fit the Sydenstriker or Buck financial situations as they are described.

The family is important to this story, so I feel the relationships need more depth in their presentation. Pearl's sister Grace has to leave college in the US to return to China to help Pearl with her child. Local help would be easy to obtain so there must be a deeper story here. Pearl's brother, Edgar, was sent back to the US at age 15 which suggests some interesting, and unexplored, family dynamics. Absalom, after Carie's death, seems to live with his daughters, which given his past, has to be an imposition and source of great stress. In the refugee camp in Japan, in his advanced age, Absalom considers missionary work in Korea. Does he really, or is this just a ploy to extract family commitments? Carol, whose importance to Pearl is emphasized, just disappears from the text in the end. Was the money left to her school eliminated in Pearl's second will naming Ted Harris as a major beneficiary? Similarly, Janice almost disappears.

Both Pearl and Absalom change. Pearl, as a young adult is an empathetic listener and a dedicated and somewhat willowing wife, mother and writer. Later in life she becomes what seems to be cold and materialistic. Her need for and love for children is emphasized as a young woman, but in the end it seems she can't be bothered. In the narrative, this is an abrupt change, with no foreshadowing or explanation. There is some shading and some discussion of the change (or perceived change in Pearl's eyes) in Absalom. His initial portrait is frightening. He is the supreme autocrat and argues with everyone - always. He has no interest in his children or his wife. His rigidity adds to the hardships his family suffers. He is self-righteous in his mission and this is all important to him. At the end of the book, he is nearly human. He still does not bend, he is presented sympathetically.

While this sounds quite critical, there is a lot of good material here, and the author really holds your interest. If you are looking for a short work on Pearl Buck, this book is for you.

You couldn't find a more interesting subject than Pearl Buck; however, Ms. Spurling has done a fabulous job of "arranging" her biography. I loved every minute of this book and was very pleased with the attention to detail and research. The timelines were in order and her writing factual. Ms. Spurling does not insert her opinion as fact, but leaves unanswered questions open to speculation. I very much enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to anyone hoping to get acquainted with Pearl Buck or even just in the mood for the story of a great and incredible woman.

Just to let everyone know, this is the American edition of Burying The Bones, which is listed here on Amazon in hardcover, so if you have this one, you don't need the other.

You're welcome. :o)

I have never read anything by or about Miss Buck, although I do know who she is and the titles of some of her books. I thoroughly enjoyed this audio book. Hilary Spurling has done an excellent job in capturing Pearl's story.

What an extraordinary life Pearl Buck led as the daughter of a missionary living in China for much of her life. This biography delves deeply into Buck's family life. It is the story of her growing up mainly in the Chinese culture, the hardship of living in China and living through some perilous times, The Boxer uprising, and several other wars. (Pearl lived mostly in China from 1892-1934). The hardships the family endured as a result of her father's passion to be a missionary at all costs.

This story also talks about the difficulty in living in two cultures and not knowing where she fit in either. From growing up in China and not fitting in because of her fair skin and hair where she stood out from everyone else to going back to the United States after living much of her life in the Chinese culture and not really fitting in there.

Pearl Buck won a Pulitzer prize and the Noble Peace prize for her writing of The Good Earth. She was the mother of two children, was married twice and has written many books. I found it very interesting how Ms. Spurling tells how Pearl wrote about her own family in many of her stories.

This is such an interesting story. I would recommend this book. I think I now want to read The Good Earth!

I suffered through this book waiting for something that never came. The author's writing style is devoid of humor or flair. The books reads like a thesis. I'm shocked so many people raved about it; I feel as though I read a different book.

Equally bad as the writing is the organization. The events take place in pseudo-chronological order - but every so often there are huge jumps in time and place. The author also assumes her reader is familiar with Pearl Buck. I don't think such familiarity would have made the book more readable, but I'm guessing Buck fans are more forgiving.