The Good Earth
Rating: 
Awards:
Author: Pearl S. Buck.
Narrator: Anthony Heald.
Category: Fiction.
Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks.
Release Date: 2007.
Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins.
Unabridged.
An Overview:
A Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth traces the development of a single Chinese farmer, Wang Lung, as he becomes the wealthy patriarch of a dynasty. Few writers are capable of understanding the culture of the Chinese peasant as Buck does. At a time when China is constantly in the news, this book is a good reminder of the great divide between the city and countryside.
Main Body:
Ms. Buck, who grew up in China, offers a keen insight into the struggles of the rural farming class of the early 1900’s, highlighting their reliance on the fickle earth for survival and their dreams of becoming great landowners. The novel opens on Wang Lung’s wedding day. As is the custom, he has paid for a wife, a slave from the powerful House of Hwang which rules the area. Clumsy and inarticulate, he approaches the Hwang matriarch with uncertainty; little considering that he may ever have the opportunity to become as great as her family. The wife he receives is neither beautiful nor charming, but she is as a hard worker as her husband.
In one scene she gives birth alone and returns to the fields later that day with newborn in tow. Wang Lung works his farm diligently meeting with success and failure. He prays, borrows, and saves and eventually builds up his own house. He grows into a man of wealth who can afford to educate his sons as he adds more and more fields to his possessions. Buck explores the effects of desire and position as Wang Lung’s farm and position grow. Loyalties change and Wang Lung becomes increasingly enraptured with his wealth and what it will buy him as he comes to resemble the Hwangs who formerly ruled over him.
Buck surveys the realities of rural China and the peasants who live there with unflinching reality. There are no heroes in The Good Earth, only real characters who live their lives never realizing that they are doing so as penned creations. I highly recommend this book for its unique look into the life of Chinese peasants, a lifestyle which, for many has not changed much since The Good Earth the time of Wang Lung.
The Narration:
Screen and theatre actor Anthony Heald, who has read 15 books, does a good reading of The Good Earth. Although a little fast at times, his narration is lively and easy to absorb. Perfect for a long drive.
Audiobook reviewed by Georgie Flinn
Listen to Audiobook Sample Available: Yes
Resources:
wikipedia: The Good Earth
Popularity: 2%
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