There are so many reasons why I should have liked this more than I did. The book was published in 1941. The Second World War had not yet ended. The Nanjing Massacre and the subsequent occupation by the Japanese is the central theme of the book. In 1948 the International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated that over 200,000 Chinese were killed in the six weeks of the massacre, beginning on December 13, 1937 when the Japanese captured Nanjing. Other estimates set the death toll to 350,000. Japanese occupation and atrocities continued for more than seven years. Think about that. Even today the Japanese do not admit guilt for past actions.The plot follows a farm family in rural China, near Nanjing. The events are hard to read despite the fact that Pearl S. Buck's writing is not graphic. Old traditions, obligatory respect for elders, illiteracy and male dominance are the rule. I was impressed by Buck's knowledge of the massacre, given the date of the book's publication. Other much more recent books cite events that are mentioned here in this early book by Buck (1892-1973). Born to American missionaries, she spent much of her life before the age of 40 in China. In 1935 she returned to the US, but continued to write and support women’s rights and Asian cultures. As a book of historical fiction, it certainly captures the Chinese way of life outside of the cities. It helps to know the author to know what to expect from the book. Women are strong and there is respect for the Chinese culture. The expansion of communism is not covered.However, I did not love the book. I felt that The Good Earth, for which Buck won the Pulitzer fin 1932 and subsequently the Nobel Prize in 1938, has better lines. Her love of the land is more vivid in the earlier book. There, some of the lines almost read as poetry. Here, in Dragon Seed, Buck has a message to deliver. In both books the style is simplistic, which I like, but tied with Buck’s clear attempt to deliver a message of the atrocities taking place the text takes on the tone of a school lecture. I saw the forefinger pointed over and over again. She wants us to understand certain things and in making her point crystal clear the beauty of her simple lines is lost. She speaks of love and family and morals. She speaks of the importance of tilling the land. Ownership is not by deed but rather to he who cares for the land. However, I felt I was being lectured. I felt as though I was being told a story, rather than experiencing it. I never felt close to any of the characters. I became acquainted with Buck’s views in her earlier book and I have read quite a bit about the Nanjing massacre, so I simply didn’t get as much from this one. I highly recommend Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking. In 2004 this author committed suicide most probably due to the pressure put on her in Japan. Chang’s book is non-fiction. Buck’s is historical fiction. Both are informative. Both are difficult to read, but Buck’s is wider. You get love affairs and family relationships. There was too much coincidental in the fictive story for my taste. Just one word of warning, if you cannot deal with the reality of the massacre, rape and torture, you might as well just skip the book, but I feel that is very wrong. It is everyone’s duty to be informed of the Nanjing Massacre. The audiobook narration by Adam Verner was simple to follow.
While this will never be one of my all time favorites, especially in comparison to Buck's The Good Earth, it was a worthy book. I did not like the ending of it, as it was somewhat anticlimactic, and felt as though with the many facets of the novel in place, something still needed to be said on certain fronts. However, there were things I did love about this book. I love Pearl Buck's style of writing, and this book was certainly in keeping with her usual work. She has a simple, storyteller's voice, which is straightforward and direct, but at the same time has many layers. There is a hidden complexity that I thoroughly enjoy.This novel traces a simple family's life throughout war in their homeland. The family that is central to the novel is endearing, interesting, and charms the reader into caring for them, and I much enjoyed these characters. I also loved Buck's way of looking at this family; I loved how this one family embodied many views of people in wartime, and how this family is just like any other in many ways. The author has a delightful manner of expressing certain universal truths about gender, family, government, leadership, power, and life in general. I do want to say how much I appreciated the author's manner of dealing with war. While she didn't mince words, she was not indulgent. The atrocities of war, the ugliness and horrors, are all there. Those things which happened, in particular what happened in China in WWII, are addressed in a manner which is understandable, digestible, and never sugarcoated. She shows us the abominable suffering the Chinese people have endured, and how some managed to survive. It also explains, in a manner, how the foundation is lain for certain communist leadership to take over. I have read a number of books on the subject of this war, and I can say that this was easily the least indulgent as far as gore and violence. Buck has a way of phrasing things that makes it clear what is happening, is disturbing, but does not go so far as to give the reader nightmares. But the subject matter made it difficult for me to want to read more than a few pages at a time in some parts (a situation aggravated by my own busyness and off and on illness during this read, so this one took me quite a while). I notice other Goodreads readers find the directness of the author on the horrors of the war too much for them to bear. The cruelty of the Japanese soldiers during this war was beyond, beyond.... Any book of any sort dealing with this war, and with what happened to the Chinese people, would be doing an injustice by any less than what Pearl Buck has explained in this book.Even though I did not love this book in the sense that it is a favorite - I can't say I loved, loved, loved the story-line or couldn't put the book down, and I can't say this is even one of Buck's best works in my opinion - I think anyone with a desire to understand this segment of world history would find this a worthwhile read. It is also an interesting novel relating to family and relationships. I would also recommend The Rape of Nanking as a companion book, to read before or after, but probably not at the same time or back to back, as this latter is nonfiction, and is extremely powerful and explicit.
What do You think about Dragon Seed (2006)?
Buku ini bercerita tentang kondisi sebuah keluarga Cina dengan setting Perang Dunia ke II ketika Jepang melakukan agresi ke Cina.Ling Tan seorang petani kelas menengah merupakan seorang tokoh yang disegani di desanya. Ling Tan menikah dengan Ling Siao. Pernikahan tersebut melahirkan 3 anak laki-laki yakni Lao Ta, Lao Erl, Lao San serta 2 anak perempuan yakni Pansiao dan seorang perempuan yang dinikahi oleh pedagang Wu Lien.La Tao yang pekerja keras menikah dengan Orchid dan dikaruniai 2 anak. Lao Erl yang cerdas menikah dengan Jade dan setelah sekian lama Jade mengandung anak pertamanya. Lao San yang tampan masih membujang dan agak pemalas. Pansiao yang pendiam masih gadis dan lebihg banyak membantu orang tuanya menenun kain. Istri Wu Lien mempunyai anak 2. Ketiga anak laki-laki Ling Tan, rajin membantu orang tuanya untuk menggarap lahan pertanian yang mereka miliki, sehingga hasil panennyapun relatif melimpah.Pada suatu hari tentara Jepang menyerbu Cina dengan pesawat dan diikuti pasukan darat. Hal itu menimbulkan gelombang pegungsian besar-besaran apalagi tentara Jepang dinilai sangat kejam dan suka memperkosa perempuan. Wu Lien yang hidup di kota akhirnya mengungsi ke rumah Ling Tan karena rumahnya dibom. Lao Erl dan Jade memutuskan untuk mengungsi ke daerah yang aman dalam kondisi mengandung. Ling Tan kemudian mengungsikan istrinya (Ling Siao), Orchid (istri Lao Ta), Pansiao dan cucu-cucunya ke sebuah gedung/biara asing yang bergama Katholik/Kristen.Ibu Wu Lien yang sudah renta dan Orchid menjadi korban kebiadaban tentara Jepang. Anak-anak Lao Ta juga meninggal karena penyakit disentri. Sedangkan Lao San yang tampan menjadi korban sodomi tentara Jepang. Penindasan oleh Tentara Jepang makin menjadi karena mereka merampas hasil panen dan ternak yang dimilikinya. Tentara Jepang juga menggunakan candu dan ganja untuk melemahkan mental orang Cina.Menghadapi situasi seperti itu, Ling Tan kemudian menyurati Lao Erl untuk pulang ke kampungnya. Akhirnya Lao Erl pulang dengan Jade yang sudah dikaruniai anak laki-laki yang kuat. Ling Tan, Lao Erl, Lao Ta dan lao San yang sakit hati dengan kebiadaban tentara Jepang kemudian melakukan gerilya melawan tentara Jepang. Gerilya tersebut cukup berhasil mengganggu konsentrasi tentara Jepang. Sementara itu Wu Lien yang berjiwa pedagang lebih memilih strategi kolaborasi dengan tentara Jepang, sehingga Wu Lien memperoleh jabatan tinggi.Dalam perjuangan gerilya tersebut Lao Erl kemudian memperoleh anak kembar. Lao Ta yang menduda akhirnya menemukan seorang janda yang akhirnya dinikahinya. Sedangkan Lao San yang tampan namun temperamental akhirnya takluk pada Mayli seorang putri yang mempunyai jiwa pejuang dan juga mantan guru Pensiao.Penderitaan yang panjang sempat membuat Ling Tan mulai frustasi, namun adanya berita2 radio bahwa banyak negara lain yang sedang berjuang melawan agresi Jepang telah membesarkan hatinya untuk terus berjuang membela tanah kelahirannya.Secara umum alur cerita novel ini sederhana, bahasa yang lugas dan mudah dicerna. Saya sangat salut dengan kemampuan penulis (Pearl S. Buck) yang memahami budaya dan nilai-nilai masyarakat Cina. Sehingga nilai kultural tersebut merasuk dalam alur novel ini dan tidak hanya menjadi tempelan belaka....
—Edy
Picked this in desperation for something to read late one night and can't believe I've put this down so many times before, dismissing it as boring. I'm so in love with this family in China in the 40's and can't wait to find out if they make it thru the big crisis of invasion. Two days later...browsing thru new library book about Pearl Buck, I happened upon a reference to this book and was horrified to find that this book is about rape,rape, and more rape. My least favorite subject to read or hear about. Apparently, Nanking is the city I've been reading about and it and most of the women (including the poor fat granny) get raped and worse. I'm so glad I found out cos I just couldn't bear to read about such a lovely family getting destroyed so thoroughly. I'm kinda sad to put this novel aside once again, but glad I didn't rip my own heart out by finishing it. Jeesh.
—Leslie
Dragon Seed is not for everyone at all. This is a book about war and you won't get any pleasure out of it. Farmers planting and reaping since the dawn of time, Ling Tan and his wife and family try to keep their souls as the East-Ocean people bring war, famine, rape and evil to his country. "You who have wisdom stored in your skulls, you have a treasure which ought not to be spilled like blood.... In times like these wisdom is useless because nothing can save us except the chance that we are saved." This is what he tells the student-refugees traveling among the hoards fleeing the coast ahead of the enemy. As he and his young son survey the city nearby, the flying ships return. "So they endured instant by instant and the evil passes over their heads at last ...." I recommend this book to get a very difficult but true understanding of what war in your land means. We Americans have been so isolated from this experience that reading it will be tough. If you don't want to be seriously challenged, this is not a good book for you.
—Patricia Welker
