Pearl Buck In China: Journey To The Good Earth (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
Aside from The Good Earth, I was more familiar with Buck's efforts in Korea, so Spurling's book was informative.Spurling, however, seems critical of Buck's father and first husband, for their remoteness and obsession with their jobs, and of her second husband's perceived abandonment through an incapacitating stroke. My sympathies abound for Buck's husbands and children. Buck seems to have withdrawn into herself, at an early age, in classic PTSD fashion and, in later life, from reality altogether. Only one of her adopted children is quoted but the description of Buck's reserve raises questions about Buck's own emotional engagement and the cost to her family from the imagination that underlay her writing. 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.
What do You think about Pearl Buck In China: Journey To The Good Earth (2010)?
Interesting how she connected her life with the characters in her books.
—Sugandha
Couldn't finish it and Peal Buck is one of my favorites. Plodding
—candace
Fascinating story of an amazing woman.
—Rachaelfacer
