The Good Deed and Other Stories of Asia, Past and Present

by Pearl S. Buck

A superb copy, unmarked and unclipped, in a Brodart jacket cover.

Genres: Short Stories, Classics

256 pages, Hardcover

First published March 19, 1970

About the author

Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker Buck was an American writer and novelist. She is best known for The Good Earth, the best-selling novel in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and which won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China" and for her "masterpieces", two memoir-biographies of her missionary parents.
Buck was born in West Virginia, but in October 1892, her parents took their 4-month-old baby to China. As the daughter of missionaries and later as a missionary herself, Buck spent most of her life before 1934 in Zhenjiang, with her parents, and in Nanjing, with her first husband. She and her parents spent their summers in a villa in Kuling, Mount Lu, Jiujiang, and it was during this annual pilgrimage that the young girl decided to become a writer. She graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, then returned to China. From 1914 to 1932, after marrying John Lossing Buck she served as a Presbyterian missionary, but she came to doubt the need for foreign missions. Her views became controversial during the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy, leading to her resignation. After returning to the United States in 1935, she married the publisher Richard J. Walsh and continued writing prolifically. She became an activist and prominent advocate of the rights of women and racial equality, and wrote widely on Chinese and Asian cultures, becoming particularly well known for her efforts on behalf of Asian and mixed-race adoption.

Reviews

[ÔnÎÿ Fâÿ · Rating 2 out of 5]

من اسوا ما قرات لبيرل باك

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really fascinating collection of short stories by Pearl Buck, particular in terms of the window they provide to an era of east vs. west, war and communism. Several of the stories are told from the point-of-view of a U.S. soldier stationed in China during WWII or Korea during the Korean War, which bring up questions of mixed-racial identity, prostitution and nationalistic identity. When you consider the fact that many of these stories were written just a decade or two after these wars, the blatancy with which Buck addresses these (at the time) incredibly controversial issues is impressive.

Just about every story has to do with love -- thwarted, unrealized, or quintessential. At times, the portrayal of relationships borders on the cliche, and some of the characters seem a bit too one-dimensional. I think this happens because Buck is so used to unraveling her characters in their complexity through the novel format. I also think it's because she portrays her Chinese characters (in novels and short stories) more complexly than her American characters. (While she is not Chinese, most of her upbringing took place in China, and as a child, she thought she was Chinese until someone corrected her.)

Every story in its own way offered a captivating insight into some of the central life choices that Americans had to make while living abroad during this time period (or, in the last story, Chinese individuals had to make while living in America) and the inevitable cultural misunderstandings that ensue. I am continuously grateful for the ways Buck makes history come alive in the narratives of individuals and families.

[Mónica Cordero Thomson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Divertido relato corto, donde la escritora plasma y explica algunas costumbres chinas en suelo extranjero. La trama y forma de escribir me parecieron muy amenas. Los personajes son totalmente creíbles, y vienen respaldados por su experiencia y posición en la sociedad (china).
Es lo primero que leo de esta autora y desde entonces tengo en mi lista de pendientes "La Buena Tierra" y "Viento del este, viento del oeste".
Altamente recomendable.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories was better than some I've read; owing to my love of Buck undoubtedly. All were enjoyable with an Asian flair.

[Cynthia]

Never finished - forgot I was reading it

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loves this book. All of the stories have interesting flairs to them and I still continue to them.

[Amy]

"It was a matter of control, and control came out of the determination to be what one wanted to be..."

"...for to say too much is worse than to say too little."

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only read The Good Deed.

[D. Sun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories various places .
Some surprises not all happy endings