Oprah's Book Club at Goodreads discussion

Here's some information about the book from Oprah.com in case you want to know more about it.


In this one book, Pearl S. Buck tackled the entire cycle of life: it's terrors, passions, failures, ambitions, rewards and dreams. The tale of a seemingly humble farmer and his growing family, the story unfolds like a flower and takes root in your heart. Published in 1931 on the heels of the American Great Depression and Chinese civil war, The Good Earth was a first glimpse, for many of its readers, of an entirely new world—the poignant inner life of China and its people.

Making Literary History
The Good Earth broke symbolic literary ground. It became an instant bestseller in the United States, was translated into more than 30 languages and soon became an acclaimed Broadway play and motion picture. The novel won nearly every literary prize of its day—the Pulitzer Prize in 1932, the William Dean Howells Medal for Distinguished Fiction in 1935, and author Pearl S. Buck was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. It is a timeless achievement, explaining and honoring its subjects in a way that few works ever do.

I got the book from the library and I'm excited to start it on Monday. Give a shout if you're going to join our discussion or read along!

Jessica wrote: "I got the book from the library and I'm excited to start it on Monday. Give a shout if you're going to join our discussion or read along!"


I just finished it last night. I had a bit of a hard time with some of the wording ( i.e " Such an one" meaning someone), but think it was a very powerful, thought provoking yet simple novel.

I just started it and I see what you mean. The language doesn't flow very well and it kind of reads like a translation (maybe it is?). I'm not very far into it, but I feel like I'm in this culture that I've never experienced before.

Jessica wrote: "I just started it and I see what you mean. The language doesn't flow very well and it kind of reads like a translation (maybe it is?). I'm not very far into it, but I feel like I'm in this cultur..."

I don't know if it was translated or not. I think the author was born in either the US or UK and grew up in China, but would think that English was her parents first language. You get used to the wording.

I recently read Memoirs of A Geisha and was hoping that The Good Earth would be as powerfully evocative re: the culture, but found that it didn't compare.

I highly recommend that one.

I read this book a while ago and enjoyed it very much. The author was born in Pennsylvania and moved shortly afterwards to China with her missionary parents.

I just finished it yesterday.

*SPOILERS*

I thought the end was a little abrupt but then I found out that it is part of a series. The next book is called "Sons" and I wonder if it talks about the life of his sons. I kind of think that they will go through the same cycle that the Hwangs did where they start selling a little land and before they know it, they've lost everything. I think they might even end up being farmers again. Who knows? But I really want to read that second book.

Is it bad that I thought it was slightly funny that to get rid of their pestering aunt and uncle they got them addicted to drugs?

This book was so moving. I couldn't put it down. The parts that got to me the most were O-lan and the young daughter that they called a "fool." It was amazing to me that O-lan had kid after kid by herself and almost single handedly got her family to survive through starvation. And it broke my heart that the baby girl was so damaged through starvation that she grew up mentally challenged.

I had read this book decades ago and I just reread it so that I could put my two cents into this discussion. I thought the book was beautiful and read almost like poetry. The language was exquisite. Perhaps some of the usage was odd to people now because it was written in 1930 and vernacular changes over time. Also, growing up in China and only hearing her parents speak English, she might have been more used to written English. Try working at an inner city hospital where most of the doctors are foreign born. As a social worker, I sometimes became a translator between them and the inner city (poor) patients. I think that The Good Earth was an excellant character study and an interesting insight into conditions in China prior to the Communist Revolution.

I agree Lisa about the language. Once I got used to it, it was beautiful and I've never read a style quite like it. Poetry is a good description for it.

This book is also in my top five books of all time. It moved me.