Member Reviews

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  1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

  • Rated 4 stars

  “I read this book many years ago, probably for school. I really liked it then, so when it was chosen as an Oprah book and I saw it in the store I picked it up to glance through it. Imagine my surprise when I was drawn in from the first page and so I bought the book. It was a nice surprise to reread this classic book and enjoy it as much as I did.
  
  The story of Wang Lung, a poor farmer, and his wife O-lan is set in the time of the last Emperor and moves up to the start of the People's Revolution. It is a story filled with drama, love, loyalty, betrayal, perseverance and more.
  We come to care about Wang and O-lan and their extended family as they struggle with famine, drought, flooding, plague and more and yet always persevere, until achieving success beyond their dreams. This book was published in 1931, yet it doesn't feel dated at all. I am very glad I chose to read this book again.
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  Ladyslott wrote this review Wednesday, January 2 2008. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 0 stars

  “superb book...vry intersting”

  anand p wrote this review 2 days ago. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 3 stars

  “This is a book that has been on my shelf for a long time and I finally picked it up because my real-life book club chose it. The Good Earth tells the life story of Wang Lung, a poor Chinese farmer. It starts the day he marries O-lan, a servant of the great house, and procedes until his implied death. Over the course of his life, he has many successes and sees many hardships.
  
  I liked this book but thought it was a little slow at many places. I really enjoyed the symbolism the author used and the cyclical nature of the story. I started out really liking Wang Lung but by the end of the story detested him and found him to be foolish and rash. My heart went out to O-lan and I think she was the only genuinely good person in the entire story.
  
  Definitely worth a read but some parts can be fairly quickly skimmed.”

  Nicole R wrote this review 5 days ago. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 0 stars

  “Read in high school”

  Marti K wrote this review 2 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 0 stars

  “The opposite of escapist literature: you want to escape back into your own life while reading this book.
  
  That said, it feels like an epic, a monument to a family held together by a man's love for the earth.
  
  The language is beautiful--it draws heavily from King James English, which is always a joy to read.”

  Jacquelyn C wrote this review 3 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 4 stars

  “A poor rural Chinese life in north - the woman the story begins with is poor and tall and not pretty, with large (read unbound, since only rich families could afford to bind their daughters' feet so they stayed small, while poor families needed girls and women to work on farms and in homes) feet is married to a poor farmer, and makes it better with her work and her frugal ways and her craft and her knowledge, so eventually they prosper - though they have to deal with a famine in the meanwhile and even have to migrate south to a large city so they can survive.
  
  One of the most touching episodes is during the famine when the baby daughter is hungry, and the father chews some food and feeds her, since that is the best he can do to try to keep her alive. ”

  Dr. J. G. wrote this review 3 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 4 stars

  “I was required to read this for school, and I really did enjoy it overall. I absolutely loathed the main character, Wang Lung, as he represented many things that I despise about people (men in particular) and was extremely selfish, but I tried to not let that influence my opinion of the book. The character of O-lan, however, was fantastic and made the book worth reading. I really had to separate myself and my beliefs when reading the book, and originally I hated the book because of the way O-lan and women in general were treated, but I can't use that as a reason to dislike the book. Those things are accurate - that is actually how women in China were treated at the time. The novel is written in a beautiful, simple way and once I got beyond the issues that I had with some of the characters and their actions, I was really moved by the story. Definitely one of the greats.”

  Tyler wrote this review 4 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink )
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  • Rated 4 stars

  “Classic. Life lesson learned the hard way.”

  Julie J wrote this review Wednesday, September 3 2008. ( reply | permalink )