Just like the crops of the land, a man in his lifetime goes through different seasons. That's the central theme in Pearl S. Buck's best-known work, "The Good Earth," an epic novel about the 19th century Chinese farmer Wang Lung. The story tells the seasons of Wang's life - tilling the land, getting married, raising a family, making a fortune, falling into bad times, and so on.
It is a story of how a lowly peasant rises to become a rich and prosperous lord. It is also a deposition that hard work is not all there is to secure a man's good life. The novel is not just a feel-good rags-to-riches story. The book is realistic, and matter-of-factly depicts people and events, without noticeable attempt to dramatize.
In a way, "The Good Earth" is a character study of Wang Lung, who is shaped not only by external life challenges but by his internal struggles as well. The reader is exposed to the many flaws and private failures of the man, even in his public triumphs.
The book begins on Wang wedding day. As a very poor young man, who is taking care of a sick father, he has come of the right age to take a wife. He purchases a rich family's slave for a wife, as is the custom in those days. While he resents the idea of not having a pretty wife, he knows too well that she is all he can afford.
Wang's wife, O-lan, proves to be a hard worker and a good homemaker. She helps Wang in the fields and keeps house for him. In time, the couple becomes rich enough to buy land from O-lan's former masters.
The couple soon has their first son, and fattens the child with good food because now they can afford it. Wang's life, at this point, was a season of good harvest from his hard work. The following years bring in two more kids and an increase in wealth and reputation.
But soon the seasons change once again and times start to turn bad for the family. A drought comes and kills Wang's crops, and the family has to survive only on dry, bad-tasting beans. Worse, people from other starving villages came and took the family's last food reserves. Then starvation sets in for the family.
It is said that a true test of a man's character is how one conducts himself in times of hardships. It is such test that Wang finds difficult to hurdle. In his desperation and anger, he finds it too difficult to keep his behavior in check. He spends more time cursing the god of heaven and finds no more time to think instead of a way out of his misery.
His wife's quick thinking saves the family from utter defeat. O-lan thinks of the family moving to the city, where at least food is available. But the city has a downside too - Wang's children are becoming corrupted by the city ways and have learned to steal from others.
It comes to a point that Wang has to sell his youngest daughter to a rich lord. This is where the story begins to reach its highest point. Twists occur just as the situation comes to a corner.
The way Buck weaves her philosophies into the story is so realistic that the reader is not likely to notice these are even there. But the values she highlights are affective - making the reader pause awhile and reflect on his own similar life experience. It eggs one to revisit the choices he or she has had made in life.
"The Good Earth" does not only relate life to the seasons - but also that one man's season of spring could be another man's harsh winter. To a good degree, it also extols the great value of tilling the land. From the produce of the land, man lives. And in the end, man rests to make his dust nourish the land. Man's connection to the earth runs deep, indeed.