When I was first given this
book as a
christmas present, I wasn't very
impressed just looking at it. So it was a full year later, after I had just digested
A Deepness in the Sky, I ran out of books, and tried it out.
I was hooked. From page one on, this is an execellent book, for which Pearl S. Buck received the Pulitzer Prize in 1932, and contributed to her Nobel Prize in 1938.
It is the story of Wang Lung, The Land, and his wife, O-Lan. It is written in a simple, direct narrative style, with all events revolving around Wang Lung.
Among other things, this book addresses the ideas of Social Class, the Status of Women, and indirectly, morality.
Wang Lung beings as a poor farmer, but through hard work, and eventually a stoke of amazing luck becomes rich. However, this book is much more than a rags to riches story, and one of the most curious things about this book, is that it never does what you expect it to do, probably due to the fact that it this all takes place in pre-industrial China. Really though, your brain just doesn't understand it when some of the themes, causes and effects, and morals that Western readers have taken for granted, are broken, or not there at all.
Highly recommended.