'The Good Earth' by Pearl S Buck

I've decided to work my way through a small stack of Pulitzer Prizewinning novels I've picked up here and there, before I realised what they share in common. This one was from a small, jam-packed secondhand bookshop near the sea at Port Eliot. I already knew, from a list I'd printed off, that it was the bestselling and Pulitzer winning fiction title the year my Dad was born. I knew it would be worth the few dollars I paid, regardless of what I thought of the story. 

MY THOUGHTS:  

This book was the bestselling fiction title of 1931 and 1932, winning Pearl Buck the 1932 Pulitzer Prize. In 1938 she also won the Nobel Literature Prize for her 'rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China.' Eighty or ninety years down the track, I'm wondering if now she'd be more likely to be accused of cultural appropriation, for Buck was American, although she lived for a time with her missionary parents in China. Gone are the days a writer can simply spin an imaginative yarn based on meticulous research or close observation of others without getting in hot water.

Anyway, I digress.

This novel spans the life of its main character, Wang Lung, from the eve of his wedding day as a peasant farmer to his elderly years, as the head of a wealthy family. His passion for the land (the good earth of the title) combined with his savvy real-estate skills and the cleverness of his wife, earns him huge material success. But the story also takes its characters through some very rough patches of famine and war. 

This book's outstanding character is Wang Lung's wife, the under-appreciated O-lan. He purchases her, sight unseen, from the House of Hwang, the local gentry. O-lan is one of their plainest slaves, since Wang couldn't afford a pretty girl. There is nothing remotely romantic about the transaction, except that prior to their first night together, Wang Lung decides to wash his entire body for the first time since his boyhood. 

The young woman's exceptional frugality and initiative revolutionises his life, boosting Wang's comfort level in ways he'd never imagined. Still, he simply considers that he'd got what he paid for. O-lan even delivers her own babies quietly behind a closed door and then returns to her farmwork. No wonder we're often told the smile on her lips rarely reaches her eyes. She's regarded as slow and stupid because she's quiet, but it's evident to readers that her insightful wisdom keeps the household afloat. Whenever quiet O-lan speaks, we readers sit up and pay attention, knowing that she must consider the import worth the effort. 

 I think the crux of the story is that every upwards financial move chips away at a person's character, reducing our ability to enjoy what we've achieved. (Sorry to all the rich people out there.) Wang Lung's initial satisfaction with simple blessings from nature and willingness to work hard morphs over the years into a grasping, irritable, restless personality. Yet he retains enough of his early passion for the land to realise, too late, that his sons have lost sight of what he held most precious. There is a tinge of inevitability to the progression, since Wang makes sure to provide the boys with the culture and education he never had. Only later does it dawn on Wang Lung that in the process, their hearts were infused with entirely different values from his own early ones.

Whenever the urgency of simply living is no longer an issue, nothing suits Wang Lung, including his own wife. For when you've 'arrived' nothing that used to suffice seems good enough anymore.

 He's really a total arse, but we are challenged to wonder whether that's just human nature. It's darkly comedic when the oldest son goes through a phase of moodiness because he has the leisure to. Then instead of feeling irritated because the kid is a pain in the neck, Wang Lung feels proud that his boy exhibits the disgruntled traits of rich young men. We're prompted to ponder a chicken-or-egg sort of a question. Does a person's personality shape their wealth building or does their wealth building shape their personality?

Toward the end of the book, we are told, 'The people who used to say Wang the Farmer now said Wang the Big Man or Wang the Rich Man.' Therefore he is technically a huge success, but does pay a price for something that brings no real happiness. 

And the ending reminds us that we can't take any of it with us.

I'm giving this book just three stars because I found it so triggering, especially regarding the sorry plight of females. It left me with a melancholic readers' hangover. But I'm sure many other readers may give it five stars for the very same reasons. My back cover blurb calls it, 'Pearl Buck's magnificent Pulitzer prizewinning novel.' Well, lots of sordid and desperate stuff happens over a long time span, if that's what they mean by magnificent. I guess it is rather Biblical in its scope. Wang Lung's family saga puts me in mind of the patriarch Jacob's family in the Book of Genesis, with poor old O-lan taking on the Leah role. 

Perhaps I'll put it out there as a timely recommendation for anyone who's ever felt taken for granted. No matter who we are, I can guarantee that O-lan and her daughters fare far, far worse. The horrific foot binding is just the tip of the iceberg. 

🌟🌟🌟

'The Mysterious Affair at Styles' by Agatha Christie

This year's Read Christie Challenge has the changing decades of publication as its theme. And January's choice is this novel that set the ball rolling.  

MY THOUGHTS: 

This is the story that started it all. It's Agatha Christie's debut mystery, written in 1916 and published in 1920. She first introduces us to Hercule Poirot, who is already considered one of the finest detectives of his day. Belgian refugees were fleeing from the thick of World War One and arriving in Christie's home town, to which we owe the conception of her most famous personality. We also meet other recurring characters; the ferret-featured Inspector Jimmy Japp, and the surprisingly youthful Captain Arthur Hastings, a 30-year-old soldier invalided home from the Front. I admit, I'd never imagined him as such a relative baby before.

Young Hastings is invited to stay at the grand country estate of Styles, where he spent time in his boyhood. His old friends, John and Lawrence Cavendish still live there with their stepmother, Mrs Inglethorp, although she has now married her male secretary, a far younger man everyone suspects of gold-digging. When poor Mrs Inglethorp suffers an agonising death in bed late one night, an autopsy reveals a dose of strychnine killed her. But was it administered to her nightcap cup of coffee or her supper mug of cocoa? The finger of suspicion points straight at her unpopular husband, but Inglethorp turns out to have a rock solid alibi. Yet it's unthinkable that her stepsons, grateful boarder or loyal staff members could have done it. Hastings' cleverest move in the whole story is dashing off to beg Poirot's help to figure out the mess. 

Hastings sets up his pattern of being a bit of a doofus, for which he's teased by Poirot throughout all their subsequent cases, committing errors of extremes. He either skims the surface of clues where he should have probed deeper, or flails in way too deep, jumping to rash conclusions and letting his imagination run away with him. As Poirot says, Hastings has no instincts. And he's also a sucker for flattery.

I like this passage, in which Poirot muses about the crook and gives Hastings a backhanded compliment.

'Yes, he is intelligent. But we must be more intelligent. We must be so intelligent that he does not suspect us of being intelligent at all.'

I acquiesced.

'There, mon ami, you will be of great assistance to me.'

I was pleased with the compliment. There were times when I hardly thought that Poirot appreciated me at my true worth.  

'Yes,' he continued, staring at me thoughtfully. 'You will be invaluable.' 

Yet we readers are challenged not to be too hard on Hastings, since it's written in such a way that we probably won't piece together the solution from the patchwork of clues right in front of us either. I didn't, although I did foresee a nice little romance.  

I enjoyed the intro to this edition, written by Agatha Christie herself. She describes how she was inspired to write this story by her wartime work in a Red Cross dispensary, similar to the character of Cynthia Murdoch in this story. Christie admits that her war work helped her establish poisons and drugs as her very favourite murder weapon in her stories. Turns out she felt far less confident with firearms. 'People can't, of course, be poisoned every time, but I'm happier when they are. Especially the drug that allows the victim to gasp out one, unnecessarily cryptic sentence before expiring.' 

I'm glad she could be so tongue-in-cheek about what turned out to be such a brilliant career for her. And I agree that for a debut murder mystery by a young author, this was pretty good and watertight. 

🌟🌟🌟½   

'Kilmeny of the Orchard' by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Later this year will be Lucy Maud's Montgomery's 150th birthday. It's an excellent reason to focus on her novels. The Race Who Knows Joseph Book Club on Bookstagram will be reading them in publication order throughout 2024. I decided to join them, starting with this story from her youth.

MY THOUGHTS: 

This short romance novel was from early in Montgomery's writing career. I believe she wrote it in her teens, and it was published in 1910, not long after Anne of Green Gables. Now, sit tight while I try to explain why this story makes me see red. 

Eric Marshall is a young university graduate and dreamboat; a total package sort of guy all the girls drool over. And he's already being quizzed by his father and friends, at the age of 24, as to why he isn't inclined to engage himself to one of the many lovely girls he knows. The answer turns out to be that he's waiting for absolute perfection. 

Anyway, Eric accepts a plea from his ailing friend, Larry, to come and do some substitute school teaching until he recuperates. There in the little backwater town on Prince Edward Island, Eric chances upon a lonely and romantic old orchard where a reclusive, stunningly beautiful girl plays violin like an angel. She turns out to be Kilmeny Gordon, whose initial reaction to Eric is one of sheer terror. She's never set eyes on another man outside of her immediate family and the egg peddler, let alone one as drop-dead gorgeous as Eric. They strike up a friendship which becomes rock solid in a matter of days. 

Eric has finally discovered a girl whose beauty ticks his high standards. Her wide-eyed naivety, and inclination to treat his every word as an oracle probably exceeds his wildest dreams. She's a one-dimensional character but that suits him, for he is another.

Kilmeny cannot communicate except through her violin and her trusty slate and chalk. Her backstory involves an intriguing possibility for her muteness, since there is absolutely nothing wrong with her vocal apparatus. Even though she quickly grows to love Eric wholeheartedly, Kilmeny refuses to marry him unless, by some miracle, she acquires the power of speech. She believes it would be unfair on him to put up with a mute wife. (There's a nice bit of ableism right there, but hold on, the 'isms' keep coming.) 

Eric's good friend David Baker, a clever speech specialist, deems Kilmeny's silence psychological, which makes the whole stalemate extra tricky. 

Maybe I'd rank this book higher if not for the plight of poor Neil, the boy of Italian descent who's partly Kilmeny's adopted cousin and partly a convenient plot device. The Gordon family are convinced they've always done right by Neil, who was born beneath their roof. They even, 'had him baptised, same as any Christian child.' Nice one, dudes! Reading between the lines, it's clear to the modern reader (although apparently not to LMM herself), that he's always suffered filthy racism and been kept at arm's length by his nearest and dearest, who just can't see what they've done to him. Neil, in his own tragic way, bears a 'curse of the innocent' as much as Kilmeny is said to do. 

It's no wonder he has a sullen countenance! And I totally get why, after loving and caring for Kilmeny for so long, he'd develop an intense grudge against Eric, this smug Marty Stu character who breezes in and wins everyone's hearts after three measly weeks. 

Neil's running away is treated as a blessing, which elicits a sigh of relief all round. No member of the Gordon family will try to track him down, even though he's been with them since he drew his first breath. Uncle Thomas' self-righteous, 'We have cared for him as our own...' is super-hypocritical in light of his earlier instruction to Kilmeny not to make an equal of Neil. Yet he can't see it. You see, to them, the tainted Mediterranean blood that flows through Neil's veins makes him a potentially volatile, embarrassing second-class citizen. My gosh, the whole Gordon family attitude is appalling! 

But hey, it's happily ever after for everyone but Neil. Eric the newcomer, backed by his father's considerable Canadian lineage and wealth, wins the girl and nobody is happier to see the back of Neil than he. Kilmeny can at last give her fingers a break from scribbling so fast on that slate. She was as chatty and effusive with her pencil as Anne of Green Gables was with her tongue, and wrote such very long speeches, Eric must have waited around twiddling his thumbs a lot. And there is absolutely no need for Uncle Thomas and Aunt Janet to take a good, hard look at themselves, since Neil has conveniently removed himself from the picture. 'We have made more of him than we should,' Thomas decides. Charming way to regard your own adopted son.

(Sigh) Although I aim to overlook the standards of their own eras when ranking old novels, sometimes one comes along that pushes my buttons a bit too hard. My low score here is mostly about the triggers, but I also feel Maud was still finding her voice and perfecting her craft when she wrote this book. She's given Kilmeny's parents a melodramatic history which puts me in mind of the sensational stories that Anne and her friends wrote for their Story Club. And Kilmeny and Eric's relationship is a bit too saccharine sweet. She's a perfect fairy tale princess and he's Prince Charming. Lucy Maud Montgomery does Disney here. It wouldn't surprise me if Maud ended up agreeing with me, since she eventually decided love scenes were a challenge for her. This is probably her most lovey-dovey attempt at fiction. 

I'm willing to wonder if Montgomery might have even agreed with my two-star ranking for this early novel of hers, and lampooned it herself down the track. Overall, I'm so glad she became a more sensitive writer who gave her characters far more depth as she progressed.  

🌟🌟  

'Orley Farm' by Anthony Trollope

It's been years since I read a novel by Anthony Trollope. Back in my twenties I read a couple of the Barchester chronicles which I remember finding a trifle slow and meandering. I thought they might be more suitable for my dad's demographic than mine. This far down the track, I'm ready to try again. Especially since I've seen them recommended by several bookish friends on Instagram. 

Trollope wrote 47 novels! He had an intensely productive work ethic. I won't necessarily aim to read them all, as I'm doing with his peer, Charles Dickens' major works. At that rate, reviewing one each year would take me until I'm older than 100! On the other hand, reading nothing but Anthony Trollope books back to back would take just a few years, but no way am I doing that either. I'll read one every so often, to help fill my quota of Victorian novels. That's all I'm committing to :) 

So rather than tackling one of his series, I'll start with the occasional stand-alone title. I'd seen this one recommended, so got hold of a free kindle version. 

MY THOUGHTS: 

I ripped through this massive Victorian court case novel. What makes it so compelling is that the 'bad guy' is the wronged party, and the lovely, gracious lady is the 'crook.' Trollope is playing around with his readers' headspaces, making us want to see justice averted. 

The backstory occurs twenty years prior to this novel's start. When elderly Sir Joseph Mason dies, everyone assumes that his eldest son, also named Joseph, will inherit both family properties; the smaller but productive Orley Farm along with the large family seat, Groby Park. Indeed, that's what Joseph Junior has been led all his life to expect.

However, old Sir Joseph recently married a very young woman and now has a baby named Lucius, who's a full forty years younger than his half-brother. A codicil was added to the will, bequeathing Orley Farm, the smaller property, to his infant son. Joseph Mason angrily disputes the will after the old man's death but loses the case. Peace has reigned for twenty years, but something outrageous is about to be unleashed. Fast forward to the start of this book.

Samuel Dockwrath, a disgruntled former tenant of some Orley Farm land, approaches Joseph Mason with strong evidence in his favour that's been lying dormant for two decades. It appears that Lady Mason forged the signatures on the will, anxious to provide for her own baby son. (For some time, Trollope makes her guilt crystal clear without stating it outright, so this is no spoiler.) Now Lady Mason, a valued friend and neighbour to many, may be arrested as a felon. And Lucius, a forward-thinking young experimental farmer whose high principles tend to be black and white, has no inkling of his mother's dodgy maneuvre on his behalf.  

We don't want to see her suffer the consequences of a crime based on the tenderest love, which may include deportation to the colonies. And we certainly don't want to see grumpy, greedy Joseph Mason take over Orley Farm, which he'll rent out to the smug and odious Dockwrath. Not when his young half-brother has exciting plans to maximise its potential. So are we readers supposed to hope the lie will win out? Lucius Mason once rejected his mother's suggestion to consider studying for the law, since he has an idea that all lawyers are basically dishonest. Little does he know his mother may count on that very thing, for his sake! 

Mr Thomas Furnival is the barrister defending Lady Mason. He's fallen prey to her charm, although he's convinced of her guilt, and his devotion to her cause has caused friction in his own marriage. (Oh dear, many of us could tell you that passive aggression and sulky guilt trips don't work on guys, Mrs Furnival. It just makes them uptight and defensive, and therefore more inclined to blame you to justify their own behaviour.) 

Sir Peregrine Orme, the local landed gentry, is the stately old widower in the mansion next door. He falls in love with Lady Mason and longs to rescue her from her plight by marrying her, to the chagrin of his grandson, young Peregrine. And Sir Peregrine's daughter-in-law, Edith Orme, is one of the loveliest characters in the book; a gentle and gracious friend who takes doing a friend's dirty work to a whole new level.

It's interesting how both opposing parties use scripture to strongly justify their questionable attitudes. Lady Mason reasons that she was taking the precedent of the biblical matriarch Rebekah, who was prepared to cheat to gain an inheritance for her beloved son, who would otherwise have been left out in the cold. And arguably the principled and energetic young Lucius turns out to be a 'better' heir than his vitriolic older half-brother, just as Jacob trumps Esau. For his own part, Joseph Mason is all about wreaking righteous vengeance on the head of the woman who prevented him receiving his full inheritance. This dour, pitiless man prides himself on carrying out the letter of the law. 'All that I have done from my youth upward,' were his thoughts about himself.  

There are also plenty of amusing side-characters, such as the travelling merchant, Mr Kantwise, who carts around what sounds like the Victorian version of an IKEA ensemble and assures everyone that wooden indoor furniture is going out of vogue, and iron is where it's at. What I appreciate about Anthony Trollope is his fairness in showing the strengths and weaknesses of all his characters. His narrator sometimes tends to interrupt the flow of conversations, but since his voice has the sense of humour I enjoy, it's all good. 

Trollope is very much easier to read than his contemporary, Charles Dickens. This book took me a steady fortnight to read rather than the full month I'd expected to put aside, based on Dickens. The ethical dilemmas and awkward relationships of Orley Farm guaranteed that I kept turning pages, but I still can't decide whether I consider the ending of this one disappointing or satisfactory. Perhaps all that can be said is that it is, in a way, inevitable. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟½

   

My 2024 Reading Agenda

Happy New Year, friends and followers. We welcomed 2024 by watching fireworks on the beach at Brighton after a free train ride. 

My most delightful news is that we've finally erected a new pride and joy. This street library is the carpentry project my hubby has been working on for quite some time. It is now up and running out by our street side fence. We've had it operating for less than a week and already I'm finding it great fun to facilitate excellent quality free books to the community. Ever since I first started hunting down these little free libraries, I've dreamed of joining the network. It's finally happened. Such a wonderful outreach for a bookworm, don't you think? 

Incidentally, it's also been set up as a Pokemon pit stop. A passionate neighbour on our community chat FB group came and did that. 

Now, I've been dedicated to delivering a weekly, book themed blog post on Thursdays or Fridays for quite some time. 2023's is complete. I'll have another crack at it for 2024, although a few factors might slow me down. 

1) I've had a hankering to re-read some good novels which I've already reviewed. It won't be necessary to give them two reviews. 

2) I might spend some time working on my fiction projects. I'll share more about this when (or if) they come to fruition.

3) It turns out I've been functioning for at least the last few years on an empty tank. I've started 2024 with a much-needed iron infusion. I didn't know how urgent it was until I had some blood tests the day before Christmas Eve. They were my first since 2019. Oooh, now I understand why I've been puffing and panting while climbing slopes and doing housework. Maybe I should slow down in general. 

However, I'll see how I go. Since this blog is one of my favourite hobbies, I may well end up with 52 posts after all. If you'd like email notifications whenever I add a new post, just click the subscribe button in this blog's toolbar. I peomise you'll never be spammed, and you won't miss a single one either, however frequently or infrequently I post.

For the past few years, I've been adding a new blog page for the start of each new year. In 2022 it was my Trixie Belden Marathon, which was a burst of nostalgia I adored. Last year at the start of 2023 I added my Agatha Christie, Queen of Crime page, which is more of an ongoing, slow burn. For 2024 I've decided to add Spiritual Classics. That'll have to be uplifting, right? I've already added a list of older posts to kick it off, and you'll see that fiction titles trump non-fiction for now. 

I'll finish off with a rough agenda for the start of this year. No doubt I'll latch onto something unanticipated which will snowball. But for now, I have these four Pulitzer prizewinning titles picked up from various places, so I'll factor them into my early reads of the year. I've also acquired a good handful of WW2 fiction, including a couple that were gifts. It's time I got stuck into them. And of course I'll include some Victorian novels. I haven't missed a year of at least one Dickens novel since 2017 when I started my quest to read all his major works. It's taking a while, but too much Dickens all at once makes my head explode.   

I hope you'll stick with me, enjoy my reviews and discussions, and share your own reading journey during 2024.