Author Topic: Good Earth, The ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online  (Read 49147 times)

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Good Earth, The ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« on: August 14, 2013, 05:02:20 PM »
The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome.

September Book Club Online starting here on September 2
 

The Good Earth by Pearl Buck


Interest in Pearl Buck's  The Good Earth, continues with the news that her never-before published, final novel is coming out in October, forty years after her death.  The Good Earth is the poignant tale of a farmer and his family in old agrarian China, a  depiction of traditional Chinese culture in the early twentieth century before World War II.  Some critics say it should move readers to rediscover Buck as a source of insight into both revolutionary China and the United States’ interactions with it.
Let's discover together why The Good Earth remained on the bestseller list for 21 months in 1931 and 1932, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1932.l

As Buck delved deeply into the lives of the Chinese poor, she opposed  the religious fundamentalism, racial prejudice, gender oppression, sexual repression, and discrimination against the disabled.
She  championed many of these causes when she returned from China to the US,  including woman’s rights, rights for physically and developmentally disabled persons, and racial inequalities.  Pearl won the Nobel Prize in literature, the first American woman to do so.


Relevant Links:
the Good Earth Timeline :
DISCUSSION SCHEDULE:  
        September 2-8     Chapters 1-8
        September 9-15   Chapters 9-15
        September 16-22   Chapters 16-22
        September 23-29   Chapters 23-34

 
Some Topics for Discussion
Sept. 3-10 Chapters 1-8

1. How did a man expect his life to change when he married in China?

2. What did his marriage preparations reveal about Wang Lung's character?

3. Did his new wife disappoint?  Your impressions of O-lan?

4. Was it just a coincidence that Wang's good fortune began to change, once he bought that plot of land?


Contact:   JoanP  

JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2013, 05:32:32 PM »
 So happy that you all selected The Good Earth for September.  It's been so long since I first read it - that I've forgotten the story.  I remember the title, and I know Pearl Buck is still talked about.  I just don't remember exactly why.  I did intend to find out.  My son lives in Lynchburg, VA, two blocks from Randolf College, where this sign is located.  He sometimes asks me if I've read The Good Earth, as we walk by with the dogs.  I've given him a vague answer like, "hasn't everyone  read it?  This time I'm going to read it - next time, I'll give him a decent answer.


How about you?  Have you ever read it?  If yes, how long ago?  We'd really love for you to join us in September!

kidsal

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #2 on: August 16, 2013, 04:06:11 AM »
Never read it and was about to order it when I remembered my new computer book database and  found that I have the book.  So will read in September.

Dana

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #3 on: August 16, 2013, 11:31:41 AM »
I read it (again) recently but its not my favourite, which at the moment is The Pavilion of Women.  Imperial Woman and Peony are two others I've just finished and enjoyed a lot.  I've got a whole pile more waiting for me!
I have been more struck by her admiration and understanding of Chinese civilization than by her opposition to its barbarism, but I expect different books may present different aspects.  Certainly the books I have found most interesting and enjoyable have been about the upper or middle class Chinese, not the poor.


salan

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #4 on: August 17, 2013, 03:02:51 AM »
It's been a while since I read The Good Earth.  I have ordered the book & plan on joining the discussion.
Sally

dean69

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #5 on: August 17, 2013, 06:34:08 AM »
I plan to participate in this discussion.  This is a book I have wanted to read for sometime. Stopped in Barnes & Noble yesterday and purchased the book and also downloaded the audio book from the library as well.  Looking forward to the discussion.

Aberlaine

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #6 on: August 17, 2013, 06:38:45 AM »
I'm reading The Good Earth for my f2f book club which meets on September 14th.  Perfect timing!  I'll try to join you.

Nancy

JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #7 on: August 17, 2013, 04:13:26 PM »


Welcome everyone!

kidsal - I'm looking forward to discovering Pearl Buck with you!

That is perfect timing!  Looking forward to sharing with your f2f group, Nancy.  So happy to hear you might join us!

dean69 - what a great idea, listening to the audo and reading the text at the same time.  Have you started yet?  I read the first chapter this morning...easy reading, isn't it?  Pearl Buck paints pictures with her words.

Sally, let us know when your book arrives.  Will put up a reading schedule shortly.

Dana, glad you're with us.  We're trying to figure out how to enrich the discussion, how to get to know Pearl Buck better.  There are a number of our readers who have read the book before - I'm sure they can add much to enrich the discussion.  I'll admit, I'm as interested in Pearl Buck herself, as I am in this one book that made her famous.  I'm sure we'll think of some way to include everyone.  Stay tuned!

JudeS

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #8 on: August 17, 2013, 04:46:12 PM »
I want to suggest a way to enrich the discussion.
There is another book which was written about the same time that Pearl Buck wrote hers . The author was also a Chinese Missionary and a woman. It was a book for children and won the Newberry award for the best Children's book for 1933.
The action takes place in a similar geographic area of China.
It's called ;
"Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze."

It takes place in Chungking of the 1920s. and deals with the Opium wars, Sun Yet Sen, the Chinese Nationals and communist forces and the influence of foreigners.

This book was my favorite book growing up and led to a life long interest in China. I think by the time I read The Good Earth I had such a foundation of knowledge about China that the book had very little influence on me. In fact I preferred the movie to the book which is certainly a rarity for me.

Oh yes, the author is Elizabeth Foreman Lewis. Part of her career in China was as Superintendent of schools in Chungking.
Quite an accomplishment for someone who grew up not living in China.
I must add that her personal life was a lot happier than that of Pearl Buck.



JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #9 on: August 17, 2013, 05:50:06 PM »
Thanks, Jude!  A quick check  at Amazon shows that the book is still available after all this time - published in 1932...the same year that The Good Earth was written. Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze

Do you suppose the two women knew one another?  I see that Pearl Buck wrote an introduction to this book.  You say her life in China was a lot happier than Pearl's.  (Shall we call her "Pearl" in this discussion - nicer, friendlier  than "Buck" don't you think?)
Maybe we should start there - in preparation for the book discussion.  Knowing where the author is coming from often helps to understand what she is writing.  Let's look at her childhood first.  If one's childhood is unhappy, the effects are usually long-lasting...

marcie

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #10 on: August 18, 2013, 01:23:52 AM »
 What a great group. I look forward to joining this discussion. I too vividly remember parts of the movie with Merle Oberon. My memory of reading the book isn't as vivid. I'm glad to read it again.

Thanks, Jude, for the recommendation of YOUNG FU OF THE UPPER YANGTZE. I see that my library has a copy.

Joan, I'm looking forward to learning more about Pearl Buck. I hadn't realized that she was one of only two female American novelists to win the Nobel Prize. (Toni Morrison was the other.)

Ella Gibbons

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #11 on: August 18, 2013, 11:35:15 AM »
Here is a bio of Pearl Buck, with a short video:

http://www.biography.com/people/pearl-s-buck-9230389

Years ago we went on an Elderhostel to Bucks County, PA and we visited the Pearl Buck home.  The highlight of the trip was a speech by one of the children that Pearl had adoped and she told many stories of her youth.  It was a long time ago and I don't remember the details except the amazement of how many children of all races that she adopted.  I have the vague impression that this presenter had a difficult childhood - it would be most interesting to read a book written by one of these children.  

I've have never seen the movie some of you have referred to.

I vaguely remember that Michener's home was near the Buck home and they were friends.   Can't remember if we saw Michener's home or not, perhaps he was still living.   Gosh, if I had only kept a diary of those Elderhostel trips we took.  Some were so interesting.   The organization is now called Road Scholar, but I'm sure it is similar.

JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #12 on: August 18, 2013, 12:27:09 PM »
Marcie, delighted that you can join us!  Welcome!  I'll try to rent the Merle Oberon movie from Netflix - but think I'll wait until after  I read the story in Pearl's own words.  After reading the first three chapters, I can't imagine the movie, any movie capturing author's written expression.  I might be wrong...glad you will be reading along with us!

Welcome to you too, Ella! I remember those Elder Hostel trips you made!  I'm determined to find more about those adopted children.  Wouldn't it be great if we could invite the one you met at the Elderhostel?

I'm wondering about the implication that Pearl Buck had an unhappy childhood - though I see nothing in the biographical links.  Though she was born in the US - in 1892 - as a baby she was taken to China while her parents worked as missionaries.  Was she unhappy in China? Or when the family had to flee her home at age nine when  during the antiforeign Boxer Rebellion of 1900?
Or perhaps when her first child was born in 1920 with a PKU disease  and she returned home to institutionalize her daughter? Read more: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Br-Ca/Buck-Pearl-S.html#ixzz2cLCtvOoM 
 
Later she wrote about this daughter, Carol, "The Child Who Never Grew" -  "the true story of the struggle of the author after learning that her daughter Carol, born in 1920, was mentally handicapped. The 1992 Woodbine House edition contains a foreword by James Michener, an introduction by Martha M. Jablow, and an afterword by Janice C. Walsh, who was Pearl's daughter and Carol's's sister. (adopted in 1925) (Does this name sound familiar to you, Ella?

Jablow notes in her intro that "Child" first appeared as an article in "Ladies Home Journal" in 1950 and was shortly thereafter published in book form. Jablow notes that the book is "a landmark in the literature about disabilities."

Buck writes very movingly of her heartache at the discovery of her child's plight. She documents her awareness of the stigma against people like Carol, and also tells of her search for an institution where Carol's special needs might be met. Buck passionately defends the humanity and worth of the mentally retarded, and tells what her experiences with Carol taught her: "I learned respect and reverence for every human mind. It was my child who taught me to understand so clearly that all people are equal in their humanity and that all have the same human rights."



JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #13 on: August 18, 2013, 01:21:05 PM »
Ella, a picture of Janice Walsh, the first child Pearl adopted in 1925.  Do you recognize her?

https://www.english.upenn.edu/sites/www.english.upenn.edu/files/walsh.jpg

Ella Gibbons

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #14 on: August 18, 2013, 04:23:54 PM »
No, I don't JOAN, it was so long ago.   As I remember, the lady who spoke to us was older, had gray hair but I wouldn't want to be quoted.   My husband was with me, but he died in 2004 and I doubt if he would remember.  I'm not surprised by the foreword by Michener in the book about the child.   They were very good friends.

I did NOT mean to state that Pearl Buck had an unhappy childhood.  Sorry about that.  I meant to say that the presenter - the lady that spoke to us - the adopted child of Buck, had an unhappy childhood as I remember.

YEs, it would be very interesting to hear from one of these adopted children.   It was Buck's opinion that all races could live in harmony if they were brought up in the same atmosphere.

JudeS

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #15 on: August 19, 2013, 12:52:22 PM »
When I mentioned Pearl Buck's unhappy life I was referring to the fact that her first and only birth child was born with PKU. This is a severe disorder in which the infant suffers seizures, albinism and has microcephaly ((Small head or small brain). This means that the child is severely retarded. It may be hereditary.
Pearl Buck's first marriage was also an unhappy one.

Later in life Pearl Buck divorced her husband, remarried and adopted six  children.
So its not all gloom and doom.

An interesting side fact is that  After the Atomic bombs were dropped on Japan many pregnant woman who lived within a certain radius of the bombs had babies with PKU.



JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #16 on: August 19, 2013, 12:53:25 PM »
This is so fascinating, filling in  the environment in which Pearl Buck wrote this book, isn't it?  I understand she wrote the book in China, but need to understand with whom she was living, what she was doing there.  Was she, like her parents, a missionary?  Was it this contact with the peasantry in Chinkiang, China (?) that inspired the story we are about to read?

 I think we need a time-line, as she didn't seem to stay in any one place too long.  While searching for information on her seven adopted children, I learned that she had married her husband, John Lossing Buck in 1917 in Nanking, China, where Pearl spent most of her time caring for her mentally disabled daughter, Carol, who was born in 1920.  Poor little Carol, Jude.  We're told she returned to America to pursue her master's degree in English at Cornell University.  Wasn't this the same year she adopted the first of the seven children, Janice?  I'd like to learn more of Janice, from Janice, Ella.  If she was born in 1925, she must be about 88 now.   I know Pearl wrote The Good Earth in China in 1932.  I wonder if she took Jancie to live in China with her.  If not, where is Janice at this time?  As Jude says, she divorced her husband - in 1935.  Even though she remarried, she kept Buck's name through her whole life.



eamour

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #17 on: August 20, 2013, 01:29:26 PM »
Wow, what a discussion! I had no idea . . . partially because I might be the only person on the planet that has never read The Good Earth - - I am doing the latin course that starts soon, and I will also read the book. Hope to hook up with all of you through this process.
Elise

JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #18 on: August 20, 2013, 07:27:34 PM »
What a pleasant surprise to comes in this afternoon to find you here, eamour - Welcome!

Was even happier to learn this will be your first time reading The Good Earth.  We'll try to figure together the connection between Pearl Buck's experience in China and this story she has come up with.  I've started to read the book, it is beautifully written, easy to read...but  I can't  see a connection between this Chinese family and the American missionary.  I think I need more information about China while Pearl Buck was writing this book in 1930.


JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #19 on: August 20, 2013, 08:35:18 PM »
Here's a very handy Timeline.  We 'll keep it in the Heading throughout the discussion for easy reference.  I think we'll need it!


Steph

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #20 on: August 21, 2013, 08:50:02 AM »
Will try to check in. I had a Pearl Buck siege many years ago and read everything I could get my hands on.. My favorite was not The Good Earth, but Peony and Imperial something or another.. She was interesting though.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

PatH

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #21 on: August 21, 2013, 05:45:15 PM »
Eamour, you're not the only person on the planet who hasn't read this book; I haven't either.  We can discover it together.  It's nice to meet you here.

Steph

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #22 on: August 22, 2013, 08:38:11 AM »
I read somewhere some years ago that she started wriiting between her daughter and a bad marriage, it provided her with an outlet.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

ginny

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #23 on: August 22, 2013, 06:59:59 PM »
Good heavens! Look at this, I had no idea. Here's  Stacey Schiff (author of Cleopatra) on the Spurling book about Pearl Buck:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/books/review/Schiff-t.html?_r=0
Quote

 Buck lived in interesting times, and in interesting places. The child of a Presbyterian missionary to China, she grew up amid bandits, beggars, lepers, typhoons, floods, rebellions, famine, sinister mobs, marauding soldiers, opium clouds. Hers was a fairy-tale childhood of the bleak and semi-tragic variety. Before her birth, her mother had lost a child each to dysentery, cholera, malaria. As Pearl explored the backyard, she stumbled upon tiny limbs and mutilated hands, the remains of infant daughters left to die. “Where other little girls constructed mud pies,” Hilary Spurling writes evenly, “Pearl made miniature grave mounds.” She was 8 years old before she saw running water.

Buck’s father, Absalom Sydenstricker, was a fanatical man with a healthy martyr complex, “proud of his ability to whip up quarrels with himself at the center.” Daily he ventured out to save souls. Daily he was spit upon, cursed, stoned in the street. He produced few converts but plenty of frustration. While he devoted himself to God, Buck’s mother gave herself over to grief and rage. It did not help that her husband never really believed that women had souls, or that the Chinese were people. Money was tight, the more so as Sydenstricker refused to spend any on his wife or daughters. There was every reason why young Pearl should throw herself into the pages of Dickens, her narcotic of choice and her sole link to the Anglo-­Saxon world. Well before she was 10 she determined to be a novelist, as enchanted by ancient Chinese epics as by the Western canon, of which she made quick work. For a period of her childhood she reread all of Dickens annually.

And there's more, much more in that article. Absolutely amazing woman, I had no idea. I thought I knew about Pearl Buck, I need to read that book. And how au courant is this with her new one coming out!!!

JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #24 on: August 22, 2013, 09:00:12 PM »
Wow! We were looking for the reason (s) for Pearl's unhappy childhood. After reading Stacey Schiff's article on Spurling's biography, you have to wonder how the author survived her childhood - and why she chose to become a missionary as a young adult.  A novelist, I can see that.  She certainly had seen enough for several novels.  "Bleak" - an apt adjective to describe her childhood.  It will be interesting to see the China in which Pearl grew up in The Good Earth..  Thanks for the article, Ginny!

Steph, please try to join us...your Pearl Buck "siege" would be an invaluable resource...and hopefully your experience with our curious first-timers will add to your appreciation of her work and what she made of her life after its unpromising beginning.

Welcome, everyone! This promises to be quite an experience!

Steph

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #25 on: August 23, 2013, 08:44:07 AM »
I must confess that I never understood her father as a real missionary. All I could decide if that churches did not actually select the missionaries.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

waafer

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #26 on: August 23, 2013, 11:33:59 PM »
I did get The Good earth on kindle and started to read it- many years ago since I read it the first time- but I wanted to know more about the author and found "My Several  Worlds" by PEARL BUCK .  This is a great insight into her life.  Looking forward to the discussion in September. 

Poppaea

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #27 on: August 24, 2013, 07:21:49 AM »
I have purchased the book and am looking forward to joining the discussion group in September.

JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #28 on: August 24, 2013, 09:14:02 AM »
Quote
I must confess that I never understood her father as a real missionary. All I could decide if that churches did not actually select the missionaries


I would imagine that it wasn't easy to find anyone who would uproot his family and spend so much time in China an this uncertain time, Steph.  From the Schiff article quoted above, we learn Pearl's mother and father had been doing missionary work for many years before she was born.  Also, that he was not very effective making converts, and that money was tight.  You have to wonder why his church continued to support him.  I was interested to read that Pearl was not an only child...there was a brother, Edgar too.  I'd like to learn more about him.

waafer, happy to hear you will be joining us...and that you have her  book,  "My Several  Worlds."  Is there any information on her parents - and her early years in China? 

hepeskin - delighted to hear that you plan to be here too!  Welcome to both of you!

Steph

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #29 on: August 24, 2013, 09:39:33 AM »
Good heavens, I had forgotten My Several Worlds. As I recall, it was really interesting.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

JudeS

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #30 on: August 24, 2013, 04:53:37 PM »
In my Library copy of the book there are a number of different introductions.
In the one on the author's life we find this:

"Her father, Absalom, was a severe , dogmatic missionary. Her mother was neglected by her patriarchial husband and devastated by the deaths of four of her seven children......in the end of her life , she renounced her faith."

"Pearl attended Miss Jewell's School in Shanghai in 1909, but the education she received there paled compared to what she learned  volunteering at the Door of Hope, a shelter for girls who had been sold into slavery and prostitution.. This indelible experience shaped her future."

Steph

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #31 on: August 25, 2013, 09:35:14 AM »
How old was she when she got to volunteer there. I would think a married adult back in those times.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

JudeS

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #32 on: August 25, 2013, 05:47:15 PM »
Steph
The book doesn't state her age but she was still in school and was about 17 and not married.
Why did you think she was a married adult to volunteer at this center/
The book also doesn't say what exactly she did there or how long she stayed on as a volunteer.

I imagine that the younger she was the greater the impact of that experience.

Steph

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #33 on: August 26, 2013, 08:32:31 AM »
I was simply guessing that young girls were mostly not allowed to view that end of the world in that period.. My parents would  have had a catfit in the mid 50's if I had wanted to volunteer in tht sort  of place.
Stephanie and assorted corgi

PatH

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #34 on: August 26, 2013, 11:29:44 AM »
Catfit doesn't even begin to describe what my parents' reaction would have been.  I'm sitting here laughing at the thought.

JudeS

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #35 on: August 26, 2013, 03:51:13 PM »
Pearl Bucks parents were not around when she went to school in Shanghai.
They lived far away and there were no phone calls either. It was 1909.
Pearl was an independent sort even then. Her parents were not "Helicopter Parents' ever. Both encased in their own, different worlds.
No catfits there. Never heard that expression before but it is a good one.

Will be away for ten days visiting our son and family. Be in touch upon return.

JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #36 on: August 26, 2013, 09:18:35 PM »
Quote
Pearl Buck's father, Absalom Sydenstricker, was a humorless, scholarly man who spent years translating the Bible from Greek to Chinese. Her mother, the former Caroline Stulting, had travelled widely in her youth and had a fondness for literature.

After being educated by her mother and by a Chinese tutor, who was a Confucian scholar, Buck was sent to a boarding school in Shanghai (1907-09) at the age of fifteen. She also worked for the Door of Hope, a shelter for Chinese slave girls and prostitutes.

Pearl's mother is the one to watch, the one Pearl had to thank for her education.  She wrote a warm, revealing book about her mother    She went off to the boarding school at 15.   - her mother thought it was an opportunity to continue her education.  She only spent two years there before coming to the US to continue her education in Virginia at Randolph Macon Women's College at 17.  I'll bet her parents didn't know about her volunteer work at the shelter.  Or maybe they did - and approved. Thought of it as missionary work.

Will go hunt up the biography she wrote about her mother.

JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #37 on: August 26, 2013, 10:00:24 PM »
Pearl wrote of her mother in 1921 so her children would get to know her.  She called the book, The Exile.. (She wrote a biography about her father too.  She stashed them away until 1936 when they were published together.

It turns out The Exile is available in full online...
This review by a young Korean womann, recipient of a Pearl Buck endowment at Randolph Macon Women's College presents a wonderful picture of  Caroline “Carie” Sydenstricker  - you can see for yourself her importance in Pearl's life...


JoanP

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #38 on: August 26, 2013, 10:24:38 PM »
ps.You read much of her success at Randolph Macon WC, Phi Beta Kappa, literary accomplishments, Senior Class President,etc...but it didn't come easy for Pearl.  I just found this...

Quote
"By the time she arrived as a charity student at Randolph-Macon Women's College in Virginia, Buck was indelibly alienated from her American counterparts. "Girls came in groups to stare at me," wrote Buck, remembering her first harsh college days some 50 years later. She was set apart not only by her out-of-date clothes made by a Chinese tailor, but also by her extraordinary life experiences, which encompassed firsthand knowledge of war, infanticide and sexual slavery."

Steph

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Re: The Good Earth ~ Pearl Buck ~ September Book Club Online
« Reply #39 on: August 27, 2013, 08:25:14 AM »
She was such an interesting woman.. I honestly dont remember at 15 even knowing much about that end of life.. Guess  I was just a slow learner..
Stephanie and assorted corgi