The Very Good "The Good Earth"

The classics of the literary canon (ie. Those books that everyone is “supposed” to read, typically given out as required reading assignments in intro English classes) do not typically hold my interest.  In my experience, if a book was written over fifty years ago, despite all of its laudable literary merit, I find myself bored and can finish it only with a grim sense of responsibility.  There have been a few exceptions, and The Good Earth is definitely one of them.

During one of my outings with Abel, we visited a used bookstore/café with a good selection of English titles.  I managed to inhale my fish tacos (not surprisingly, they were disappointing, but I just had to try fish tacos in Taiwan!) before Abel started to get a bit fussy.  That gave me about two minutes to choose a book from the stacks, so when I grabbed The Good Earth, it ticked all the right boxes – about China, written in English, and very cheap.

Once I had some time to inspect it, I was disillusioned that it was written in the 1930’s. I also gathered that it was about pre-revolutionary China written by the daughter of a missionary. Yawn.  I immediately assumed the language would be out of date, the content would be irrelevant and the characters would be stodgy. 

Wow, was I wrong. 

I was glued to the book for a solid week.  The first three days I whizzed through chapters, picking it up every spare minute I could find.  The next three days went by without reading a word because I wanted to save the last chapter and savor the unfinished story.  When I finally indulged in the last chapter, I was glad that I had waited;  it was the perfect ending to a brilliantly crafted narrative.

It is a classic story of survival, love, and struggle.  The writing style is extremely straightforward, just as the characters are very direct in their intentions and aspirations.  This does not mean it is boring, but rather that the beauty of the novel is not found it literary flourishes or fancy devices of the language. The book’s beauty is found in the simple story and believable characters.  While the book does contain a lot of interesting insights into the life of a peasant in rural China, the story and characters are timeless and universally understandable.   Everyone can learn something about themselves and the meaning of life from this humble book.

I actually think I’m pretty good at judging a book by its cover, or at least judging whether or not I will like a book based on its cover, but reading The Good Earth was an important reminder that some old worn paperbacks in their twentieth printing may have a lot of relevance to modern life. I’m back into more contemporary literature for now (reading “Speed of Dark” by Elizabeth Moon), but I’m going to fit in more classics to my reading list from now on.