Book Review: The Good Earth

When reading The Good Earth it's important to keep in mind two things: it was written by an American, Pearl Buck; and it was written in 1931, years before the Communists took over the country. At the time the novel was written, China was largely unknown to Americans, but that would soon change with the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 and China's alliance with the U.S. in World War II. The Good Earth helped bring Chinese peasant life to Americans at a time when there was little other exposure.

Buck, though not Chinese, had lived much of her life in China. Born in the U.S. to missionaries working in China, she was raised in China from the age of three months until she returned to the U.S. to attend college in 1911. She moved back to China in 1914 after graduating, married an American missionary, and lived until 1933 in a small town in rural China.

The novel itself (the first of a trilogy, but it easily stands on its own) covers the life of Wang Lung, a hard-working peasant. As the story opens, Wang is about to marry the woman his father has found for him, a former kitchen slave from the wealthy House of Hwang named O-Lan. The selection of the wife is purely practical: "We must have a woman who will tend the house and bear children as she works in the fields, and will a pretty woman do these things? She will be forever thinking about clothes to go with her face!" (Wang is not too happy about this, but he goes along with it.) Wang and his father are very poor, so much so that when Wang adds some tea to the hot water he brings his father in the morning, he gets rebuked for his wastefulness.

The marriage, however, works well: Wang Lung and O-Lan work hard; she is an export home economist, saving money in countless small ways; she bears him several children; and after a few years the family has managed to save some money. Wang uses this money to buy land: land that the House of Hwang is selling to cover expenses. The Hwangs have more expenses than income and are clearly on the decline, and Wang is determined to take advantage of this to the degree that he can. At first, it isn't much, but he is at least able to expand his farm.

Eventually a terrible famine comes, and Wang and his family are forced to move to the city to survive. The city is a corrupting influence on his sons (who learn to beg and engage in petty theft), and Wang is impatient to return to his farm, but money is tight and they remain in the city for months. Wang, notably, finds honest work running a rickshaw and resists the city's invidious allure. Until one day, when warlords invade and the rich folk run away, the city's poor take refuge in — and ransack — their houses. Wang and O-Lan join the mob, and O-Lan finds and steals a bag of jewels that had been secreted in the house. Finally free of money troubles, Wang uses the jewels to buy railroad passage back to the farm.

It is an ironic twist: Wang, previously incorruptible, succumbs briefly in order to save his family from their own corruption. This is a major turning point for Wang. He is a wise and careful investor, putting the stolen money to work buying yet more land, and he quickly is making enough money, and has enough land, that he must hire help on the farm. His little empire continues to grow, and Wang becomes wealthy, at least for a peasant.

But he is still viewed disdainfully as a farmer, and this rankles. One summer when the river has flooded and there is no work to do, Wang starts to patronize a certain tea shop in town. This tea shop is also a brothel, and Wang falls for a young whore there named Lotus Flower. This is Wang's first positive act contrary to the morality he was raised to respect, and it is the top of the arc of Wang's life: it is essentially all downhill from here. Prior to this summer, Wang was satisfied, despite minor irritants, with his life as a farmer. But after he meets Lotus Flower, he lives in a constant state of dissatisfaction. His patience leaves him. He cannot abide sharing Lotus Flower with any others. In the end he buys her and brings her to his house as a second wife.

O-Lan suffers this insult silently, as is her wont, but she is clearly hurt by it. To add injury to insult, it also comes to pass that she has cancer and will not live much longer. A few years later she dies, leaving behind three sons and two daughters, and Wang Lung with Lotus Flower. Wang's sons have, by this point, become old enough to marry, and they start families of their own. They do not have any interest in farming, however, despite Wang's insistence that the earth, the land, is the most important thing, the central unalterable factor in their lives. Famine may come and go, the land may be flooded, disease may stalk the land, but the land will always be there. Wang's sons, though, do not see this: they are educated, and prefer a softer life. If Wang were not so wealthy, they would have no choice: it would be work the land or starve. But he is able to hire workers, so his sons do as they please.

As Wang's extended family grows and his own abilities to work on the farm wane, he buys the town property of the House of Hwang. This completes the replacement of the wealthy Hwang family by Wang's family: he is now the most important man in the town, with vast land holdings and wealth, but the seeds of decline have long since germinated and are sprouting seedlings. His expenses have grown along with his income, and possibly exceed them. His sons are as profligate as Hwang's were, and do not care any more about his land. At the end of Wang's life, he implores his sons to keep the land, no matter what else they may do. And they promise to do so, but "over the old man's head they looked at each other and smiled." We know what will happen.

The arc of wealth is a central theme to the plot: Wang begins poor but hard-working. He tries to economize wherever possible, and his wife helps out. He invests wisely and his wealth grows. But at some point he becomes consumed by his wealth. He is no longer wise with money; he sees it as the solution to all his problems. Ultimately this makes it difficult for him to keep his wealth, and infects his sons with his carefree attitude. We know they will not emulate their father's work ethic.

The treatment of women is also an important theme: throughout the book they are referred to as mere "slaves". When O-Lan bears Wang three sons, he is thrilled and considers himself blessed. But the fourth child is a girl, and he is immediately anxious that fate has turned and he will thereafter be cursed. (There is some practical reasoning behind this, to be sure, since a daughter would need to be married off at some point, costing the family a dowry. Still, the economic facts don't seem to justify the vast differences in social status between the sexes.)

Ironically, though, women play a large role in the plot. O-Lan is a critical factor in Wang's success: her home economics expertise gives him an advantage when they are first starting out. She even refuses a midwife when bearing children, preferring to do everything, including cleaning up, on her own. (It is even possible to imagine such a thing today?) And of course her knowledge of rich people's homes and willingness to steal provides him with the seed capital he uses to convert a modest farm into an wealthy one. O-Lan stands in sharp contrast to Lotus Flower, a beauty with no practical skills or interest in working.

When reading the stories of the women in the novel, it's hard to forget that the author is a woman herself. Surely she identified with the local Chinese women she came into contact with daily, and she must have empathized with their oppressed status.

Post-WWII criticism of The Good Earth has often pointed out that Buck's not being Chinese would have prevented her from truly understanding Chinese culture, and that it is therefore better to read actual Chinese literature. But I am not so sure. Buck was immersed in Chinese culture for forty years. She wrote for an American audience, and therefore used metaphors and terms that would be familiar to them. Translations of Chinese literature have their own limitations: they are written for Chinese audiences (and thus may be more difficult for Americans to understand) and are usually read through the intermediary of a translator.

Regardless of its limitations as a description of Chinese culture, The Good Earth is a very good, possibly great, novel. The archaic writing style, which could easily have become stilted or silly, is used delicately and well: it brings the reader into a foreign place without shouting about it. The plot is simple and linear, but nonetheless elucidates important themes. The characters do not talk about philosophies of life, but their philosophies are clarified by their actions. It's an interesting question, one I am unqualified to answer, whether The Good Earth illuminates modern China. But whether it does or not, the novel is well worth reading today for its observations on the unchanging aspects of all humanity.

Book Review: The Wonder of Boys

The Wonder of Boys is an interesting book about raising boys by Michael Gurian. The author, a self-styled feminist, attempts to correct some misconceptions about boys that were created by radical feminists. Along the way he takes a few swipes at radical conservatives as well, trying for a moderate line. The book is good evidence for the end of the Culture Wars.

Some of the myths Gurian corrects are (1) that the difference between boys and girls is a social construct that can be "corrected" by proper upbringing; (2) that male culture is the root of all evil and should be thwarted at every turn; and (3) that the particular family structure isn't important as long as the boy is loved. The emphasis the author puts on these corrections will inevitably waste the time of those readers who already agree with him.

Luckily, there is still much to glean from the book about the nuts and bolts of boy-raising. From sports to discipline to learning styles to the teaching of morality, Gurian covers all aspects of this important task. Both the father's and mother's point of view are considered. The author is clearly an expert in his field. Still, while the book's advice is good and, I think, worth applying, his reasoning is often muddled.

For example, Gurian refers often to primitive tribes as archetypes for how we should be raising boys. He uses the Hillary Clinton line "it takes a village to raise a child" unironically, even giving it the authority of unnamed "anthropologists". (As in, "[A]nthropologists have generally agreed that it takes a whole village to raise a child." They have?) This line of reasoning is odd considering that in other places Gurian discusses what modern America has lost in terms of community as we have become more mobile. Wouldn't a better archetype, then, be pre-modern America rather than primitive tribes who have very different methods of child-rearing than Americans ever did?

I'll end the review with this thought-provoking extended quote from near the end of the book:

By focusing so obsessively on the safe ascension of women in the workplace and neglecting the work role of men, we are teaching most boys that they don't really have a clear path to self-respect anymore; their job is to make sure women and girls have a clear path to those things. Herein lies a bitter irony. Boys and men have always, in whatever culture, known that their primary job is to sacrifice themselves so that women and girls can be safe. The last thirty years of feminism, for all its good, has not noticed that feminism is preaching the same old message to male culture when it asks male culture to see how victimized women are, and make sure women are taken care of. Male culture has been biologically and socially based on this principle for millennia.

Ayn Rand and the New Man

The desire to have Heaven on Earth is dangerous, but hardly novel. You can trace its philosophical origins back at least to Plato (who promoted, in The Republic, the ideal of philosopher-kings who would rule with perfect wisdom and magnanimity). Its social origins surely stretch as far back as human history records: the earliest governments were organized under "god-kings" who reigned with the legimitacy of literal deities.

In modern times - post-Renaissance - this strain of thought can be traced through the French Revolution, through Marx, to Communism, and still looms like a shadow over the world. In Tom Sowell's terminology, this is the "unconstrained vision": the idea that anything is possible if only human nature can be suitably molded. It is a utopian vision. It promises the moon. And with such incredible promises, equally incredible insults to dignity and humanity have been justified. After all, if one is bringing about utopia, what does it matter (say the utopians) if a few million looters are thrown in the gulag? What does it matter if thousands of opponents are guillotined? One cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs.

By contrast, the "constrained vision" holds that human nature sets certain boundaries which we cannot, as a society, hope to exceed. This view of humanity is that which defined the American experiment. James Madison wrote in Federalist 51:

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

Madison does not imagine, as Plato, that human nature might be molded to produce a class of philosopher-kings. Nor does he imagine, as Marx, that history's inevitable progression through capitalism, then Communism, will result in a New Man capable of exquisite anarchy. Rather, he realizes that men are not and will not be angels, and thus we must deal with them as they are, not as we wish they would be.

And this is where Ayn Rand comes in. A champion of some free-market types, Rand is, unfortunately, no less a utopian than Marx. Her chosen utopia is a bit different in style from most, filled with self-interested, omnicompetent heroes and heroines. In a sense, it is more like Homer than Plato. Galt's Gulch is a modern-day Mount Olympus. But therein lies exactly the flaw: populated by Randian demigods, it is almost literally Heaven on Earth. Rand cannot see how to attain her vision for humanity without creating New Men to her liking. And we've seen where that leads. As Whittaker Chambers writes: "To a gas chamber — go!"

Further reading on this subject: Jason Lee Steorts, Whittaker Chambers.

UPDATE: Also read Richard Reinsch's post on the subject.

Book Review: The Time It Never Rained

The Time It Never Rained is an unusual Western by Elmer Kelton. The story is based around actual events - specifically, the Texas drought of the early 1950s - which the author experienced both as a friend and relative of ranchers and as a reporter for the ranching industry. Almost every scene is about Charlie Flagg, a cattle and sheep rancher.

Most Westerns have a heroic archetype as protagonist. Flagg is no hero. He is stubborn, cantankerous, elderly, and disabled. He is distant with his wife and has a troubled relationship with his son. But he is also tough, self-sufficient, and honest. And he has a creed, and that is to take no handouts from anybody. Flagg believes there is no such thing as a free lunch, and is suspicious of apparent free lunches. During the great drought, the government steps in to help out. This help takes several forms: price supports to help out the farmers, free feed to help out the ranchers, and so on. Flagg refuses it all, though it eventually costs him nearly his entire ranch.

It's hard to ignore similarities to Ayn Rand when reading this book. Flagg is in some sense a Texan John Galt or Hank Reardon. Flagg:

Now, if you go in my wife's kitchen you'd see an old pet cat curled up close to the stove. She's fat and lazy. If a mouse was to run across the kitchen floor that old cat wouldn't hardly stir a whisker. She's been fed everything she wanted. She depends on us. If we went off someday and left her she'd starve.

But out at the barn there's cats that can spot a mouse across two corrals. I never feed them. They rustle for theirselves, and they do a damn good job of it. If I was to leave they'd never miss me. All they need is a chance to operate. They may not be as fat as the old pet, but I'd say they're healthier.

The language is not as highflown as Galt's famous speech in Atlas Shrugged, but it expresses similar ideas. However, there are crucial differences. Rand's philosophy is totalitarian: she wants everyone to share it, and indeed it would not work unless everyone did share it. She admits no weakness. Kelton's, expressed through Flagg, is individual. He alienates some of his friends when the above quote gets published in the newspaper, but he repeatedly says he is not trying to dictate what others do, merely explain his own actions. He is also perfectly willing to help friends just because they are friends, with no expectation of remuneration, something no Rand hero would ever do. In other words, Flagg is recognizably human. Rand's heroes really are not.

Another difference between Kelton's tale and a traditional Western is the lack of enemies. Flagg battles primarily against the drought. In the process he comes into conflict with various of his friends, relatives and business associates, but none of them is an enemy. It would have been easy, given the anti-government ideas in the book, to paint the government as the enemy, but Kelton does not stoop to this either. One gets the idea that the government's well-intentioned but misguided actions are regrettable but inevitable. Flagg laments that, "There was a time we looked up to Uncle Sam; he was somethin' to be proud of and respect. Now he's turned into some kind of muddle-brained Sugar Daddy givin' out goodies right and left in the hopes that everybody's goin' to love him." This is the attitude of an old-time Americanism, the kind of independent man that Tocqueville admired. It is certainly foreign to most of our modern politics, both on the left and the right.

Most Westerns end either in triumph, with the bad guys vanquished and the good guys riding off into the sunset, or (in their more modern incarnations) sometimes in tragedy, the hero dying operatically after saving the day. The Time It Never Rained lacks such a heroic finale, instead ending on an ambiguous note. The reader is left unsure just how Flagg's story will continue beyond the last sentence. Many subplots are left unresolved. This is proper in a tale like this; life offers few final victories. But if there is a moral to the story, it is that it also offers few final defeats.