The Good Earth ~ch 34

"It was Wang Lung's marriage day...'Rest assured, our father, rest assured. The land is not to be sold.' But over the old man's head they looked at each other and smiled."

These are the first and three last sentences of this book.

The Good Earth is about the life of a farmer in China who starts out very poor, earns a lot of money and raises himself and his family up to a high social status, and then misses his life as a poor farmer working in the fields when he is about to die. At the end of this book, Wang Lung is all ready to die. He even has his own coffin already. However, the book implies that with his death is the death of an entire generation of farmers. His sons plan to sell the precious land that was the center of Wang Lung's life. None of his three sons desire to become farmers.

This book is a very realistic, but fictional biography of a Chinese farmer named Wang Lung. This book is a story about one man's life. It tells the reader all about this Chinese farmer's from the age of around 18 when he gets married to around 70 when he dies. In this time of about fifty years, Wang Lung simply lives his life. And life, for him, is a search for peace. Sadly, he does not find it, even at the end.

I would not recommend this book to my friends, but i acknowledge that it is a good book and well written.

The Good Earth ~ch 27

O Lan is dead. She died. Wang Lung's first wife; his partner; his hardworking servant; his loyal, obedient companion is no longer living. Wang Lung is filled with remorse and as a reaction to this overwhelming emotion, he cries by himself.

What a jerk. Wang Lung is such an evil husband, a narrow minded farmer, who has difficulty seeing anything past the tip of his own nose.

What a humble servant. O Lan's entire life was little to be happy about, but she endured. O Lan did not only endure, but she was loyal to the end. She had nothing; everything she had was always taken away from her, but she learned to live with the little she did have, with the selfish love her husband offered.

This is a turning point. Someone very influential to Wang Lung's life has died and as Wang Lung admits, it is as if half of his land has gone missing and his life will never be the same.

Sometimes, people will never realize how blessed they are until the blessing is taken away from them.

The Good Earth ~ch 26

Pg 237 "Well, and every man has his troubles and I must make shift to live with mine as I can..."

I have my troubles and I must make change the way I live so that I can live to deal with it. Troubles are frustrating to have in my life, but I gotta admit they are pretty life changing. Troubles make me feel sad and mad but they make me overcome and the triumphant feeling of achievement when my troubles are blown away is one that lasts longer and is rooted deeper than the shallow and short trouble. Trouble is difficult to deal with; to live with. It demands for me to change in order to fit the trouble and each side of me that is altered in order to please this trouble hurts me. Sometimes, they are mere scratches that I forget about in an instant. However other times, they are deep gashes that leave a scar of the bad memory, but later, when I look at that scar, I know that I can see it with a smile on my face. This is because the trouble is gone, and the transformed "me" is even stronger than before.

The Good Earth ~ch 22

Pg 194 "Silver, then! Silver and gold! anything to the very price of my land!"

Wang Leng is crazy. All the way up until the 21st chapter (out of 34), Wang Leng's life revolves around "The Good Earth." He is a devoted farmer who is passionate about his work in the fields. Like all people, Wang Leng doesn't understand what it means to be a wealthy man until he becomes one. He does not understand

their foolish and lazy ways until he finds himself acting exactly the same way. The very land that motivated Wang Leng to live through the difficult times when his family members were beggars and was more precious and priceless to him than anything else in the whole world suddenly becomes worthless in this sentence. Wang Leng's eyes are suddenly opened to his wife O Lan's big feet, ugly, calloused hands, and unattractive features. The stack of silver and gold coins in the walls of his house lead him to wanting even more, making him become a greedy man. When Wang Leng did not own much and did not have much money, he was a very hard working, humble farmer. However, as his wealth increased and the land became flooded, Wang Leng became idle, not doing anything but wandering around the house and about the city, looking for ways to become like the wealthy men, and not a farmer. He goes into a tea shop that is only for rich men and is captivated by a painting of a woman with tiny feet, long, fragile hands carrying a lotus flower, and a small, pretty face. His family, especially his naive wife is very aware of his change in attitude and in actions (for he has become very harsh toward his wife, father, and even his children), but has no idea what has caused this change, or what Wang Leng has become.

However Wang Leng is still a farmer at heart. Even though he says these things and acts these ways, it is not the lifestyle he is accustomed to, and he knows that his life's purpose is in the land. He must at some point, realize that the calloused hands of his loyal wife O Lan are much more beautiful than the tainted ones of the Lotus. For every time O Lan confronts him, he breaks out in an outrage, but feels nothing but shame and is abashed by his actions.