Pearl Sydenstricker Buck

The third book in a trilogy about the struggles of a Chinese family.

The Mother

Pearl S. Buck

From the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth: The “moving story” of a peasant woman in pre-revolutionary China who is abandoned by her husband (Kirkus Reviews). Dickensian in its epic sweep, one of Buck’s finest novels centers on an unnamed peasant woman in pre-revolutionary China. Without warning, her restless husband abandons her. Shamed by the experience, she is left to work the land, raise their three children on her own, and care for her aging mother-in-law. To save face with her neighbors, she pretends her husband is traveling, and sends letters to herself signed in his name. Surrounded by poverty, despair, and a growing web of lies meant to protect the family, her children grow up and enter society with only the support of their mother’s unbreakable will. An unforgettable story of one woman’s strength and a remarkable fable about the role of mothers, this novel is a powerful achievement by a master of twentieth-century fiction. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

A Novel

Pavonini

This was depressing, yet I couldn't stop. The main characters were all kind of archetypes, not even given names: the mother, the man, the eldest son etc. The approach to life is so interesting. Perhaps it's partly a result of extreme poverty, and perhaps cultural too. Life and death are constants, marriage a pragmatic selling of assets, duty and community valorised. There's quite an acceptance of suffering, but what could they do? You understand their actions often, even if you wish they could be different.

There was a real sense of place and timelessness (though the glimpsed communists give a historical context). Reading it, I couldn't identify what I liked so much about it. It's not historical fiction in the way I usually experience it (with pointed commentary and often lots of characters close to the action) but it holds its own. It's a window into a life, and that's enough for me.

I'll definitely read more of her work. Glad to know that she actually grew up in China so it's not entirely written from imagination.