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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
While a little old, and with slightly stilted language, Dragon Seed clearly lays out how no one wins at war. One of the more powerful anti war books out there.
A different picture of China
This story begins right as Japan began invading China and follows the story of a rural village miles inside China's border but located near a town. This story reveals the more traditional side of he culture before communism and how society was on the cusp of progressing into a more educated and developed way of life versus the traditional simple life. It goes to show how China was deeply influenced by invasion, hardships, and cruelty at the hand of Japan's invading forces. An excellent story with a window to the hopeful nature of Chinese culture up to this time.
This story begins right as Japan began invading China and follows the story of a rural village miles inside China's border but located near a town. This story reveals the more traditional side of he culture before communism and how society was on the cusp of progressing into a more educated and developed way of life versus the traditional simple life. It goes to show how China was deeply influenced by invasion, hardships, and cruelty at the hand of Japan's invading forces. An excellent story with a window to the hopeful nature of Chinese culture up to this time.
I have pure devotion to Pearl Buck as a writer. Her characters are beautiful, flawed but simple. There is a tangible emotional pull in her placement of people in time and country. And I am completely enraptured by stories set in China where ritual and tradition exist and yet get upended. She does such an amazing job of telling those stories.
Dragon Seed is up near the top of my list of favorites from P. Buck to date. While the writing is not as poetic as that in The Good Earth and the pacing can seem a bit inconsistent, I found this story and cast of characters more compelling. I was easily absorbed into the lives of the Ling Tan family and the dramatic and evil turns that WWII and the Japanese invasion had on life in rural China. I also hated and loved the patriarchal traditions that they tried so hard to keep all along the way.
The women in Buck’s stories are oppressed by today’s standards and yet Buck does such a great job of showing you where their power lied even in those conditions. She doesn’t let you forget that they wielded power in their own way, through the only means left to them – their children, their bodies, and their cunning. They didn’t rule the world. They barely existed above property. They did their best when they had to. There is so much you can dissect from her characterization of the mothers and daughters in these families. An, ‘over a glass of wine’ discussion for sure.
I’m excited that Pearl Buck was such a prolific writer – I have so much more to explore. Recommendations for her novels that you think are great are highly encouraged.
Dragon Seed is up near the top of my list of favorites from P. Buck to date. While the writing is not as poetic as that in The Good Earth and the pacing can seem a bit inconsistent, I found this story and cast of characters more compelling. I was easily absorbed into the lives of the Ling Tan family and the dramatic and evil turns that WWII and the Japanese invasion had on life in rural China. I also hated and loved the patriarchal traditions that they tried so hard to keep all along the way.
The women in Buck’s stories are oppressed by today’s standards and yet Buck does such a great job of showing you where their power lied even in those conditions. She doesn’t let you forget that they wielded power in their own way, through the only means left to them – their children, their bodies, and their cunning. They didn’t rule the world. They barely existed above property. They did their best when they had to. There is so much you can dissect from her characterization of the mothers and daughters in these families. An, ‘over a glass of wine’ discussion for sure.
I’m excited that Pearl Buck was such a prolific writer – I have so much more to explore. Recommendations for her novels that you think are great are highly encouraged.
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
4**
Next to The Good Earth, this has to be one of Buck’s most excellent reads, bringing in the tension of progress against tradition through unspeakable war. Never does she name the countries, the enemy, the leaders, nor the actual war because she doesn’t need to. The “enemy” is always those going against you, invading you, destroying your way of life, and as such, the concept of “evil” belongs to all of humanity.
What I found so interesting, too, is how Buck showed the response of a family once their country was occupied - deal with the enemy in order to survive but be branded a traitor? Employ passive resistance by sneaky, target attacks to undermine them? Assume that the occupiers were their fate and thus accept brutal torture? The best course of action is never black and white, and the grayscale that Buck paints is so vivid amidst conflicting ideas.
Most fascinating is the idea that books were evil - that they poisoned a mother’s milk if she read while nursing, that only evil people read, that knowledge was destructive, and knowing history didn’t mean you were doomed to repeat it because men were always going to be cruel, greedy beings whose nature is to suppress and oppress others. Books just gave them the know-how on how to do it more efficiently.
I will forever love Pearl Buck’s novels, and this one just cemented my opinion of a brilliant author who never disappoints.
Next to The Good Earth, this has to be one of Buck’s most excellent reads, bringing in the tension of progress against tradition through unspeakable war. Never does she name the countries, the enemy, the leaders, nor the actual war because she doesn’t need to. The “enemy” is always those going against you, invading you, destroying your way of life, and as such, the concept of “evil” belongs to all of humanity.
What I found so interesting, too, is how Buck showed the response of a family once their country was occupied - deal with the enemy in order to survive but be branded a traitor? Employ passive resistance by sneaky, target attacks to undermine them? Assume that the occupiers were their fate and thus accept brutal torture? The best course of action is never black and white, and the grayscale that Buck paints is so vivid amidst conflicting ideas.
Most fascinating is the idea that books were evil - that they poisoned a mother’s milk if she read while nursing, that only evil people read, that knowledge was destructive, and knowing history didn’t mean you were doomed to repeat it because men were always going to be cruel, greedy beings whose nature is to suppress and oppress others. Books just gave them the know-how on how to do it more efficiently.
I will forever love Pearl Buck’s novels, and this one just cemented my opinion of a brilliant author who never disappoints.
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A strain of crazed, self-righteous fanaticism runs throughout Pearl S. Buck's work. In her better novels, such as The Good Earth, her storytelling skills are so strong that this fault, as I see it, fades into the background. But Dragon Seed is not one of her better works. It amounts to little more than wartime propaganda. And the constant pleading interspersed with revenge fantasies at times makes it an ugly work. Yes, China was undergoing a ruthless Japanese invasion and occupation. And Buck self identified with the Chinese. So, in that sense, it is all understandable. But the ferocity of the tone of the book, its lack of subtlety and its constant waving of the bloody flag will forever doom Dragon Seed to nothing more than a mere reflection of its times.
The story itself revolves around a fictionalized depiction of the Rape of Nanking in 1937, although the novel was not published until 1942, just as the United States was entering World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor. That fact provides the only sense of hope in the story, that after four years of Japanese occupation China now has allies who promise that the "tunnel may be dark and long, but at the end there is light." The fate of the novel's characters reflect this state of affairs, for everything is left unresolved at book's end. The main and final struggle is yet to be fought.
Dragon Seed is bleak, heavy-handed effort. And it reveals Buck as something of a harridan. Her novels and her personal philosophy seem driven with her confirmed belief that she was in the right, that China's only appropriate future was the one she felt it must follow. However much she may have come to criticize the American and British missionary efforts in China, she retained that same zealous attitude, just for a slightly different set of values. She thought herself the defender against anti-Asian bigotry. How ironic that contemporary readers of her work, cut from the same desire to reshape the world in the 21st century image of Western "appropriateness" now condemn her efforts as racist filled stereotypes. There is something instructive in that. People who write books to please contemporary audiences and announce their own virtue often have their own voices turned against them in subsequent generations. Perhaps a fate that also awaits those so criticizing Buck today.
The story itself revolves around a fictionalized depiction of the Rape of Nanking in 1937, although the novel was not published until 1942, just as the United States was entering World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor. That fact provides the only sense of hope in the story, that after four years of Japanese occupation China now has allies who promise that the "tunnel may be dark and long, but at the end there is light." The fate of the novel's characters reflect this state of affairs, for everything is left unresolved at book's end. The main and final struggle is yet to be fought.
Dragon Seed is bleak, heavy-handed effort. And it reveals Buck as something of a harridan. Her novels and her personal philosophy seem driven with her confirmed belief that she was in the right, that China's only appropriate future was the one she felt it must follow. However much she may have come to criticize the American and British missionary efforts in China, she retained that same zealous attitude, just for a slightly different set of values. She thought herself the defender against anti-Asian bigotry. How ironic that contemporary readers of her work, cut from the same desire to reshape the world in the 21st century image of Western "appropriateness" now condemn her efforts as racist filled stereotypes. There is something instructive in that. People who write books to please contemporary audiences and announce their own virtue often have their own voices turned against them in subsequent generations. Perhaps a fate that also awaits those so criticizing Buck today.
Opinion on this and Pavilion of Women: Pearl S. Buck may not know how to finish a story. The second half of the first was rambling about religion and pining for a dead man. The second half of this book was dedicated to overly long descriptions of this random new girl who would marry the third son, how hot she was, how smart she was, how much better than everyone else she was. She even looked down on her love interest's family. And as abruptly as she appeared, she disappeared and took the third son to the free lands with her. So dumb.