读书笔记
读书心得
I read Cp.6-10 of the book “The Good Earth”.
A) (1) Cp.6 This piece of land which Wang Lung now owned was a thing which greatly changed his life. He set out in the second month of the New Year to look at it. He paced the land, three hundred paces lengthwise and a hundred and twenty across , he thought to himself, “ To those at the great house it means nothing, but for me it means how much!”
Spring came Wang Lung were long days of desperate labor over his land. The woman worked with the man from dawn until sunset. Wang Lung perceived one day that again she was with child, the second child from the time he noticed its growth swelling her body, until the day came in autumn when she laid down her hoe one morning and crept into the house. Later before the sun set she was back beside him, her body flattened, he only asked, “ Is it male or female?” She answered calmly, “It is another male.” They said nothing and working on until the moon rose, and went home. He shouted to his father, “ Another grandson!”
And again the harvests were good, the rice he reaped from the land of the Hwangs brought him twice as much as that from his own land. And everyone knew now Wang Lung owned this land.
(2) Cp. 7 Wang Lung’s uncle was the younger brother of his father, and by relationship he might depend upon Wang Lung if he had not enough.
It was a disgrace that the girls grew older they still run about the village street. Wang Lung, meeting his oldest girl cousin thus one day, was so angered that he dared to go to his uncle’s wife and say, “Now, who will marry a girl like my cousin!”
The next day his uncle came to the field where he was working. O-lan was not there, for a third birth was close upon her. His uncle began to speak. “ The person in my house has told me, of your interest in my worthless oldest slave creature. It is wholly true what you say. If it had been my good destiny, I, too, might have been rich now as you are. Then might I have, shared my riches with you . You are rich! You have bought the land from the great house!”
Wang Lung shouted suddenly, “If I have a handful of silver it is because I work and my wife works, and we do not sit idling over a gambling table.”
His uncle rushed at his nephew and slapped him on both cheeks, cried, “you are so lacking in filial conduct? A man is never to correct an elder. I will tell it to the village...” until at Wang Lung said unwillingly, “ What do you want me to do?” His uncle changed immediately. “ Ah, Your uncle knows you. Son, a little silver in this poor old palm.” “Come to the house,” Wang Lung said shortly.
He went into the room, the smell of warm blood filled his nostrils and he cried out, “ Has your time come?” The voice of his wife answered, “ It is only a slave this time— not worth mentioning.” He went without reply then to the wall which was the hiding place, he fumbled among the little heap of silver and counted out nine pieces. Then going out into the threshold he thrust the money at his uncle and he walked quickly back to the field. He thought for the silver, the silver he had to turn it for more earth for his own.
It was evening he thought of the new mouth, daughters who do not belong to their parents, but are born and reared for other families. Across the sky, a flock of crows flew. He groaned aloud. It was an evil omen.
(3) Cp.8 The rain which should have come in early summer, and day after day sky shone with brilliance. The field dried and cracked, and the young wheat stalks ceased their growing and at last dwindled and yellowed into a barren harvest. No rain come. Only the piece of land by the moat bore harvest. Wang Lung sold his grain as soon as it was harvested, he would do that which he had determined. He hurried to the House of Hwang, Wang Lung had heard that for the House of Hwang it had been a year verging upon poverty. The Old Mistress with her opium, the Old Lord with his lusts. Neither had Heaven sent rain upon the fields of the House of Hwang.
Wang Lung had now a vast field of good land, for the new field was twice as large as the first. Month passed into month and still no rain fell. From his field Wang Lung reaped scanty harvest of hardy beans, and from his corn field he plucked short stubby ears with the grains. When he would have put the cobs away for fuel, his wife spoke out, “ No, I remember when I was a child when years like this came, even the cobs we ate.” O-lan was again with child, and her milk dried up, and the house was filled with the sound of a child crying for food.
There came a day when there was no rice left and no wheat left, the old man said, “We will eat the ox, next.” Then Wang Lung cried out, “ How can we eat the ox?” The children cried out for food, he saw at last that the thing was to be done. Then O-lan severed its life. And she took a bowl and caught its blood to cook for them to eat.
And as family after family finished its store in the small village. The men took up poles and went one night to the house of Wang Lung and beat the door. They fell upon every corner to find where he had hidden his food. Then when they found a few dried beans, the men were ashamed and went out one by one. Ching, a small silent man, looked at Wang Lung with haggard eyes.
Wang Lung stood there in his doorway. He said in his heart, “ I have the land still, and it is mine.”
(4) Cp.9 Wang Lung said to himself that now surely something must be done. They could not remain here and die.
They scarcely rose at all now, any of them. The cobs of corn they had eaten and they stripped the bark from the trees and all over the countryside people were eating what grass they could find. There was not an animal anywhere.
There was a day when his neighbor Ching came to the door of Wang Lung’s house and he whispered, “ Here we have eaten the beasts. What now remains for food? In the village they are eating human fresh.” “ We will leave this place,” Wang Lung said loudly. “ We will go south.” And then it seemed to him suddenly that what he said was very right, and he called aloud to O-lan. “ Come, woman, we will go south!” O-lan said, “ It is a good thing to do. Only wait until tomorrow, I shall have given birth by then.”
“ How shall you walk,” he muttered, and he said to his neighbor Ching, “ If you have any food left, for a good heart’s sake give me a handful to save the life of the mother of my sons. and I will forget you in my room like a robber .” Ching answered humbly, “ I have never thought of you with peace since that hour. It was your uncle saying that you had good harvests stored up. I have only a little handful of red beans.” Wang Lung took the food in to his wife and she ate a little of it, if she had no any food she would die. Only a few of the beans he put into his own mouth and he chewed them into a soft pulp and then putting his lips to the lips of his daughter.
That night O-lan gave birth alone. He heard the feebly cry! There was no second cry. Wang Lung was afraid. “You are safe?” he called to the woman. She answered “Come!” He went in. “ Where is the child?” he asked. “Died,” she whispered. He said nothing, but he took the dead child into the other room. He found a bit of broken mat and this he wrapped about it. Then he took the roll of matting, he laid the burden against the hollowed side of an old grave.
The next morning. How could they drag their bodies over a hundred miles? He had no money. And then, as he sat there in the doorway, giving up his hope, he saw that one was his uncle and with him were three men. His uncle: “ l borrowed from these good men in the town a little food on the promise that I would help them to buy some of the land about our village. They have come to buy your land and to give you money- food-life!” Wang Lung looked up at them sullenly, “ I will not sell my land,” he said. At this instant the younger of Wang Lung’s two sons came creeping to the doorway. And they all looked at the child and suddenly began to weep silently, “ What is your price?” he whispered at last. And one of the men spoke, unctuously he said, “ My poor man, we will give you a string of hundred pence for an acre!” “I shall never sell the land!” Wang Lung shrieked at them.
And then suddenly O-lan came to the door and spoke to them. “ We will sell the table and the two beds and even the cauldron.” The man said, “ They are poor things.Two silver bits for a lot.” O-lan answered tranquilly, “If you have the silver give it to me quickly and take the things.”
When all was finished and the house was wholly empty, O-lan said to her husband, “ Let us go white we have the two bits of silver.” Wang Lung muttered, “ At least I have the land.”
(5) Cp.10 They started across the field. They went on in complete silence past the little temple. The two boys cried of its cold. But Wang Lung coaxed them saying, “You are travelers to the south. There is food every day.” They reached the gate of the wall. They were close to the gate of the great house now, but it was locked fast. One cried out in a crack voice, “ The hearts of these rich are hard.”
They went on towards the south. When they had passed through the town and had come out on the southern side, they found a multitude of people going toward the south. He asked of one, “Where is all this multitude going?” And the man said, “We are going to catch the fire wagon and ride to the south. And there are wagons for such as we for the price of less than a small silver piece.” Fire wagons! One had heard of them. Wang Lung turned doubtfully to the woman and said, “ Shall we also then go on this fire wagon?”
O-lan carried the girl child still, but the child’s head with such a look of death. Wang Lung cried out, “Is the little slave already dead?” O-lan shook her head. “ Not yet.But she will die this night and all of us unless——”. Wang Lung thought that another day of walking like this one and they would all be dead by night, he said, “ Up. We will go on the fire wagon.”
Pressing forward in the confusion they were pushed into a small open door, and then with roaring the thing forth, bearing them in its vitals.
B) I think: (1) At that time, we relied on the weather to make a living，Drought causes famine。That occurred in China, which is very sad. China experienced famine from 1959 to 1960, which was caused by political reasons and resulted in many people deaths. I was lucky to have food every day, I was in Beijing that time. In China, food and land are very precious. And I feel that Americans waste a lot of food and land.
(2) Famine is tragic. But what has the government done? The government should transport the grain from the south. This kind of government is not good. The train station helped refugees escape to the south with low-price tickets, it was good. People also have good and bad. There is excess food in the big house, but they lock the door tightly. His uncle colluded with businessmen and took advantage of the opportunity to purchase land at a low price. They are bad, and neighbor Ching gave his last bit of beans to Wang Long. He is good.
