读书笔记
读书心得
I read the last five chapters of the book "The Good Earth", from Chapter 30 to Chapter 34. "The Good Earth" is the first part of the "The Good Earth Trilogy"
1）(A) Cp. 30. Now to Wang Lung it seemed there was nothing left to be desired in his condition.
The eldest son came to his father saying, “We should have the outer courts also and we should have what befits a family with so much money.” Then the son bought tables and chairs. When the feast came when rents are decided upon these common people found that the rent where they lived had been great raised, and they had to move away。Then they knew it was Wang Lung’s eldest son who had done this. They were away swelling with anger.
Wang Lung’s second son come into his court one morning and he said, “My father, is there to be no end to all this pouring out of money?” Wang Lung spoke that same evening to his eldest son. This son was willing to obey his father now for he was satisfied, but he began another, “It is for my youngest brother. He should be taught something.”
Wang Lung said, “Send him here to me.” After a while the third son came, Wang Lung said ，“Is it true you do not want to be on the land?” The boy answered “Aye.” Wang Lung called his eldest son and said, “Engage a tutor for the third one.” And he called his second son and said, “ You shall be my steward.”
The second son was pleased. He gave to the slaves and servants the least that could be given them. The eldest son was angry with his second brother.
It seemed there was none wholly at peace and comfortable except the small grandson. And from this one did Wang Lung secure pease. And he was pleased when his second son’s wife bore in her season. In the space of five years had four grandsons and three granddaughters.
On the winter of the fifth year it was very cold. His uncle died and Wang Lung buried him. Then Wang Lung moved his uncle’s wife into the town.
(B) Cp.31. One day Wang Lung’s second son said to his father, “The price of grain has been risen suddenly, for the war is nearer every day.”
Then sweeping out of the northwest there came one day a horde of men. When Wang Lung saw their faces and he muttered, “Let us lock the gate.”
But suddenly one shouted at him, “ Ho there, my father’s nephew.” Wang Lung saw the son of his uncle. And he called his fellows, “Here we may stop.” The horde was pouring into gates. They laid themselves down on the floors.
For the cousin run in and out and he cast eyes at the slaves. Then Cuckoo saw it and she said, “He must be given a slave for his pleasure.” And Wang Lung bade Cuckoo ask the cousin what slave he would have. So Cuckoo did, and she said, “ He says he will have the little one who sleeps on the bed of the mistress.”
This slave was called Pear Blossom. Then the young maid cried as though she would die. She held Wang Lung’s feet with her hands. Wang Lung said to Cuckoo, “It is ill to force the young maid like this.” “Go, and tell my cousin the girl has a vile and incurable disease. We have another and sound one.”
And he cast his eyes over the slaves who stood about, one stout wench, “I have a mind to try it, if he will have me.”
The cousin lived there for a moon and a half and he had the wench. And she conceived by him.
Then suddenly the war called and the horde went away quickly.
(C) Cp.32 The slave who had conceived by the son of Wang Lung’s uncle he commanded to wait upon his uncle’s wife. This slave gave birth only a girl. And he gave the slave a little silver, and this she told to Wang Lung, “Hold this silver as dowry for me, wed me for a farmer.” Then Wang Lung promised easily, and when he promised he was struck with a thought. Once he had been a poor man come into these courts for his woman. And he thought of O-lan with sadness. And he said, “ When the old opium dreamer died.” The woman came to Wang Lung one morning and said, “ The old one died.” And Wang Lung remembered the blubbering lad who had cause Ching’s death. He sent for the lad.
It seemed to Wang Lung that now his life was round of, for he was close to sixty-five years of his age. But there was no peace. The wife of the eldest son and the wife of the second son now had learned to hate each other, the two women were hostile.
The two brothers did not love each other well. Although Wang Lung received and dispensed all the moneys from his lands, still the second brother knew what it was and the elder not.
And Lotus was jealous of the maid, she accused Wang Lung that he looked at the maid. And he saw it was true that the girl was very pretty.
Wang Lung’s youngest son had lived among the soldiers when they were there and he had listened to the tales of war, and his head was full of dreams. So now he went to his father and he said, “I will be a soldier.” And Wang Lung said, “Tell your old father why you want to be a soldier?” The lad said, “ There is to be a revolution.” Wang Lung said, “All our good land is free, and you eat with it, I do not know what freedom you desire.” “We will wed you soon, my son.” “If there is a slave you desire。” And the boy answered, “l have my dreams. I wish for glory.” “There is not a beauty in the courts, except perhaps the little pale maid.”
Then Wang Lung knew he spoke of Pear Blossom and he was smitten with a strange jealousy.
(D) Cp.33. Wang Lung watched Pear Blossom incessantly as she came and went by and he doted on her. But he said nothing to anyone.
When night came he sat there in the darkness under the tree one passed, and he looked and it was Pear Blossom. “Pear Blossom!” he called, “Come here to me!” She crept fearfully and stood before him, and he fingered her little coat. And he said slowly, “Child— I am an old man.” And she said, “I like old men—”. He said again, “You should have a tall straight youth.” But she said, “Young men are not kind— they are only fierce.” And he took her and then led her into his own courts.
When it was done he was satisfied to feel her light youth, which is so fond. As for her, she clung to him as to a father.
Cuckoo saw the maid slipping at dawn out of Wang Lung’s court. “Well!” she said, “And so it is the Old Lord over again!” “Well, the mistress must be told.” “She was angry. She will have a ruby ring for her hand and a slave to take Pear Blossom’s place.” And Wang Lung promised.
There were left yet his three sons, he was shamed. They came one by one, separated, and the second one came first. he came talked of the land and of the harvest, and as he talked he looked here and there about the rooms. Then the eldest son came in, the son said, “I did not believe it was so.” “You are rich and you may do as you like.” The youngest son came in. He stood and at last he said in a low voice, “Now I will go for a soldier.” When the morning came of the next day Wang Lung’s youngest son was gone and where he was gone no one knew.
(E) Cp.34 With the passion of the flame out of Wang Lung he was suddenly cold with an age. Nevertheless, he was fond of her. And more and more his love for her was the love of father for daughter. He asked her, “What was it that made you thus fearful of men?” She whispered, “Every man I hate except you—my father who sold me.”
And for his sake she was even kind to his poor fool. He called her to him one day and he said, “Here is a gate of safety for the poor fool in this pocket, and after I am died, you are to mix it in her rice and let her eat it, that she may follow me where I am.”
He would sit a little while and look at the children gathering around him to stare. And he asked them, “Do you study the Four Books?” And they said, “No one studies the Four Books since the Revolution.”
He asked Cuckoo, “ Are my two daughters-in-law at peace?” And Cuckoo said, “Those? They are at peace like two cats eyeing each other.”
And he said to Cuckoo, “Does any ever hear from that youngest son of mine?” And Cuckoo said, “It is said he is a military official.”
But still one thing reminded to him it was his love for his land. His roots were in his land, when spring came each year he must go out on to the land, and he went. Sometimes he took a servant and he slept again in the old earthen house. When he woke in the dawn he went out.
One day he came to the place where he had buried his dead. He remembered them every one. And he muttered, “I must see to the coffin.” He went back to the town and he sent for his eldest son, and he said, “My son, I have chosen my place in the earth.” Then his son bought a carved coffin. And he looked at it every day.
Then he thought of something and he said, “I would have it moved out to the earthen house and there I will die.” He went back to his land, he and Pear Blossom and the fool, and Wang Lung took up his abode again on his land.
His sons were proper enough to him. Sometimes he complained a little of his sons if they came not every day. Pear Blossom said, “They have many affaires. Your eldest son has been made an office, and he has a new wife. Your second son is setting up a great grain market for himself.”
One day he heard his second son say, “This field we will sell.” He cried out with his anger, “No—we will never sell the land—”
2) I think: (A) It is written in Chapter 32: “ The wife of eldest son said the wife of the second son “ bold and ill-bred”. And the second son’s wife called her “snakes.” The two brothers did not love each other well, the elder always being fearful his birth lowly in the eyes of his wife who was town bred, and the younger fearful his brother’s desire for expenditure. Moreover it was a shame to the elder brother the the second brother knew all the money.”
In today's China, influenced by the propaganda of Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought, those from poor families hate those from wealthy families. Those who support the Communist Party hate those who criticize the Communist Party and attack them. This is current Chinese culture.
(B) Pearl S. Buck vividly depicted the society, customs and culture of China in the late Qing Dynasty by depicting Wang Long's life. She wrote it in English, through which people from the United States and other Western countries introduced China. They are more interested in this work than the Chinese people.
3) I visited Pearl S. Buck's former residence and cemetery and took some photos:
