The land didn’t do Wang Lung any good in the end…the sons were going to get rid of it as soon as he died…they would probably split the money and run through it in no time.

I don’t think I wasted my time…there is so much here about the Chinese culture that I want to know more about…for an author who I was totally unfamiliar with and a setting with which I have no experience, I was completely drawn into this story. I think there are so many life lessons here…namely being satisfied with what you have. Wang Lung spent most of his life working to obtain more…how would his life have been different and how much more happiness and less heartbreak would he have had to bear if he had just been satisfied with enough?

I’m right there with you. I totally could steal if it meant my kiddos got to live and I got to go home to decent living conditions!

I don’t know about the pearl symbolism beyond something crappy that happens in the next section, but I’ll wait on your comments about that later.

There have been soooo many times in this book that I want to tell Wang Lung to remember where he came from. He never listens! He started out such an admirable character and to watch his moral demise over the course of the novel is sort of crushing. I pulled for him all the way, though. Buck certainly is a powerful writer in that regard.

Looking forward to more of your comments!

And I can’t blame O-Lan either. She deserved SOMETHING! Anything at this point.

Finally, I totally agree about taking his pearls and passing those along to Lotus. What an ass! I think it plays out quite nicely in this next section, though. hehe

I wonder if there is some deeper meaning behind the two pearls that we don’t know yet…and the fact that O-Lan wants them so close to her at all times? I’m still wondering about this.

No matter how much money he has, Wang Lung sees that he cannot equal the “city” men…it’s a class separation rather than a financial one…with education or the lack of education being a true divider of men. I hope that Wang Lung’s sons will come back to run the land but with the education their father lacked. I hope that their father will find shame in his actions toward O-Lan…without her loyalty and hard work, he would have never succeeded.

I was furious when Wang Lung began visiting the tea house. Like Heather said, it was like watching an accident as it is happening…I wanted to yell for Wang Lung to get out of there and go back home…to remember where he came from and all the lean years he’d survived with his family. I was absolutely nauseous when Wang Lung took O-Lan’s pearls…at that moment he officially becomes all that he used to despise in the fat oily rich men behind the brick walls.

I can’t blame O-Lan a bit. She wanted something for herself. Her whole life, she had never had a pretty thing. What is two pearls to Wang Lung, who had so much? I was so ANGRY with him when he took them from her. I do believe I saw red.

Education is going to mean a lot, but I’ve already finished the book! Don’t want to give any spoilers!

As for the pearls again, I was absolutely furious with Wang Lung. I know it’s a cultural thing, that people seem to think nothing of a man taking another wife, but to take O-Lan’s pearls, when they meant so much to her…it really showed how little he thought of her. If I had been reading the book, I might have thrown it across the room! But I couldn’t do that to my iPod.

O-Lan is definitely a tough cookie, and I found her the most sympathetic character in the whole darn thing (maybe aside from the innocent children). I think you make a good point about Wang Lung’s place in society — the family wouldn’t survive in that culture and that time period if he didn’t act just as we’ve seen thus far. It’s a hard mindset to get into. It was definitely enlightening for me as a reader.

And Heather and I are both southerners, and I’m sure we both screamed “SCARLETT!!!” in our heads at the last line about the land.

Glad you love it! I’m looking forward to discussing more with you.

I definitely wanted to smack Wang Lung upside the head as well. My heart broke for O-Lan over and over again, but then again, I tried to remove myself somewhat from my contemporary mindset and not put my expectations of the treatment of women onto these characters. I never said I was very successful at that, though!

I was also constantly agog at the grandfather. He just seemed like such a miserable little thing, and personally I would have a hard time eating before a breastfeeding mother or my grandkids. The cultural differences are so pronounced, again, it’s hard to step out of our contemporary mindset.