3. díl trilogie Hliněný dům. Román líčí další osudy Wang Yuana a jeho bratranců na pozadí kontrastu revoluční Číny a konzervativní Ameriky.

The Good Earth Trilogy Book 3 of 3, a classic Chinese fable, originally written in 1935.

There is a reason why I don't normally read trilogies. They usually get progressively worse and worse. Well, The Good Earth Trilogy is no different. Although, not the worst book I've ever read in my life, I really didn't think this one was ever going to end.

This 3rd book in the trilogy is all about Wang the Tiger's son, Wang Yuan, who struggles emotionally as the tide of new freedoms and the Revolution sweeps through China. He is divided on accepting the new freedom in women, making their own choices regarding marriage, dress, and mannerisms. He's completely lost in the direction of where his life should take him as China transitions into a more modern society.

His thoughts of love and hate for this or that just seem to ramble on endlessly. There wasn't anything outwardly that expressed his struggles. It was all mental...and boring. ( )

Poderoso retrato de China en medio de la revolución.
Wang Yuan está atrapado entre las ideas opuestas de diferentes generaciones. Después de 6 años en el extranjero, Yuan regresa a China en medio de un levantamiento campesino. Su prima es capitana del ejército revolucionario, su hermana ha escandalizado a la familia por su embarazo prematrimonial y su padre caudillo sigue aferrado a sus ideales tradicionales. Es a través de los esfuerzos de Yuan que se restaura una especie de paz en la familia.

Der letzte Teil von Pearl S. Bucks China-Trilogie beschäftigt sich mit dem Werdegang von Wang Yuan, dem Enkel des Stammvaters Wang Lung. Dieser bricht in den 1930ern mit seinem traditionsbehafteten Vater, dem Warlord Wang dem Tiger, und zieht in eine namentlich nicht genannte chinesische Küstenstadt. Dort wird er mit westlichen Einflüssen konfrontiert und schließt sich letztlich Revolutionären an.

Wie bereits der zweite Teil fällt auch der dritte Teil qualitativ deutlich vom ersten Teil der Trilogie für den Buck mit dem Nobelpreis geehrt wurde ab. Eindimensionale Figuren, eine erstaunlich gefühlskalte Liebesgeschichte und vorhersehbare Entwicklungen garnieren einen Generationenkonflikt, der sich im Laufe des ereignisarmen Plots zu einem Zivilisationskonflikt zwischen Ost und West ausweitet. Der künstlich wirkende, anachronistische Schreibstil trägt ebenfalls dazu bei, dass Bucks Roman nicht zu überzeugen versteht. Das gesamte Werk wirkt letztlich trivial und vermisst der Leser jene Athmosphäre und die historischen Bilder, welche die ersten beiden Teile der Trilogie ausgezeichnet haben. ( )

I am not sure just how much readers will learn about China and Chinese culture from the Good Earth Trilogy. I do know you will learn a great deal about Pearl Buck, especially in this concluding volume, A House Divided. Buck does manage effectively to conclude the tale of the Wang family in a satisfying way, but she also indulges in her own ideological polemics. All her personal obsessions--mostly subsumed in the first two books--come to the fore in this final work. All the things Buck concerned herself with in private life are made public causes in A House Divided: women's rights, the cultural arrogance of foreign missionaries in China, the plight of foundlings, the intrusion of foreign ideologies, the issue of unbridgeable racial differences, and the impatience of 1930s youth with modernizing China. Little did she realize that this era, the 1920s and 1930s in China, was a Golden Age, in comparison with what was soon to follow: the murderous invasion of Japan in the "new city," Nanking, the civil war, Mao and communism that resulted in famines that would kill tens of millions, a Cultural Revolution that would suppress and seek to destroy independent thought, and a modern day China in the 21st century that has spoiled its land, left it polluted, and is engaging in a technological dystopia that seeks to encroach on free thought and personal independence.

All that would come after Buck's trilogy. For the readers engaged in the "present" of The Good Earth and its sequels, however, there are other changes. This last book displays an altered style of writing for Buck. One that is markedly inferior to the earlier volumes. The rhythm and the syntax of the earlier novels gives way to a shorter, clipped style. Perhaps this was inevitable as Buck moved her characters from an "archaic" age in the first two novels to a modernizing and revolutionary China in this last. Still, A House Divided often suffers in comparison.

At book's end, the final symbol of Mei-Ling and Yuan in the courtyard of the old earthen house probably gives us a last picture of what Buck wanted the new China to be. A place where people are rooted and belong to past traditions. But also a place willing to accept new ideas and seek to better their world through new ways of "seeing" that were dependent on their appropriateness to old China's ways. ( )