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Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography, by Peter Conn
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Pearl S. Buck was one of the most renowned, interesting, and controversial figures ever to influence American and Chinese cultural and literary history--and yet she remains one of the least studied, honored, or remembered. In this richly illustrated and meticulously crafted narrative, Conn recounts Buck's life in absorbing detail, tracing the parallel course of American and Chinese history. This "cultural biography" thus offers a dual portrait: of Buck, a figure greater than history cares to remember, and of the era she helped to shape.
- Sales Rank: #1472158 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Cambridge University Press
- Published on: 1996-08-26
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.21" h x 1.26" w x 6.14" l, 1.93 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 500 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Amazon.com Review
Quick: name the only two female American novelists ever to win the Nobel Prize. Most literati can get Toni Morrison; many fewer remember that Pearl Buck won the world's most prestigious literary prize in 1938, largely on the strength of her celebrated first book, The Good Earth. Peter Conn's painstaking biography explores Buck, the famous author, crusader for women's rights, philanthropist, adviser to Presidents, expert on the Far East, and editor of Asia magazine. Pearl Buck, the woman, wife, and mother is a bit more difficult to discern. Even her most intimate relations, including her children, seemed to find her a distant figure. Pearl Buck is overdue for a critical reappraisal in the United States--perhaps this book will help launch it.
From Publishers Weekly
In this brilliantly conceived biography, Conn, an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania, sets out to reconstruct Buck's life, her extraordinary commitment to social justice and her literary achievement. To her many (primarily male) critics, Buck was an overrated storyteller whose best-selling portrayals of Chinese peasants struggling in a land on the brink of revolution in no way merited the Pulitzer or Nobel prizes. Time and the reading public seem to have agreed, as only The Good Earth survives?principally as a late-night movie classic. Born in West Virginia in 1892 to Protestant missionary parents, Pearl Sydenstricker spent almost all of her first 40 years in China. Although she was bilingual, she felt an outsider in both countries, and Conn speculates that her experiences in China's white minority led to a lifelong advocacy of interracial understanding. She went to college in the U.S., but returned to China, where she married her first husband, J. Lossing Buck, and gave birth to her only child, who suffered from phenylketonuria (PKU). Then, in 1934, faced with the Japanese invasion, civil tensions and escalating anti-foreigner sentiment, the Bucks returned to the U.S. As her literary works slipped into obscurity, Buck spent the decades until her death in 1973 devoting herself to issues of interracial conflict, immigration and the adoption of disadvantaged children, eventually establishing Welcome House, the first international, interracial adoption agency. Perhaps Buck's fortunes have finally turned, for she has been singularly lucky in her biographer. Drawing on Buck's own words and actions, Conn steers a sympathetic yet intelligently balanced course, revealing in fascinating detail the gripping life story of a compelling woman. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Buck (1892-1973) knew the costs of cultural practices that oppress. A child of evangelical Protestant missionaries in China, she witnessed her father's accepted oppression of her mother via the Chinese caste system that trapped girls and women. Buck, who always considered herself an outsider, carried these thoughts with her when she left China to study in America. Later, her efforts on behalf of sexual and racial equality, religious diversity, world peace, birth control, interracial adoption, and humane treatment of handicapped people (her daughter Carol was retarded) fueled her personal autonomy and her prodigious output as a writer of fiction and nonfiction. The Good Earth (1931) brought her great popularity and the Pulitzer Prize, and in 1938 she won the Nobel. Aware that Buck's writing has fallen out of fashion, Conn (Literature in America, LJ 7/89) believes and proves that Buck helped enormously in forging an understanding of American and Chinese culture and deserves a place in American letters by virtue of her humanitarian work. His book is expertly written, not only as a biography but also as a political history. Highly recommended.?Robert Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., Ind.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
13 of 25 people found the following review helpful.
Stunned by Conn's acrimony
By Millie Samuelson
I've just finished reading this compelling biography about one of my favorite authors. I can't it rank five stars, even though I'd like to, because I'm STUNNED by Conn's acrimonious protrayal of Christianity and Protestant missionaries in China. He's totally accepted Pearl's often limited and onesided perceptions, and then gone even further off track. Of course, what both of them say is true to a minute degree, but there's so very much more to the whole picture that they omit. I feel qualified to make this observation since I'm writing a trilogy of novels inspired by my family's century of close ties with China. The first book, based on my grandparents who moved to China in 1892, is entitled Hungry River: A Yangtze Novel, which is now available on Amazon. My father was born in China in 1904, as was I in 1942. I have a son born in Taiwan in 1968. My family rejoices in our international Christian heritage, which joins that of thousands of Chinese. I wonder if Conn is aware that today there may be as many as 80 million Christians in China in spite of decades of horrific persecution? That one statistic alone should be enough to balance his frighteningly negative analysis. In conclusion, I do agree with Conn's evaluation of the place Pearl's writings should have in American and world literature. I hope his biography will help her once more achieve her rightful literary stature. At the same time, I do regret deeply his evaluation does not bring fair balance to her extreme views of Christianity and Protestant missionaries among the Chinese in China. I hope he reads Hungry River!
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Enlightening Book!
By Dr. Hiroshi Maruta
I love reading biographical books since my childhood, although I don't know why. Among those books, this book and 1951 biography on Paul Ehrlich, the Father of Chemotherapy, were the most enlightening ones for me, as they changed both my life style and career. The 1951 book converted me from an artist to a scientist who would pursue the chemotherapy of cancers.
This book on Pearl Buck urged me to be a humanistic person who would side with the minority (unprivileged people). Since I am a scientist, I did read only a few books among her over 80 novels, such as "The Good Earth", "The Big Wave", "The Bible Story", and "Pavilion of Women" which were introduced by this book.
The most impressive role that she played in second half of her life mainly in US was a bridge between two different cultures, West and East (Orient), by promoting the multi-culturalism.
I spent my first three decades in Japan, and then over 35 years in the West (US, Europe and Australia), which would be a mirror image of hers, who spent her first four decades in China, and the rest in US, her own country.
I also like her unique view towards Christianity. Although she was grown a daughter of the American missionary in China, she eventually left the Christianity, and decided to achieve her cultural mission in her own way, independent of any religion. Her open mind could not accept the religeous sectionalism and the racism between different colors of skin.
When US gets willing to welcome Obama the first intermixed president, the value of her multi-culturalism and open mind would be greatly re-appreciated as the basic foundation of democracy in the whole world.
41 of 41 people found the following review helpful.
An Excellent Portrayal of an Extraordinary Woman
By Xoe Li Lu
Peter Conn's sweeping biography of Pearl Buck is as fascinating and provocative as Ms. Buck herself. I have been an admirer of Buck's writing for years, however I never knew the true depth of her character and achievements until I read Conn's book. Not only was the Nobel Prize winner an excellent writer and champion of Chinese causes, but she was a staunch supporter of civil and women's rights, a tireless fundraiser, and an advocate for inter-racial/international adoption. She was a fearless and often controversial speaker on behalf of the under-represented and oppressed, and made a great impact on public opinion towards racial and gender equality. Conn covers all of these diverse aspects of Pearl Buck beautifully. His book is very well researched, well organized, and well written. He presents all sides of his subject - good and bad - in an unflinching and intelligent manner. He discusses the circumstances under which Buck wrote her greatest books, her first 40 years in China, and her experiences as a prominent global literary figure. I couldn't put the book down - it was wonderful to discover that the writer whose books I have cherished for so many years had lead such a compelling and multi-faceted life. There is much more to Pearl Buck than even her impressive body of literary work suggests - and Peter Conn has done a tremendous job of revealing the many sides of this remarkable woman.
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