Dragon Seed Author:Pearl S. Buck In her first novel of China in three years Pearl Buck writes once more in the mood and vein of The Good Earth and The Mother. Like these two classic novels, this new one tells of plain people dwelling close to the Chinese soil, but a soil now trodden by the invader. — The story is of the farmer Ling Tan, and his wife and sons and daughters. The s... more »cene is outside and inside the walls of Nanking, the capital city where the author lived for seventeen years. The action begins just before the Japanese assault, covering vividly the fall and rape of the city, and the life of the people afterward under the heels of a bestial master who rules but cannot conquer.
Many books have been written about "Free China," where the gallant battle goes on. This is, we believe, the first novel of the occupied regions.
Guerrillas, ardent boy and girl students, the merchant who stays to do business with the enemy, the young and strong who run away to fight, the peasants forced to grow opium, soldiers, puppet officials, courtesans -- scores of moving portraits make the pattern of the novel not that of war, but that of the lives of people going on in their several ways, whatever the gods may send. At its core lie the deep, stubborn thoughts on the madness of those who make war, drawn by a shrewd common man out of his long acquaintance with the large simplicities of earth and sky and human destiny.« less