PEARL S BUCK

PEARL S. BUCK: A Cultural Biography
By Peter Conn
Review by George R. Pasley

Cambridge University Press, 1966
ISBN 0-521-56080-2

It has literally been decades since I read any of Pearl’s books, but they obviously made quite an influence on me as I have never forgotten them. When I accidentally came upon Pearl’s West Virginia birthplace, I braked my truck and pulled in for a look. Likewise, when I came upon this volume in our library I immediately checked it out.

The title aptly describes the book. While it is indeed a biography of the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize for literature, the author places all the events of her life, all of her massive volume of work, and all of her achievements within their cultural and historical contexts. This made the biography a worthy (if somewhat wordy) study for students of literature, Asian-American studies, Presbyterian Church history, and feminism.

The biography informs us that Pearl Buck was the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries to China. Conn identifies as major conflicts in Buck’s life: her mother’s submission to her father, her father’s misogyny, the common missionary fundamentalism of the time that failed to see anything of value in Chinese culture, the bias of cultures (both Western and Chinese) that had no understanding of the other culture, and a male-dominated literary world.

Conn goes to great lengths to describe a long-running controversy that Pearl Buck held with the denominational structures of the Presbyterian Church, and as a Presbyterian pastor I found that quite informative. But Conn failed to set the debate in context of the fundamentalist controversies. Though they didn’t actually happen at the same time nonetheless impacted the debates over the purpose of mission that occurred in the prewar era. Likewise, though Conn repeatedly made reference to Buck leaving the church, the book offers no information on her church life or personal faith. She may have indeed given up on God, but Conn seems to equate her severing her missionary ties with losing faith. Perhaps no other information is available, but Conn uncovered a treasure trove of information about every other aspect of Buck’s personal life. It may be the Conn simply doesn’t think in those terms. Even so, the information that Conn did provide was helpful.

I found most enlightening Conn’s careful tracing of Buck’s feminism which surely was foundational though long ignored. Few may know that the publisher of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique consulted Buck prior to it’s publication, that Buck was a outspoken advocate of women’s issues (including birth control), or that the second American woman to women the Nobel Prize for literature, Toni Morrison, looked back at her early reading of Buck’s work and said, “She misled me…and made me feel that all writers wrote sympathetically, empathetically, honestly and forthrightly about other cultures.”

Many have likewise forgotten that for more than a decade Pearl Buck was virtually America’s only source of information on what ordinary Chinese people were like, and that she used her authority of knowledge and voice to combat racism and to promote positive relations between the West and all of Asia.

The thing I remember most vividly about Buck’s writing was the dignity she gave to the peasants in her stories, and Conn lifted that out as major achievement of Buck’s writing. Perhaps that explains why in later life I came to enjoy other writers (Wendell Berry comes to mind) who managed to endow their ordinary characters with the same dignity.

Conn is an admirer of Buck (though he only came to realize that late in life), and he found himself in agreement with many of her opinions, beliefs and causes. But his biography tells Buck’s story honestly, with all her flaws. Buck herself may not have appreciated much of what Conn writes, but those who appreciate the honesty with which Buck depicted life in her novels surely will.

George R. Pasley
July 10, 2009
Ketchikan, AK