Having finished this weekend another novel by Pearl Buck, Peony, I've come to appreciate the author's observations about human nature. Her honesty stands out. Here her narrator comments about David, a young man who struggles with his feelings for the women he loves, including his mother and the family's bondmaid:
"He longed to be free of them all, and yet he knew that no man is ever free of the women who have made him what he is. He sighed and tossed and wished for the day when he could return to the shops and the men there who had nothing to do with his heart and his soul."
Here Ezra, David's father, reflects on the melancholy surrounding his Chinese Rabbi:
"He had chosen sorrow, the endless sorrow of a man haunted by God. He had even transmuted such sorrow into strange dark joy. He was most happy when he suffered most deeply, like the moth that flutters near the flame of the candle."
Finally, my favorite. On David's wedding day, the mothers of the bride and groom meet for the first time:
". . .each found the other strange and hard to talk with, and yet each was determined to do her best. . . [Madame Kung] granted that Madame Ezra tried very much to be pleasant to her, and although the day was tedious for these two ladies, somehow it passed." Emphasis mine. How many times have I been in situations where somehow the day passed?
Pearl Buck's voice is refreshing. Though her Chinese settings are exotic, the emotions of her characters are not. She's as relevant today as she was decades ago.
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