Buck‘s prose is clear and beautiful, but it is weird reading a book written by a white woman whose family colonized China as missionaries. Still, I was drawn into Wang Lung‘s life as he ascended from a poor farmer to a rich land owner. The attitudes about women and girls as ugly, no better than slaves, etc. is also hard to stomach even if accurate of the time. I‘m glad I read this “classic,†but I‘m not sure it deserves that title. 3âï¸