Pearl Buck Getting a Little Pushback from the Common Man in 1934
Posted: September 20th, 2022 | 1 Comment »I have to admit (though I know she still has legions of fans) that I’m generally with ‘the mate of a ship at Shanghai’ when it comes to Pearl Buck – “drivel”. However, Van Dyke’s Peking Madness is not one of the great classics of Peking ‘Foreign Colony’ writing either it must be said….But it’s nice to see a bit of pushback against Buck in 1934….
I hope that the ship’s mate didn’t think “Mother” was drivel because it was feminized and sympathetic to Chinese. Who knows? But Buck’s middle-brow “drivel” deserves to be read alongside Carl Crow’s treaty-port Orientalism, to pick an example not at random, as serious takes on China that now have to be understood in context.