Evening star., 1935-01-20
\ HOUSE DIVIDED. BY Pearl S.
Buck. New York: Reynal g. Hitch
cock. A John Day Book.

IN THE period of this last part of
Pearl Bucks trilogy, the present
time, the descendants of the
peasant Wang Lung and his in
articlllate wife have multiplied
and spread over town and country In
Northern and Southern China. Fifty
years before, Wang Lung lived in his
little earthen house and titled his low
green fields and fathered many chill
dren. His story and the story of the
land are told in THE Good Earth"
Sons" is the story of wars, war lords
| and banditry and of Wang Lungs
three sons, Wang the Tiger, bluster-
ing war lord; Wang the Landlord and
Wang the Merchant. "A House Di-
vided" is the story of the modern gen.
Grafton, which rejects the old Chinese
| customs, takes its education and ideas
from Western nations, yet hates the
| foreigner and works for new nation
alism in China. Wang Yuan, unwar-
like son of Wang the Tiger, is the
representative of this cropping. younger
generation in "a House Divided"
The Tiger has become old, has lost
his power and his bandit army. and
sits almost alone, except for his old
i hare-lipped servant, in his great court,
| over his frequent bowls of wine. His
son, Yuan, comes home from the mill
tary school to which he has been sent
against his will, determined not to
be soldier. The Tiger is forced to
give up the one ambition of his later
years, but. urged by Yuans mother,
! his country wife. he demands that
Yuan marry some wife of his par
entS' selection and produce SONS. Yuan
| rebels against this tyranny of the
older generation and fees to the
coastal city where his fathers learned
wife has long dwelt and finds home
| with her and assistance in literary
schooling In the city he falls in
with his half sister. Ai-lan; the
learned ladys adopted founding, Mel
Meng. sons of Wang the Merchant.
all different types of the younger gen.
Grafton. The part of the story laid
in this city gives a graphic impress
sion of the confused lives Of families.
in which old and young, with clash
ing standards, are still trying to live
together; of social life modelled after
| foreign patterns; of freedom among
the young shocking to all the tradi-
! tionS of the old; Of revolutionary or
ganizations, activities, arrests and
| executions.
Yuan is assisted by the learned lady
! to go to the United States for ad-
vanced education and the story of
his life in a great American city re-
veals further conflicts, which leave
him less oriented than ever. He finds
less poverty and uglineSs in the Amer
| ican city than at home and more free
dom for the young, but is so repelled
! by many of the things he experiences
that he feels that he stands "for his
whole race in a foreign alien land"
/ He is taken with cordiality into the
home of an elderly professor, who
with his WifeS assistance, tries to con-
vert him to Christianity. Their
daughter warns him against their
efforts, but herself attempts in another
way to take away his priced freedom.
, On his return home, when he visits
his father, the Tiger, in the country
town, he finds that his freedom has
already been lost To pay for his
six years of study in America. at the
request of the learned wife, his
father has borrowed much silver
from Wang the Landlord. This
debt Yuan must assume. and his
uncle suggests that payment may
easily be made if he will secure