The first of the trilogy depicts pre-revolution agrarian China through the life of a peasant farmer, Wang Leung. His bond with his land, the motivation it gives him and the eventual distancing from the land as he acquires wealth and status are depicted in the firm, bold narrative, a line drawing rather than an landscape in oils. 6 July 2017.
In the second volume, we follow his three sons in lives distanced from the land. Wang the landlord and Wang the merchant follow well worn paths into the mercantile classes but most of the focus is on Wang the Tiger, whose career path as a Lord of War is less conventional. Without the overreaching tie of the relationship to the land, it has a hollow feeling, making it less self-contained, more waiting for the completion one expects from the final volume. 27 August 2017.
The final volume mainly follows Yuan, son of Wang the Tiger, as he struggles to find a way through conflicting family loyalties and the changes sweeping China. The narrative style is less suited to this type of story and indeed, it gradually moves over to a more conventional style. Yuan seems to have the same bond with the land as his grandfather but can't reconcile it to his situation. In the end, he realises that he will lose all the land his grandfather acquired and he feels it as a sense of liberation. This final volume is more complex and nuanced than the previous two and stands up well in itself.
Overall, the trilogy is somewhat uneven in style and scope, evolving as it progresses rather than conceived as a whole, but nevertheless interesting. It is comparable to Melvyn Bragg's Cumbrian trilogy but, for me, it doesn't feel so well rooted in time and place, perhaps reflecting that Buck, for all her exposure to China, remains an outsider. 1 November 2017. ( )