The Enduring Wisdom of Pearl S. Buck: Revisited

This essay builds on an essay written over 20 years ago and submitted to a conference held in Zhenjiang, China, in celebration of what would have been Pearl Buck's 110th birthday.In that earlier piece, I asserted that in her writing and in her life as a modern woman, mother, artist, and activist, the author created a legacy for the generations that would follow her both substantial and enduring.Referencing several of her published works, both fiction and non-fiction, I attempted to demonstrate the timelessness and timeliness of her insights on war, peace, the unity of all people, and the plight of women and children in a war zone.Events of the past twenty years, especially those of recent months, prompt me to return to these insights.Thus, this essay updates and expands on the earlier one by addressing recent world events to which Pearl S. Buck's insights continue to be relevant and instructive and by adding illustrative examples of these insights from a few of her many, many short stories, a genre not addressed in the earlier version.Doing so, I hope, will underscore the truly enduring quality of both her writing and her wisdom.Almost any schoolboy or girl can tell you that the test of a classic work of art is its relevance through time to the experience of the ordinary person.To last, a work of art must speak to the human heart across the ages on matters that engage us, regardless of time and place details.Thus, Homer's Odyssey continues to touch modern readers because, like Odysseus, we are involved in our own journeys, where the sirens of consumerism beckon, the crashing rocks of violence, disease, and poverty threaten, and disorder and infidelity undermine the security of homes and families.Over and over again, we return to such classics, hoping to find in them what we need to make sense of our own lives and times, and they rarely disappoint us.Such is the case with the writing and life of Pearl S. Buck.The truth of this statement became particularly clear to me following the events of September 11, 2001,