Three Daughters of Madame Liang Book

I so enjoy the writing of Pearl S. Buck. Never a word too many, never a wasted description or unnecessary detail. All of this author's considerable powers as a writer are at work in this novel, making it a pleasure to read even as the events in the story unfold in ways that are ominous. I won't even address her insights into the Chinese mind and manners, elements that are crucial to the success of the book--because she aces them, as always. The way she reveals the horror of how revolution infects the young and misleads their efforts (bringing about Communism) via STORY is the beauty of this book, and what I most want to mention. In this day and age, where millenials are propagandized in colleges to despise capitalism and embrace socialism, this book is an all too real testament to what horrors and injustices can result. It's all been done before, the takeover of universities by "progressives" who want to buck the so-called injustices of free market capitalism, promising equality and improvement to all--and the cost is clearly shown in the lives of these women and their families--that cost being freedom, and personal rights. Not to mention beauty and the right to " the pursuit of happiness."

In the three daughters of Madame Liang, as well as in MadameLiang herself, we get four considerations of what it looks like to love one's country--even when government is not honorable or trustworthy. Patriotism, honor, personal safety, and duty--all of these themes are thrown into action and upheld via the individual story lines of each of the daughters and the mother, and the reader goes along for the ride, hoping with their hopes, fearing their fears--and sometimes fearing where they have not yet seen the need to fear. Inexorably, the reality of Communism creeps ever more into their lives, casting its lethal shadow; Buck has no need to say, "Look how awful a totalitarian state is," because the reader has already seen and known it in the lives of Madame Liang and her daughters.

Got a college-age kid who is being taught to hate America? Have them read this book.