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Sto caricando le informazioni... L'ange combattant: Portrait d'une ame (originale 1936; edizione 1968)di Pearl S Buck
Informazioni sull'operaAngelo guerriero di Pearl S. Buck (1936)
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Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro. FIGHTING ANGEL, The biography of the author's father, is a companion volume to THE EXILE, which is a biography of her mother. Together they form a work to be titled THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH. This is a biography of Buck's father who went to China as a missionary in the late 1800's--soon after the US Civil War-- and spent over fifty years there. This biography was specifically mentioned in the contributing works when Buck won her Nobel prize. As always, Buck's descriptions of China, Chinese history, the Chinese people, and in this case, Buck's father are wonderfully evocative. But the man himself, Andrew, was so on fire for his somewhat narrow religious doctrine that it burned out any room for anything else in his life. In his seventies, he wrote a short 25 page autobiography. He failed to mention his marriage, or any of his children; either those that lived or those that died. He may have accomplished great things as a missionary, and was beloved by the Chinese people, but he was completely detached emotionally from his family. As Buck says: "Andrew was somebody in a dream, a soul possessed, to whom life and the human heart had no importance. He never lived on earth. ....She (Buck wrote about herself in the third person in this book) did not blame Andrew, not really--but she felt herself fatherless. In after years she grew closer to him, as close as any human could, and came to understand and value him, to know why he was as he was, both great and small. But all that later knowlege cannot quite wipe away the bereavement of that hour. For Andrew's children were bereaved in what they never had, in what he could not give them, because he had given everything in him to God." (p135). I really enjoyed this short biography of Pearl S. Buck's father, who worked as a missionary in China most of his life. It was a little strange because it was written extremely objectively, as if the author needed to put a lot of distance between herself and her subject. She refers to herself only as "Carie's daughter" although sometimes the pronoun "I' sneaks in as well. The missionary's family lived in a remote part of China during famines, floods, and wars, including the Boxer rebellion and both revolutions. The picture of what China and the Chinese people were like at that time is clear and lovely, tinged with not a little nostalgia. Andrew, the missionary, travels the countryside, converting the Chinese and setting up churches. He is absolutely certain that this is the right thing to do and he never questions his calling or that the Chinese may not wish to be converted. After many years of working with them, he becomes a respected elder and they call him "Old Teacher." This is a fascinating portrait of a man with many faults who never wavers from what he believes is right. nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
Fighting Angel: Portrait of a Soul is Pearl S. Buck's profoundly touching memoir of her zealous Southern Presbyterian missionary father, Absalom Sydenstricker. Andrew (as he is called in the book) set off for China in 1880 and spent most of the next half century there until his death in 1931. From isolated settlements in the poor, hostile interior, he made long preaching trips through lands convulsed by famine, banditry, and revolution. Sydenstricker was a tragic Captain Ahab figure whose life's work brought only a trickle of converts. His battles against church authorities - he was ahead of his time in wanting local Christians to be given greater power and in pushing for vernacular Chinese texts - meant ostracism by his colleagues and superiors. Above all, his fanatical devotion brought death and suffering to his family. Fighting Angel, which was published in late 1936, is a companion biography to Buck's loving portrait of her mother, The Exile: Portrait of an American Mother, published earlier that year. Both books won great popular and critical success. When, in 1938, Pearl S. Buck became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, it was not only "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China" but also "for her biographical masterpieces." Fighting Angel is a more balanced biography and the superior of the pair. In fact, in her acclaimed Burying the Bones, Pearl biographer Hilary Spurling ranks Fighting Angel after The Good Earth as "probably the best book Pearl ever wrote," praising the memoir for its "combination of cool, sharp, scrutinizing intelligence and passionate emotion." Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni... GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)813.52Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1900-1944Classificazione LCVotoMedia:
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