The Promise

by Pearl S. Buck

Book Overview

In another triumphant cultural and historical novel from Pearl S. Buck, The Promise chronicles a band of Chinese soldiers who are sent to rescue a British-American platoon, pinned down in Burma, while... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1559212098
• ISBN13: 9781559212090
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Moyer Bell
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Not one of Buck's best, but eminently readable

"The Promise" like all Buck's books I have read that are set in China, gives a compelling portrait of the country and its people. Set during the early years of World War II when the Japanese army was pounding the Burma Road, "The Promise" relates the story of a brave division of Chinese who have been sent on a suicide mission to rescue the remnants of an Anglo-American force trapped in Burma. There are a couple of telling portraits of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his wife that show them in all their venality; their remoteness from the individual masses of Chinese arouses more contempt than admiration. What really affects the reader is the disdain of the Anglo soldiers toward the Chinese who attempt to rescue them and whom, in their desperation to escape from the Japanese, they abandon to their fate, cutting off their retreat and leaving them to save themselves. The open contempt the English express towards the native Burmese ("We own this country, after all; it's part of our Empire"), and their genuine puzzlement when the Chinese confront them about their attitudes, shows up all too clearly their inherent sense of superiority which is based on nothing but a blind ethnocentricism. Buck's sympathies clearly lie with the valiant Chinese who are seething under a viciously brutal Japanese occupation and longing for freedom, but not at the price of European domination. We don't get to know her characters in "The Promise" as intimately as in some of her other books, but we admire them none the less for their courage and their self-sacrifice. "The Promise" is not on a par with "The Good Earth" or "The Three Daughters of Madame Liang", but it's definitely a worthwhile read.

A book you HAVE to read, but might be dissappointed.....

If you read Dragon Seed, the prequel to this book, you will know that you read this book because you couldn't live with the ending that was given! So you read this book and it continues to provide more historical information and answer some of those questions that you had from the last book. However, by the time this book ends, you seem to have more questions than before. I won't spoil it for you, but I was thinking that perhaps the title might explain all unanswered questions simutaneously! Also, the book tends to become a little boring at some parts. Yet every second of boredom is compensated for by later events of extreme excitement. Doubtlessly though, it is a GREAT book and a fine sequel, though more could have been done with the plot. Read it!