East Wind: West Wind [Pearl Buck's first book] is usually spoken of as a novel, but, actually, it consists of two definite short stories with a decided break between them. The first narrative is more poetic and romantic; the second, more sparse and moralistic. The Dreiser influence, which we are to see displayed particularly in The Good Earth, is non-existent in this book. East Wind: West Wind is written in a much more delicately wrought and self-conscious style than is found in the later works of Pe...

In the following review, Smith argues that Buck's half of Friend to Friend is more penetrating than that of Carlos Romulo because it adds something new to the East-West dialogue.