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 Pearl Buck. While basically simple in form, the style in this work is somewhat artificial. The style tends to be choppy, slow-paced, heavily romantic, often strikingly exotic, reminiscent in many of its colorful images of Edward Fitzgerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The prose is often too consciously flowery, and several "purple passages" also appear too obviously calculated for effect. The framework of having Kwei-lan write the details of the story to the foreign lady who has lived in China becomes increasingly artificial, forced, and wearisome as the narrative progresses.
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