Mother Nature

THE MOTHER -- Pearl S. Buck -- Day ($2.50).

Though space and time are big enough for countless scientific hypotheses, human themes are few. One of those few themes Authoress Buck has taken for her latest, best book. Few new facts can be adduced at this late date about mothers in general but Authoress Buck's version of the heroine-mother is a movingly honest statement. She still has what some critics will call a regrettable nostalgia for the grand Biblical manner, but such minor mincings are soon forgotten in the sincerity of her story.

The Mother's scene is China, a small, poor village. Readers will notice gratefully that almost no proper names are used. The heroine is a buxom, warm-tempered young wife who finds her hard life good. Days she spends in the field working beside her man. At evening she cooks for her three children and her aged mother-in-law. She has no spare time and knows what the future will be, but her only worries, soon forgotten, are her daughter's sore eyes, her husband's occasional moody discontent. Her happiness is shattered when one day her husband disappears, stays away so long that she knows he is gone for good. But she puts a bold face on it, makes up a stout story that drives her to many a deceitful trick. By working even harder she manages to keep the family fed. When her man has been gone too long she lets herself be seduced by the landlord's agent. Then a friend has to help her have an abortion. The agent will have nothing more to do with her. Too late she discovers her daughter is blind. As her sons grow up, the elder resents her fondness for his ne'er-do-well brother, who leaves home, takes to dubious ways. Though she has wanted her sons to marry, she objects to the efficient daughter-in-law who takes her place as mistress of the house. When she too hastily marries off her blind daughter among strangers whose ill-treatment kills her, when her beloved younger son is beheaded as a Communist, the mother thinks that her life is over. But when her first grandchild is born, she knows better.

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