Simple, Bible-y, Chinese Epic-Like
Simple
You won't find any flowery prose here. Buck's writing style could be compared to Hemingway's because of its simplicity. There are no parentheses, streams of consciousness, or complicated sentence structures. Even elementary school children could understand these sentences like this: "And so it was with all houses that were not, like Wang Lung's, built upon a hill, and these hills stood up like islands. And men went to and from town by boat and by raft, and there were those who starved as they ever had." It's just good old simple writing.
It's not just Buck's word choice that's simple: it's the whole structure of the novel. Wang Lung is the protagonist, and everything and everyone revolves around him. There is never a segue into some kind of subplot with characters unrelated to the main theme. It's just Wang Lung, his family, and their goal of being rich.
Wouldn't it feel wrong if Buck decided to use grandiose language to describe these simple people? That would be like asking Einstein to help you with elementary math, right?
The Bible and the Chinese Epic
We don't know about you guys, but Buck's prose strikes us as mighty Bible-y—particularly if it's the King James Bible we're talking about. Of course, the King James Bible is famous for its flowery prose, but Buck seems to emulate the style even with her simple words.
Try reading this one out loud in your best preacher voice: “As he had been healed of his sickness of heart when he came from the Southern city and comforted by the bitterness he had endured there, so now again Wang Lung was healed of his sickness of love by the good dark earth of his fields and he felt the moist soil on his feet and he smelled the earthy fragrance rising up out of the furrows he turned for the wheat" (22.1). It's pretty Bible-y, right?
It could also be said that Buck's style comes out of the Chinese storytelling tradition. Some might say that even though she doesn't use a single word of Chinese (unless you count names), Buck manages to give us the feel of Chinese in English. Others might say that Buck's old and stilted language, even though it's more elegant than jokes about Chinese takeout, is just another attempt by a Western author to pass off stereotypes as "authentic China" (source).
Buck, who grew up in China as the child of missionaries, has said herself that both the King James Bible and Chinese traditions are an influence on her writing. She's also said that when she writes, she translates her thoughts from Chinese into English (source). English was, after Chinese, actually her second language (source). How does her writing come off to you?