This book is way down on my TBR list -- I'm looking forward to reading it, but will offer it to others in a bookring in the meantime.

Here's a link to the Amazon description:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/014025644X/qid=1076772630/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-7073724-5425653?v=glance&s=books

The order of readers in this ring:

quinnsmom (USA)
Betsy-STL (USA)
alrescate (USA)
monast (Malaysia)
fuji (Australia)
zugenia (USA)

When you're done reading, please PM the next person in line for his/her address. Enjoy!

Sent off to quinnsmom...

What impeccable timing! I just finished the novel I was reading & was trying to decide what to read next. Now I know. I will read and repost with my thoughts. Thanks so much!

This book is definitely one of the more disturbing novels I've ever read, but then again, if you have read Su Tong's stories you know he doesn't focus on the ability of his characters to pull through on the basis of their strength of will or character.

The main character in this novel, Five Dragons,has left his home in Maple-Poplar village where rains have destroyed the rice crops & left him starving. As the story opens, he is getting off of a train in the City, where he is at once accosted & humiliated; he then manages to find his way to the Great Swan Rice Emporium, owned by the Feng family. The proprietor lets him work there at first for food, but he is looked down upon by the family as less than a dog. Feng has two daughters, Cloud Weave & Cloud Silk. Cloud Weave is the mistress of Sixth Master, who probably made his fortune in opium & smuggling. Her behavior is the talk of the street; eventually she becomes pregnant, is cast off by Sixth Master & married off to Five Dragons. Now Five Dragons' life begins to change. It is then, as he notes he "shed his identity as a pitiful young clerk in a rice emporium..." Eventually the store is left in his hands, & he fathers three children. The story follows the family of Five Dragons through the Japanese occupation of China just prior to World War II.

Rice is a novel in which you wait for some kind of redemption and then at the end of the book you realize you've never found it. Five Dragons himself once asks a victim of his humiliation "Want to know how I managed to become what I am today? By nurturing hatred. It's the prize of human capital." His hatred is passed on to the two sons who hate him, yet at the same time pick up his character.

Rice is life sustaining; it is the lack of it which drives Five Dragons from his home and his desire for it and the power of rice which comes to define who he is. The novel is stark and brutal, but at the same time, you can't help but to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next.

now going to Betsy-STL
and thanks, Zugenia!

Rec'd in today's mail. Thanks Quinnsmom and Zugenia!

The characters in this book have absolutely NO redeeming qualities. They range from a 10 year old boy that murdered his sister to a father that broke his son's leg as punishment. Gross descriptions bring the book to life. This was my first Su Tong read and I plan to read more of his work.

If you are offended by profanity or vulgarity this is not the book for you.

Update: Sent request for address on 3/6, 3/11, and 3/13 still waiting for response.

3/15 received pm with address BC'er was out of town.

This arrived in the mail today. I have a couple of bookrays ahead of it but I will get to it as soon as I can. (I wonder why it is that these things arrive all at once...I didn't have any rays for months and now I have three!)

Su Tong gives us an interesting view on China in the 1930's. I finally got to pick this up this week and I read this fairly quickly. The whole time I was reading I kept wondering if there was ever going to be a character with any redeeming qualities. The answer was no. There really aren't any characters you can even feel sympathy for. Although the story is ugly and full of unpleasant imagery I still found it difficult to put down.

I'm not sure if I would read any of Su Tong's other work based on this novel. I found myself feeling somewhat restless after finishing this...as though I wasn't satisfied.

**Update** I mailed this off on April 21, 2004.

will get on it right away.

I am not sure how I feel for this book. It's obvious there's a deep response just not a very good one. Revulsion and disgust but then, not all books are meant to be happy. On some deeper level, I can see how absolute starvation can lead to absolute greed, and acute suffering does not always result in the finest of human spirit.
Where life is as cheap as a grain of rice, death, even of children, has no more meaning.
This is why my ancestors left china and I am forever grateful.
PM'ing Fuji today for her address.

Release planned for Saturday, July 17, 2004 at The Post in bookray/bookring, With Another BookCrosser Controlled Releases.

Popping it into the post tomorrow to Australia.

In this Chinese story, everyone has his price.
The powerplay ping-pongs back and forth between characters, enabling them to torture each other in turn. Most desperate of all is the protagonist, Five Dragons, who continually makes decisions that lead him to become what he despises most.

Su Tong's dramatic imagery is often raw and brutal yet delivered in a delicate style. The shocking scenes leap at the reader with the freshness and immediacy of a film.

A fascinating glimpse of pre-communist China.

f

This book made it safely home after its 'round-the-world adventure. Thanks, fuji, for the excellent postcard!