Rice

Rice is Su Tong’s first, but perhaps one of the most significant, and still very influential novels to which a film version has also been made. The plot takes place in China in the 1930s, somewhere in the south. Fleeing from a maple, flood, and famine, the landlord fleeing from the Maple Village to the city initially only takes refuge in the Dahongji Rice Merchant, where he is treated like a dog, but after marrying the wealthy merchant family, he gains increasing influence. From the moment the owner of the rice trade, Feng, adopts him into his house, the family embarks on an irreversible deterioration, and by the end of the novel, the successful family of traders has been falling apart for several generations, to which both external and internal factors contribute. Rotting, cruelty, evil, sin, and abnormal sexuality permeate the novel, there is not a single lovable character in the story, while the writer builds it all around a beautifully unfolded symbol of rice.