Su Tong

The brutal realities of the dark places Su Tong depicts in this collection of novellas set in 1930s provincial China -- worlds of prostitution, poverty, and drug addiction -- belie his prose of stunning and simplebeauty. The title novella, "Raise the Red Lantern," which became a critically acclaimed film, tells the story of Lotus, a young woman whose father's suicide forces her to become the concubine of a wealthy merchant. Crushed by loneliness, despair, and cruel treatment, Lotus finds her descent into insanity both a weapon and a refuge. "Nineteen Thirty-Four Escapes" is an account of a family's struggles during one momentous year; plagued by disease, death, and the shady promise of life in a larger town, the family slowly disintegrates. Finally, "Opium Family" details the last years of a landowning clan whose demise is brought about by corruption, lust, and treachery -- fruits of the insidious crop they harvest.

Three Novellas

Raise the Red Lantern

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“Lotus took a few steps forward and said, "Flowers are not flowers and people are not people; flowers are people and people are flowers; don't you understand such a simple principle?" Lotus suddenly raised her head and caught sight of a strange gleam drifting by briefly, like a leaf, on the surface of Feipu's moist eyes; she saw it and she understood it.”

“Grandmother Jiang suddenly realized that evil is a large part of the original nature of the human race; it is as natural as the movements of the sun and moon.”

“When I first learned that all of us together made up one particular link in the great teeming chain of human life, my heart was filled with sweet sadness; I wanted to explore the springs of my bloodline”

Raise the Red Lantern quotes

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