Book Report #2

It’s been a while, but I really haven’t had much time for reading. Here’s what I’ve read since "Soul Mountain."

"Raise the Red Lantern" is a trilogy of stories by Su Tong. The title story was made into a well-known and well-received movie by the Chinese director Zhang Jimou. In beautiful prose it tells the story of nineteen year old woman, Lotus, who goes to be the fourth wife of a fifty year old man after the woman’s father kills himself. The woman develops feelings towards the man’s son. In the meantime, she also becomes convinced that other mistresses in the not so distant had been thrown into a well once they were found to be unfaithful. Nothing comes of the feelings towards the son, who declares to her that he is afraid of women. But one of the wives is caught having an affair, and she mysteriously disappears. Lotus becomes convinced that the unfaithful wife has been thrown down the well and soon thereafter goes crazy.

On a lighter note, I also finished a short story by a writer who I have never heard of, Mo Yan. I picked up a collection of his stories at a place called The Bookworm. It is a coffeehouse/restaurant that has just opened up that has its own lending library. The charge is three hundred kuai or about thirty five dollars a year and you can check up to two books out at a time for two weeks. I went there to see if there were enough interesting books to make it worth it. The verdict is still out, but I definitely want to check out more work by this writer. The connection with Raise the Red Lantern is that the story I read, "Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh," has also been turned into a movie by the Chinese director Zhang Jimou. The story tells of a construction worker who is put out of work just months before retirement, costing him his pension. He struggles to find something to do and while walking in a park one day stumbles across an abandoned bus. He gets an idea to turn it into a meeting place for the lovers who are strolling around the park. So he fixes up the bus, puts locks on the door, and rents it out to lovers walking around the park. Of course all this is illegal and the bus isn’t even his. At first business is slow as he is shy to advertise his service. But desperation drives him on, and, with a little nudging from a friend, he soon has a booming business going. All seems well. If he can do. Winter is coming and he is about to shut the bus down. If he can do this for a couple of more season, he thinks he will have enough money for retirement. But on the day he is shutting things down he sees one more pair of lovers and decides to be kind and open up the place for them. The problem is, they do not come out, and the door locks from the inside. After waiting all day for them to come out, he is in panic and goes sees his friend who has a cousin on the police force. But when they go there and break down the door, they find no one inside, and the shifu ("shifu" is a term of respect to refer to a worker or manual laborer) decides it must have been ghosts.