#I read tobacco for school at around 16-17 and it kinda radicalized me ngl fsdghf

[madicham]

Tobacco is indeed really good ! I've never been great at selling the things I like, but I'll do my best sfdgf

Though I haven't watched the movie, I did read the book and really liked it. It's been translated into Slovak, German, Polish, Russian, Romanian, Hungarian, Chinese, Greek, Turkish, Mongolian and Japanese according to one article I found. Wikipedia says there's partial translations into english, spanish, italian and french, but I couldn't find any of those online </3

(and little clarification - there are two version of the book that exist. The original was deemed "inconsistent with communist ideology" by the communist censor at the time and Dimov was forced to change it, including some communist good guy characters. I've only read the original, and I don't know which version is translated in all those languages, big sorry)

Maria is only a supporting character, though I love her dearly. The main characters are Irina and Boris - a girl and a guy from a small village where the main source of jobs and income is a tobacco factory. They both hate their current lives and the village, and both want to leave tho through very different means. Irina wants to go to the capital and become a doctor, while Boris wants to become a rich businessman. The book follows these two as they age and become rich, influential and terrible people, while also dealing with many other (tbh, still very relevant) subjects like the exploatation of the working class under capitalism, corruption of government, police and prison brutality, ww2 etc etc and it does so really well. Highly recommend to anyone that can get their hands on it in a language they understand!

There's a few scenes that still live in my head that happen around the middle of the book //I think? it's been a while dsfgfhg// so I'll ramble about them a lil under a cut, just in case fdsgfh

SO Irina's the daughter of the village police chief. This happens when she's already in the capital studying, and Boris has already become CEO of the tobacco company. Tobacco factory workers all around the country are striking against the horrible working conditions, health hazards and minimal pay - they're protesting and rioting. Boris, basically having the government agencies in his pocket, orders the protests squashed. So Irina's father recieves a call telling him to go out there and beat the protestors off the streets with his men.

And he kind of has a moment of clarity - for a split second he realizes that he's just a tool for the rich. He's not rich either. He also grows tobacco to sell to the factory for extra income. He knows all the people outside. He's scared of them, because they're angry and armed with planks and bats and such, but they're also poor and starving and sick. They're asking for a better life and he's being told to go and beat them into compliance.

This all crosses his mind but he refuses to think about it any longer. He just goes out to do his job. And he dies.

He's killed by one of the protestors - a single mother of two that we've seen a few times already. She splits his head open with a bat and is shot almost immediately after.

Their funerals are on the same day.

The woman's funeral is small, attended by other workers and her two small children that a kind old lady has taken in. (It's mentioned how the other workers from the factory, though they themselves barely have anything, pitch in a little bit from their salaries each month towards those kids) They're forced to cut the funeral short and chased out of the graveyard so the police chief's can start.

His funeral is grand and splendid in a way even Irina herself finds tacky.

And when she calls Boris to inform him of what has happened, he says that Oh, he forgot her dad is the head of police there. Had he remembered, he would've raised the wages in that area to calm the people down.

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