Lisa See - Snow Flower and the
Secret Fan
Lily is the daughter of a humble farmer, and to her family
she is just another expensive mouth to feed. Then the local
matchmaker delivers startling news: if Lily's feet are bound
properly, they will be flawless. In the nineteeth-century China,
where a woman's eligibility is judged by the shape and size of her
feet, this is extraordinary good luck. Lily now has the power to
make a good marriage and change the fortures of her family. To
prepare for her new life, she must undergo the agonies of
footbinding, learn nu shu, the famed secret women's writing, and
make a very special friend, Snow Flower. But a bitter reversal of
fortune os about to change everything.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel is surely intended for any
reader who likes a compelling, historically-set, moving,
suspenseful story. I have been a fan of Lisa See's mysteries, and
her sympathies with, and skill in creating characters of both
sexes, are apparent in both the mystery plots and the present
book.
This plot is beautifully woven, with two women at its center, but
there is compassion for both the women and the men in the
nineteenth-century Chinese society the author re-creates so
vividly. Lisa See obviously LIKES her characters, and she develops
some understanding of and compassion for ALL of them. Her natural
sensitivity, vast research--including visits and interviews in the
remote region she is writing about--make her work fully
convincing.
Tender, celebratory, joyous, painful, heart-breaking at times--
this is a memorable, glorious book. After reading it, I found
myself thinking more and more about some of the power, motivations,
love, violence, and ways of communication in our twenty-first
century societies.
Lisa See's Snow Flower
and the Secret Fan is an engrossing and fascinating story of
women's friendships in nineteenth century rural China. This is an
excellent, well-written novel--fascinating on so many levels. Lily,
the narrator of the novel is in her eighties, looking back on her
life. She shares the stories of her foot binding, nu shu, the
secret women's writing, and the various formally women's
friendships that society enforced. Lily's sister participated in a
sworn sisterhood, where a group of young women formed a friendship
that was to last until marriage, but Lily is paired with one girl,
Snow Flower, her laotong or "old same." Lily and Snow Flower have a
love that is stronger than all of her other relationships--and it
causes them both more heartbreak. The novel is really the story of
their friendship, its depths, its deceits, its strengths--and it is
a fascinating read about a society so different from our own. Snow
Flower and the Secret Fan reminds me in many ways of The Red Tent
in that it explores female friendship in a setting much different
than any contemporary one. A fascinating
read
