Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
by Jenners • 03/06/2010 • 4.5 Stars, Fiction, Historical, Literary, S Authors, S Titles • 16 Comments
A meme concept by That’s A Novel Idea
1 Book You Read: “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” by Lisa See
2 Words that describe the book: Chinese woman friendship (OK…it is just not enough to have only two words!)
3 Settings where it took place or characters you met:
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Setting: a Hunan county in nineteenth century China
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Lily—the daughter of a farmer who lucks into a special relationship with another girl (called laotong, this relationship is a lifelong emotional match between two women) and experiences upward mobility as a result of this friendship and her golden lotuses (her perfectly bound feet).
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Snow Flower—Lily’s laotong match (“old same”), Snow Flower teaches Lily the ways of the upper class to help prepare Lily for her marriage. In return, Snow Flower learns the practicalities of keeping a household. One such skill that Snow Flower teaches Lily is the art of nu shu (secret women’s writing), which the two girls use to communicate on a silk fan throughout their lives.
4 Things you liked and/or disliked about it:
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I liked learning about a time and culture that I was unfamiliar with. The world of Lily and Snow Flower is so different from my existence as a 20th century American woman. I was both horrified and fascinated by the way they lived. From learning about the horrors of footbinding to the level of worth that a woman held in that society was eye-opening and absorbing. I knew very little about footbinding until I read this book. Let me tell you: the footbinding scenes are just so upsetting and graphic that I kept trying to look away from the page while reading. I found the entire process to be stomach-churning, and when I Googled “footbinding,” I saw photos that I wish I’d never looked at. (Let me sum it up this way: 3 inch feet.) And as a woman, it was painful to read about a woman’s worth (or lack thereof) in that culture.
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I liked how Lily was a fully developed character. At times, I admired her. At other times, I thought she was horrible. She tells her story from her vantage point of being an old lady (during her days of “sitting quietly”) in an effort to gain forgiveness for her behaviors before she journeys to the afterlife.
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I liked how Lisa See created this world that I felt fully immersed in while reading. See did a brilliant job of bringing these characters and settings alive that, when I stopped reading, I had to take a moment to reorient myself to the modern world. I also loved the delicate and poetic language that See uses and that permeates Chinese culture and language.
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I liked how emotionally invested I got in the story. When Snow Flower died (and I’m not spoiling anything by telling you that), I cried. This is a story of “deep heart love” between two women, and I think the friendship felt true and genuine.
5 Stars or less for your rating?
I’m giving the book 4.5 stars. I thought it was beautifully written, and the story of the friendship between Lily and Snow Flower was absorbing and emotional. If you like learning about different cultures and being immersed in a world very unlike our own, I would highly recommend this book. Even if you don’t like learning about other cultures, I still recommend this book. The story will stick with you for a long time, and I suspect you’ll be drawn into Lily and Snow Flower’s friendship and world as fully as I was. Thanks to all the book bloggers who raved about this book and force me to add it to my “gotta check out what the fuss is all about” list. It was a wonderful read. I’ll definitely be reading more of Lisa See’s books.
The Whys and Wheres: I got the book from Paperback Swap and will be sending it to my mom as I think she’ll enjoy reading it.
*****
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This is one of my favorite books-have you read shanghai girls-it is different -yet just as good.
Here's my review:
http://bibliofreakblog.com/fiction/snow-flower-and-the-secret-fan-by-lisa-see/
I just added a link to your review on my post on this novel-
like the format…but it will take more than this to fix my review backlog. Maybe writing some would help…
Jenners, this book will always be on my all time favorites list. So compelling, and the foot binding (ouchhh). Great review.
I enjoyed this book a lot-I am still deciding if I like this or Shangai Girls better-as you said the footbinding scenes were hard to read-I hope to read Peony In Love in March also-very well done review-
I loved this book, but I didn't like Shanghai Girls nearly as much, for some reason.
I may need to do my reviews in this easy Show Me 5 format all the time. Simple but informative, and definitely painless!
You're so right. The footbinding thing was too graphic for me. I couldn't imagine breaking my daughter's feet and binding them up like that. Nope, couldn't do it, don't care what the standards were. The story of the friendship and secret writing was most interesting though to read. I think I liked See's Shanghai Girls better.
I thought it was a really good novel – liked it so much more than I expected to when I read it a few years ago. I learned so much but it was really Lisa See's writing that did it for me.
Sounds like a good read. I lived in Hunan for three years in the 1980s so that this makes me even more interested. I remember seeing very old women with tiny tiny feet that had been bound.
great review of a beautiful book. i confess to
sometimes buying a book just because i love
the cover. this cover did not disappoint!
this story was as haunting as you so aptly
described but also somehow enchanting.
love your blog!
I love this book. It holds a special place in my heart since I read it right after I dropped out of grad school and it reminded how much I loved reading for pleasure and how much there is to learn from historical fiction.
This was a wonderful and slightly horrifying read. I did the same thing you did after reading about foot bindings and googled it. The pictures really are hard to take. I did know something about it before reading the book but I wasn't expecting how graphic the book was.
Lovely review!
I read this one and was in awe of the author. I still need to read her other books but this one was really good.
I brought this one home from the library this week and looking forward to reading it.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Wow, I really want to read this one!