Good book about the culture...a little slow at times, but interesting. ( )

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan was just a pleasant diversion for me. Maybe would have been more gripping if this was the first book I had read about a woman's life in China pre-revolution, including the gory details of footbinding. So, it wasn't shocking, but always sad to think about the difficult lives and lowly status of women--even now--in many places in the world. I enjoyed this book, but wouldn't read it again, so no stars.

Beautiful story of girls who became good friends (laotong, or "old sames) and were raised in 19th century China. They communicated secretly through nu shu writing by painting on a silk fan. It also describes the series of events that led from their childhood (including the process of footbinding). ( )

I picked this book up in the thrift store because I recently read Peony in Love, also by See, and couldn't really decide if I liked it or not. Having now read both books, on similar topics, with similar protagonists, I've concluded that I do, in fact, like Peony in Love, but that Snow Flower is not really that great. See's approach as an author seems to be to take some actual, little known historical thing and then to base a novel on it. Snow Flower is about nu shu, a form of "secret" writing used only by women, and Peony is about the play, 'The Peony Pavillion.' Both books take this one idea and then examine how they affect the lives of their protagonists- intended to be relatively typical Chinese women as they progress through their highly structured lives. It's an interesting idea, but if you're going to read one book, read Peony in Love. Peony actually said something (I'm still not sure what) about the conditions of life, and she broke out of her restraints and then come to appreciate them. Lily, the protagonist of Snow Flower, came to understand her mistakes, but not much else- and I think the fault is just that nu shu, the secret writing, was not a strong enough historical premise. Still, it was a fun read- I'd give it about 3 stars. ( )

I found this book hard to read in many ways, not because of poor writing, but because of the unrelenting sadness in the life of Lily, a 19th century Chinese girl from a poor country family. It begins by describing in great detail her foot binding at age seven. After that, her life narrows, mostly limited to a second story "women's room". She longs for her mother's love but is told daily she is worthless, her only value that of obedient daughter and wife. She is married off and leaves her home for that of her husband, where she is the lowest member of the household. The redeeming grace in her life is her friendship with Snow Flower, in a formalized relationship called a laotong which is intended to be more emotionally intimate and lasting than marriage. How this relationship transcends the other areas of her life, and is threatened by a misunderstanding, forms the core of the book. Lisa See is a very skilled writer and is able to clearly conjure a physical place and society so alien to ours. The reader is left pondering why a woman's beauty and value in that culture depended upon the smallness and shape of her feet. I was struck by an obvious parallel with breast size, and implants to achieve it, in our society. ( )