A great insight into life in China years ago
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I must say, I don't normally do it, but I picked this book to read as I loved the cover. I didn't really know what it was about but decided to give it a go. I found it a little slow initially but as I got into it I was enthralled. I fell in love with the two main characters and totally immersed myself into their way of life. I found their culture really interesting and was carried through the book with them through their highs and their lows. It was a really great read and would highly recommend it.
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"A true lady lets no ugliness into her life. Only through pain will you have beauty."
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The two lines of my title for this review, I think, quite aptly sums up what is at the heart of SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN. The quality of being a lady at all times; how you hold true to the traditions of your family and your culture as well as how you remain loyal and dignifed towards your family. But also what it essentially means to be a woman or girl during the time the novel is set in.
SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN is about two young girls growing up in China. As girls, they are seen as worthless to their family - their only worth will be gained from their marriages and their ability to provide sons for their husbands. The two girls, Lily and Snow Flower, are sworn at a young age to become laotong - this is a bond which is reverred between females, seen as being just as important as a marriage between a man and a woman. They are never meant to cross each other, and just as in a marriage, they are only meant to be parted by death. But Lily and Snow Flower are different in their personalities, and they both have a different destiny ahead of them. Lily has perfect bound feet, only 7 centimetres in length, and it is through this that she has managed to procure a good betroval. Snow Flower's future is not so fortunate, and so, as laotong, they both go through emotional and sometimes physical pain relying on each other for strength and encouragement. But life for women is cruel and their friendship shall be tested to the highest degree.
That is a very diluted version of the main parts of the story. Part of the success of SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN is that See has done a fantastic job at recreating Lily and Snow Flower's world. Every step of the way, you are there with them. The description of the footbinding is excrutiating in detail; the way that men treat women is also brilliantly portrayed. See has managed to relate a lost world to Western readers. Highly recommended. And if you like this, there is See's other novel, PEONY IN LOVE, which folows the story of one minor character from this book.
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The inner realm of women - almost a cultural study
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In her eighties, Lily writes a memoire of her life in rural China in the late 19th century.
A life confined to the inner realm of women. This is the novel's greatest feat, but also the downside. At times, I was almost angry at the fact that Lily's world is so small.
"Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" is a view into that inner realm of Chinese woman, where the birth of a girl is another mouth to feed, how a young bride is under the rule of her mother-in-law, but it is also the story of nu shu - women's secret writing and the power of friendship between women.
I would definitely recommend this novel as it pulls you in to a world of making shoes for golden lilies and wonderful friendship. However, I would note that the book is insular in some ways.
Louise.
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Emotional fiction, that reads like a memoir.
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A very descriptive memoir style fictional account about the role of women in C19 Chinese Society; where friendships among the women were of great importance. Until comparatively recently Chinese women led a very controlled life. They were made to feel worthless for having been born female in the first place, with their only use in society to give birth to sons.
This is a beautiful story of the strong friendship between Lily and Snow Flower. As little girls of six these two became `laotong' that is young girls that are matched by such things as date of birth and social standing to become soul mates for life. These relationships were considered as important as their eventual marriages would be.
The story follows the complex friendship from the beginning of `laotong' pairing to the end of their lives. Together Lily and Snow Flower share the joys and sorrows of their lives; from foot-binding, arranged marriages, wedding feasts, birth of children and other festivals within the larger picture of disease, famine and war. Lily is now 80 years old and relating the story of her relationship with Snow-Flower and how they developed a lifelong bond through secret `nu shu'(a written coded language created by women for women exclusively) messages to each other over the years. In telling her story she feels she is seeking atonement for mistakes she made, which for forty years have worried her.
The process of foot-binding I have always found disturbing, but the account in this book is the most vivid I have ever read. Apparently perfect feet are 7cm in length! This practice is known to have still been carried out in rural China within the region that Tongku is located in until as recently as the early 1950's.
I recommend this highly not just as a beautiful story but because it is one that will impact you deeply and teach you much about the role of women in the history of Chinese culture.
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a good story, but frustrating at times
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The book was engaging and it held my interest up until the ending, but a lot of things in the book annoyed me so much, I practically flung the book across the room in frustration several times. I mean, it' s not bad enough that men treated women like trash and beat them up regularly, but the women were actually worse in the way they treated each other. Binding their daughter's feet, often causing deadly infections, in order to make them look like men's penises ? Calling themselves 'useless' just because of their gender, and taking the blame for giving birth to girls instead of sons ? Torturing their daughters-in-law just because they could ? As for the nu shu, the language that only women could use and understand, I don't find it particularly useful because their true enemy was not men but their own mothers, grandmothers, friends, mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law.
And as for the heroine, Lilly, the reasons that she got so angry with her 'laotong' and practically destroyed her reputation were not really clear. Was it because she got jealous of Snow Flower's new friends, and if so, how immature is that ? That said, I did not like any of the characters in the book.
I would recommend this book bacause it *does* make a good story. More importantly, it would make any woman feel really lucky not to have lived under those circusmtances and appreciate the freedom and respect that we have today.
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