An unromanticized look at 19th century rural Chinese life

This is the first, and maybe the only non-vampire related, book I re-read this year. Normally I’m far too excited by the prospects of a new adventure to revisit one I’ve already been through. I make a notable exception for Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, which is not only the finest of Lisa See’s works, but a compelling, moving novel very much worth a second reading.

Genre: fiction

Plot: As an 80 year old woman, Lady Lily Lu has had plenty of time to ponder her life. She feels an agonizing remorse over a decision that deeply affected her and her best friend, Snow Flower. So she goes back to the beginning, writing it all from her perspective so that Snow Flower, long dead, will forgive her someday.

Structure: Broken into seasons of life (“milk days”, “daughter days”, “rice and salt days”, “sitting quietly days”), this book is remarkable for it’s scope, especially given its slim size (unlike say, The Street of a Thousand Blossoms, which was enormous is scope and girth). Not only does it encompass the entirety of one woman’s life, it does it with fine attention to details, moments both great and small, and further, it does so without resorting to an interminable droning, Charles Dicken’s style (one of the many reasons I will never read David Copperfield). See also weaves in classical Chinese poetry, food, folktales, and traditions, lending the novel a rich depth. It is the story of two women and their lives, yes, but it is also a story about what it means to be a woman: our sense of identity and how those we love shape it, our friendships, heartaches, longings, and frustrations. I think that is one of the most remarkable aspects of this novel: even though it happened in a time and place far, far removed from my own, it still resonates with issues and emotions common to every woman in every time.

Execution and Style: Beautiful, simple prose captures the heart of rural China, while See uses an elegance when translating poems or letters. She does a wonderful job of imparting the coarse and the refined together, just as the culture of rural China would have been at this time. It was neither too pragmatic nor too melancholy (this will, I think, be one of my struggles in finishing Liza Dalby’s Tale of Murasaki) nor too vague (Ha Jin, I mean you).

Theme: womanhood, China, friendship, loss, children, marriage

Read this if you want more true Chinese culture, less Mulan

4 out of 5 stars

Other works:
Peony in Love (which I did not enjoy very much but you might)
Shanghai Girls

If you liked this, you might also like:
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club (although I personally disliked it, I can see the parallels easily enough)
Ha Jin’s Waiting
Donna Jo Napoli’s Bound