Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
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 nineteenth-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
fortunes 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 is about to change everything.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A starred review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a starred review.SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FANLisa See. Random, (272p) See's engrossing novel set in remote 19th-century China details the deeply affecting story of lifelong, intimate friends (laotong, or "old sames") Lily and Snow Flower, their imprisonment by rigid codes of conduct for women and their betrayal by pride and love. While granting immediacy to Lily's voice, See (Flower Net) adroitly transmits historical background in graceful prose. Her in-depth research into women's ceremonies and duties in China's rural interior brings fascinating revelations about arranged marriages, women's inferior status in both their natal and married homes, and the Confucian proverbs and myriad superstitions that informed daily life. Beginning with a detailed and heartbreaking description of Lily and her sisters' foot binding ("Only through pain will you have beauty. Only through suffering will you have peace"), the story widens to a vivid portrait of family and village life. Most impressive is See's incorporation of nu shu, a secret written phonetic code among women here between Lily and Snow Flower that dates back 1,000 years in the southwestern Hunan province ("My writing is soaked with the tears of my heart,/ An invisible rebellion that no man can see"). As both a suspenseful and poignant story and an absorbing historical chronicle, this novel has bestseller potential and should become a reading group favorite as well.
