Join a book club that is reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel!
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel
Description
Lily is haunted by memories-of who she once was, and of a person, long gone, who defined her existence. She has nothing but time now, as she recounts the tale of Snow Flower, and asks the gods for forgiveness. In nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu ("women's writing"). Some girls were paired with laotongs, "old sames," in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of their isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become "old sames" at the tender age of seven. As the years pass, through famine and rebellion, they reflect upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. The two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. With the period detail and deep resonance of Memoirs of a Geisha, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female friendship.
Show more
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
I heard wonderful, beautiful things about this book. Let me start by saying, I completely acknowledge the historical accuracy of the author and the way the Chinese culture is depicted and I think the book is great in that respect. However, I just found the book SO boring. The only time I felt somewhat interested was the second to last chapter. I really only pushed through because my MIL loved this book and I felt like I had to finish. Otherwise, ...read more
Amazing. Reading this made me feel so profoundly grateful to be a woman in present-day America--big feet and all! The women in this story seem not to have experienced any true happiness at all, only lesser degrees of misery and suffering. I believe they loved deeply but could never fully admit it, even to themselves. That seems to me to be the underlying reason for the grave misunderstanding between Lily and Snow Flower. The women were so bound b...read more
Lisa See always writes a great story! This was a really enjoyable read and I learned a lot about old Chinese women’s culture. Even though I have read of the foot binding in the past and knew what to expect, it was still hard to read...luckily it’s in the first part of the book and is brief, but very important to the story.
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.