Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

The world of nineteenth-century China unfolds like the fan of this title as Janet Song's quiet, serene voice performs this audiobook. Tracing the lives of two Chinese girls from earliest childhood through adulthood, the novel captures moments that include the horrors of foot binding and the delights of true friendship, all in a measured cadence by Song. With the lightest lilt, Song offers a precise, careful performance that does not need extremes to show dialogue shifts or character development. Song navigates the complexities of culture and history with ease, putting enough emphasis on the appropriate words to make it easier for the reader to follow the text. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

Starred review from April 18, 2005
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 FAN
Lisa See
. Random
, $21.95 (272p) ISBN 1-4000-6028-1

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. Agent, Sandra Dijkstra.
Author tour
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