Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See ... A book Review

Routes … In Snow Flower and the Secret Fan the context of our journey is 19^th century China, a culture where the feet of little girls are bound physically as the lives of women are metaphorically. It is a patriarchal, hierarchal tradition rich in ritual and ceremony, and, as Lisa Lee tells the story, full of secrecy and mystery as the women find a way to define their identities through friendship.

The story is told by eighty-year-old Lily who is writing her memoir full of regret with the hope that those who have passed before her will forgive her when they meet on the other side. She is most concerned about how she will be received by Snow Flower, to whom she has been bound for life by contract and covenant as “laotong” (far more than best friends for life) since their seventh year. Lisa Lee makes our journey through Lily’s life rich as we taste the food she eats, walk painfully and deliberately on her three inch bound feet, and feel her confusion as she watches Snow Flower’s sense of childhood adventure disappear in a life of poverty and despair. The “Secret Fan” of the title is Sunflower’s first gift to Lily, and carries the deepest thoughts in picture and poetry of the girls life long friendship, using nu shu a language developed by women unreadable (or just ignored) by men in Ancient China.

And Roots… It is the communication on the Secret Fan that invites the reader to discover in her own roots the rites and rituals of friendships that last and maybe those regrettably lost. What makes a life long friend? Is it common interests? An empathy that embraces another’s joys and sorrows even though they aren’t understood? What are the rites and rituals that bind friends today? Lily and Snow Flower invite you to consider and share the answers to these questions with your own “old sames” and “sworn sisters”.