Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Lisa See
number of voters: 7
percentage of voters who finished the book: 100
highest rating: 8.5
lowest rating: 6.5
average rating: 7.87
ideal foot size of the perfect 19th century Chinese foot: 3 inches
estimated average foot size of the First Monday Reading Group: approximately 10 inches
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One of the beauties of literature lies in its capacity to transport us—to another time, another place, another life—and expose us to a world we might otherwise never have known, seen, or understood.
Such is the beauty of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.
Set in nineteenth century China, at what might be considered the height of foot-binding’s reign, the story unfolds as two young girls—Snow Flower and Lily—become laotong, “old sames” (bff, only closer and...well, closer). We follow the lives of these girls as their feet are bound, they are married off to strangers, and as they become mothers. Their paths and their fates intersect in ways that neither of them could have ever expected.
Many aspects of the history and culture are incomprehensible to the modern American reader. Women were treated as property, worthless except for in the production of sons. The bound foot was considered a delicate beauty, and a woman with a small “lotus flower” was deemed to be the best wife prospect. Author Lisa See delves into all this and more in a respectably well-researched fashion.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a solidly written novel that brings the best of historical fiction to a sometimes fickle reader. If only History 101 had been so engaging.
