Summary and Reviews of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

A Novel

by Lisa See
  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Readers' Rating (10):
  • First Published:
  • Jun 28, 2005, 272 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Feb 2006, 288 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

A brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female friendship.

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.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

Kirkus Reviews
Taut and vibrant, the story offers a delicately painted view of a sequestered world and provides a richly textured account of how women might understand their own lives. A keenly imagined journey into the women's quarters.

Library Journal - Beth E Anderson
See's meticulous research and exquisite language deliver a story that is haunting, powerful, and, at times, almost too painful to bear. Highly recommended.

Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. 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.

Author Blurb Amy Tan
Lisa See has written her best book yet. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is achingly beautiful, a marvel of imagination of a real and secret world that has only recently disappeared. It is a story so mesmerizing the pages float away and the story remains clearly before us from beginning to end.

Author Blurb Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha
Only the best novelists can do what Lisa See has done, to bring to life not only a character but an entire culture, and a sensibility so strikingly different from our own. This is an engrossing and completely convincing portrayal of a woman shaped by suffering forced upon her from her earliest years, and of the friendship that helps her to survive.

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Beyond the Book



The practice of foot binding began around 970 BC. Bound feet were described as 'lily feet' because they were considered so beautiful and were symbolic of gentility and high-class.

The process began for a girl between 3 and 11 years. The four small toes were broken and turned under and bound, then the arches were broken so the foot could be pulled straight with the leg. Overtime the feet would shrink so they could fit in 'lotus shoes' 3 inches long. In the 1600s the Manchu Dynasty attempted to end foot binding but it was not officially banned until 1911, when the New ...

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Read-Alikes

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