Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (#31, Contemporary Literature)

While Becky has been plugging away throughout the month of October catching up to my non-impressive five book lead, I have been strangely absent on this blog since the eighth of September. What gives? Had I given up on the lofty task of reading 50 books in one year? Did it just get to be too much for me? Did I throw in the towel and resign myself to reading horoscopes, fitness magazines and myspace about me sections? Do not despair loyal Booknymph fans. I am back from an annoying stretch of bad book choices. Nothing kills the desire to read than picking up the wrong book.

Which book set me down the road of no reading? I must say it was a recommendation from my sister, The Terror. She raved about it, and I thought it would be like Ahab's Wife, another recommendation that I ended up loving. But for some reason The Terror didn't excite me. I got to about page 200 and abandoned ship. Then I started another book and quickly abandoned that one as well. Not until I raided Sarah's bookshelf did I find a suitable book.

Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan was just what I needed. It provided an escape into 19th century China and the lives of the women who struggled to survive in a crushingly patriarchal system. No, it isn't nonfiction, but See did base it on actual practices. I can tell you with all honesty that I would not have wanted to have been born a girl in China. The process of foot binding is horrific enough, but then to have to go through life believing that your sole purpose in life is to produce sons and to serve your husband would be all too depressing. But it goes so far beyond that, as the entire system was built upon women being seen as base creatures and burdens to the families who had to raise them.

I liked how this book's central theme was the friendship between Lily (our narrator) and Snow Flower, her laotong. Women may have been forced to endure hardships beyond our what our modern day imaginations can comprehend but as long as they had a woman friend, they could use that friendship to make it through. I think that still rings true today. As Toni Morrison once said, "The loneliest woman in the world is a woman without a close woman friend."