Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy by Lisa See

Why did I wait so long to read these books? I've had Shanghai Girls on my Kindle for over a year from when it was on sale for only $2.99, but for some reason I worked my way through Lisa See's other books before deciding a few weeks ago, with the Chinese New Year and moving to Los Angeles, that it would fit right in to the setting. In addition, I have family that grew up in Chinatown and still live there, so learning more about the history of it was especially interesting to me. At any rate, both Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy were phenomenal reads and completely surpassed my expectations.

Shanghai Girls is about Pearl and May, sisters who are living the high life in Shanghai, the Paris of Asia. Working as "beautiful girls" for the handsome artist Z.G., they spend their time at parties and clubs, wearing beautiful clothes and eating the delicious, sugared dishes that Shanghai is known for. Until their father announces to them that he has arranged marriages for both of them to Americans in order to pay off his debts. This event changes everything in Pearl's and May's lives, beginning them on a journey where they deal with everything from immigration, war, muddled relationships, and McCarthyism.

Shanghai Girls has an incredible plot. Pearl and May live through multiple significant historical events, and Lisa See poignantly captures the way these events shape and change their lives. Nothing is clear-cut for these sisters -- their relationships with their husbands, each other, and the world around them are complicated and constantly evolving. The mix of a dramatic, powerful plot and rich character development made Shanghai Girls exactly the kind of book I crave. The situations Pearl and May experience are shocking, but even more shocking is their resilience and the way that they carve out meaningful lives from their struggles. I finished the book feeling emotionally exhausted in the best possible way. I should also mention that this is one of the few times in my life where I have set down the first book and immediately dived into the sequel (usually I like a little buffer so I don't get sick of the author's style).

4.5 stars

Warnings: Vivid descriptions of war, sexual assault, non-explicit sexuality

Dreams of Joy picks up right where Shanghai Girls leaves off, with Pearl's daughter Joy running away to communist China to meet her father. On fire with idealistic fervor for the People's Republic of China, Joy expects to find a wonderful new life. However, communism is not quite what she expects it to be, and she is trapped.

I loved Shanghai Girls, but Dreams of Joy blew its predecessor out of the water. Despite the fact that I spent most of the book wanting to beat a little sense into Joy's head, I was fascinated by the world it described and couldn't stop telling my husband all about what I was learning. I knew absolutely nothing about communist China under Mao and was shocked by the horrific oppression I read about. While much of the story was dark, it was also incredible and unlike anything I have ever read before.

5 stars

Warnings: Disturbing images, non-graphic sexuality

Book to Movie: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

When I noticed that Snow Flower and the Secret Fan was on Netflix, I jumped at the chance to watch it, having just finished the book. The movie had several differences from the book, but I think the changes helped the book transition well to a film format.

The book focuses only on the relationship of Snow Flower and Lily, but the movie begins with two modern-day girls, Nina and Sophia, who are close friends, but who slowly drift apart. As Nina and Sophia's relationship changes with careers, boyfriends, and family, they drift apart until a tragic accident causes Nina to look into Sophia's recent past. She finds a book that Sophia has been writing, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, which is the story from the book and, in the movie, is based on Sophia's ancestor.

The narrative in the book is slow and dreamy, and was told in a short few scenes in the movie. While some details were left out, I think the medium was effective interspersed with the drama between the two modern girls. I also think that the message was more clear and relatable with the modern perspective of two girls going through a similar experience in their lives to the two girls from history.

I enjoyed the slow, dreamlike quality of the movie despite the fact that at times it dragged. It is contemplative but has moments of genuine beauty. If fans of the book are not overly concerned about perfect faithfulness to the original story, I think they will find something to enjoy in the movie adaptation. For those who found the book difficult to relate to, the movie tells a more condensed version of the story with ties to modern times.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Title: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Author: Lisa See
Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: Random House, 2006
Source: Borrowed from my mom
Read for: Fun

Lily's family is average, without high prospects or much money. However, Lily's feet are such that they can be bound perfectly, meaning that she will gain higher status than her family has previously been able to attain and that she is destined for a good marriage. Because of this, the matchmaker pairs her with a laotong, or "old-same," a lifelong relationship of friendship and support with a girl whose life and destiny matches with hers. Lily's relationship with her laotong is fulfilling and happy, but as they grow older their lives begin to diverge.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is an interesting story, one that does not fit my normal ideas of narrative. The language is slow and formal, and the plot unfolds slowly and delicately. At times this made Snow Flower and the Secret Fan a difficult read for me, but as a whole I enjoyed the story and the unique look at a culture with which I am less familiar.

I experienced similar roadblocks with the other Lisa See novel I've read, Peony in Love. Something about her style doesn't always mesh well with me. While the words are beautiful and descriptive, giving life to vivid images, the tone is more stiff and formal than what I am used to. However, this isn't always negative; the culture is different, so it makes sense that the style, too, is different. While the difference was at times not as comfortable or enjoyable for me, I don't think that it was always a bad thing. One element of the style that I don't think would work for me regardless of the cultural tone, however, was that See tended to "tell" rather than "show." Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is very introspective, and while I enjoyed it, sometimes I wanted less of Lily's inner commentary and more events displaying what was taking place.

The story itself was beautiful, although also completely foreign to me. Some of the core concepts of Lily and Snow Flower's lives, such as the need for daughters' feet to be bound and the way it signifies a mother's love, does not mesh with my Western ideas. The idea too that women must be utterly at the mercy of their husbands' whims (and those of their mother-in-law), and that a woman would submit to brutal beating because it is her place in the household, was hard for me and I'm sure many other readers as well. I also wondered at the tradition of the sworn sisterhoods and laotongs -- it was strange in my mind to have your friends chosen for you, arranged through your supposed destinies and birth dates. However, while dealing with these concepts so foreign to my life, I also found beauty and symmetry in the layers of duty and commitment to family and loved ones. I found fascination and grace in the various festivals and traditions of the characters. And as for the lives of the characters themselves, I found the convolutions and misunderstandings of Snow Flower and Lily's lives to be heartbreaking and the path they take to forgiveness to be beautiful.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a unique book that illustrates a society that differs greatly from the one I live in. For this reason, at times it was hard for me to understand or relate to the book. However, I found the story to be moving and powerful despite the differences.

3.75 stars

Warnings: Talk of "bed business," detailed nudity

Quotables: Peony in Love

Maybe it's a gift to experience emotions through our brushes, ink, and paper. 

I wrote out of sorrow, fear, and hate. 

You wrote out of desire, joy, and love. 

We each paid a heavy price for speaking our minds,

 for revealing our hearts, 

for trying to create, 

but it was worth it, 

wasn't it, daughter? 

- Lisa See, Peony in Love

Peony in Love by Lisa See

Title: Peony in Love
Author: Lisa See
Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: Random House, 2007
Source: Library
Read for: R.I.P. Challenge

Peony is a young girl in a traditional Chinese household. She doesn't leave the house. Her feet are bound and delicate. She is betrothed to a man she has never met. However, on her sixteenth birthday, she is allowed to view (behind a screen, of course) a showing of The Peony Pavilion, an opera she loves, and one that has been accused of causing young girls' deaths from "lovesickness." In the course of the performance, Peony meets a young poet and begins a journey that will affect not only their lives but their afterlives as well.

I wasn't expecting Peony in Love to be a ghost story. However, amid the beautiful descriptions of gardens, the anguish of love, and the rigidity of Chinese culture, ghosts played a strong and occasionally spooky part of the story. In fact, this book had many elements that I was not expecting. I started reading it because one of my grandmothers kept asking me if I had read anything by Lisa See. When I saw this as a potential library book for Kindle, I jumped at the chance. However, I found myself with mixed feelings throughout the story.

At the beginning, everything was very pleasant. The descriptions were lovely. I found myself quickly absorbed by the descriptions of the culture, a culture that I know very little about despite the fact that I have a family member who was born in China. The meetings between Peony and her poet were romantic in that love-at-first-sight way.

Then things started getting disjointed as Peony drove her life into the ground. I became frustrated with her character, with her obvious happiness and pride at being diagnosed with "lovesickness," and later with her vengeful, controlling nature. I kept asking myself, what is the point of this story? Why are we dwelling on misery and revenge and manipulation for pages on end? I am not afraid of sad or dark books, but I like there to be something that redeems all the carnage of negative emotion and I wasn't seeing anything for chapters on end.

Then, Peony finally started experiencing some personal growth and doing some good in the world, and I started to feel more comfortable with the story again. By the end, I was satisfied and left the story with a feeling of enjoyment. The third part of the story had much more insight into the topography and scope of human love and the way it is possible to forgive, grow, and change.

Despite my disjointed experience with the book, overall it was a unique and enjoyable reading experience. Learning about Chinese culture and history fascinated me, and I am looking forward to reading more books set in Asia. I also found Peony's personal growth and experiences after death to be interesting and very different from books I have usually read. Even in fantasy books, I haven't often encountered any life-after-death scenarios, and exploring this culture's beliefs and Peony's experience was engaging and eye-opening. I especially loved that Peony experienced a great deal of personal development even though she was no longer living. In the beginning of the book, she has certain perceptions about love and about her family, as well as the play The Peony Pavilion, which is in many ways a catalyst for Peony's emotional growth throughout the novel. As the years pass with Peony observing the living, she learns new things about romantic love and about her family's devastating history, which in turn leads her to have new insights about the play. By the end of the book, she is a complete and generous woman, despite her foolish decisions in life (and several in death, too).

I'm not sure how I feel about Lisa See's writing style yet. The book was told from Peony's perspective, and something about the writing seemed a little sterile and held back to me. I'm not sure if this is a cultural element that is a result of Peony's voice -- she certainly has a repressed mortal life, not being allowed to leave her family's home and being trained in every way to be the perfect, subservient wife. It wasn't enough to dissuade me from finishing the book and I plan on reading more of See's work, but it was an element that bothered me a little.

However, overall, this was a new and interesting type of novel for me, and I am glad I read it.

3 stars

Warnings: Sensuality