Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

PrettySpecialGal

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Anyone read it? I just finished---it's on my list of New Jersey Writing Project books to read before the course starts...


I loved it. Never read Lisa See before, but I'm a big fan of Amy Tan.
(and obviously some kind of poet deep down inside)
 

A. Hamilton

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Well now I have two titles to look for on my next book shopping trip.
Thanks PSG :)

SO, I tried to read Amy Tan's Kitchen God's Wife, and couldn't get into it. But I was in a book reading funk at the time, I didn't like anything I read, even Wally Lamb-and I'm wild about him now. But I did notice that the book read better when visualizing it being narrated.
I'm not familiar with Lisa See, are their styles similar?
 

Mud Dauber

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Comparing the friendship in SFatSF to the friendship in The Kite Runner

Sorry, PSG, I saw this post and meant to respond a few days ago, but I got distracted.:tongue

I read SFatSF over a year ago on the glowing recommendation of someone, and I didn't find it to be as compelling a friendship story as I'd been promised. Granted, learning all about the foot binding process and the opression of women in 19th century China was compelling--but the story itself left me feeling bleh. Why?

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I liked it most of the way through, but I had a real problem with how the main character deserted her friend near the end. For whatever the reason, the way she was just able to turn a cold shoulder on her bothered the heck out of me, and I lost my empathy for her. In turn, it ruined my interest in the book, regardless of the fact that she supposedly redeemed herself at the end.

For comparison's sake, the same person who recommended SFatSF to me couldn't stand the main character in The Kite Runner b/c she thought what he did to his friend early on in the book was inexcusable. Yet, I found it easier to forgive him and empathize b/c he was just a kid when it happened. But in Snow Flower, the MC was a grown woman when she purposely turned her back on her friend, and that left me with an icky feeling. A reader brings her own experience into every story she reads, and perhaps b/c I didn't agree with what the MC did, I disliked her from that point forward in the book. :)eek: More than a year later and I still recall the disgust I felt when I got to that part! LOL) They were 'old sames' afterall, and personally, I would hold a soul mate friend to higher standards.

I'm interested to hear if others find Lisa See's writing similar to Amy Tan's. I've only read Amy Tan's memoir, but other than their common Chinese heritage, I don't see the likeness in their writing.
 

PrettySpecialGal

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Mud Dauber- (caution- spoiler)

I do agree with you- about the MC abandoning her friend over such silliness (well, silliness to me) and I, too learned a bunch about footbinding and such- did a little research along the way, too. Can't imagine being a mom and doing that to my 6/7-year old.

I don't know that Tan's and See's writing is similar in anything besides subject matter- ancient Chinese secrets and all that--(Although SFatSF is the only thing I've read by See.) I do love Tan's style. She does the whole back-and-forth-between-two-worlds-thing, and how choices in one place affect the other.

P.H.- I couldn't get into Kitchen God's Wife AT ALL. I LOVED Hundred Secret Senses, though- it's one of my favorites. That whole back and forth thing mentioned above between "ancient" China and present day America.

Thanks for the responses. I was beginning to think of myself as a thread killer.
:)