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osprey_archerThere’s a movie version of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan! In which they’ve apparently introduced a parallel modern-day story. I’m not sure I approve of this tampering.
But nonetheless I must watch the movie, if only so I can shred it properly if it proves unworthy of the book. I loved the book: it’s set in a rural province in nineteenth century China and chronicles the lives of a pair of ceremonial soulmate penpals, who use a special form of writing known only to women to write letters to each other on fans.
LETTERS ON FANS, you guys, what could be more awesome? And they draw on a traditional poetic vocabulary of favorite metaphors as they write, too, which utterly charmed me. I now wish to write all my friends letters in which I tell them we are like two mandarin ducks floating on a pond. I’m sure they’ll all think that’s incredibly normal.
I also read Lisa See’s Peony in Love, and you GUYS, the heroine is a 17th century Chinese fangirl. She owns twelve different copies of the opera The Peony Pavilion and spends acres of time loafing around reading it and is transported with delight when she gets to attend an ACTUAL PERFORMANCE.
But after a chance meeting with a charming young man in the opera audience, Peony - just like the heroine of her beloved opera, Liniang - contracts lovesickness. So fiercely does she pine for her young man that she starves herself to death. (And people complain that Twilight is bad for girls.) Apparently lovesickness was the disease for smart, dreamy young ladies in 17th century China.
Incidentally, 17th century China? Super interesting! Mid-century, there was a period of great political instability, and while the menfolk were occupied with the world falling down around their ears, the women took the opportunity to leave their houses and form poetry groups and publish piles and piles of books. Sort of like the 17th century French salons where women gathered to write fairy tales - a brief blossoming of opportunities for talented women, which closed up as society stabilized and was then forgotten.
It’s too bad that the Chinese women poets and the French women fairy tale writers never met, and probably couldn’t have surmounted the enormous language barrier if they had. I bet they would have had a blast together.
But nonetheless I must watch the movie, if only so I can shred it properly if it proves unworthy of the book. I loved the book: it’s set in a rural province in nineteenth century China and chronicles the lives of a pair of ceremonial soulmate penpals, who use a special form of writing known only to women to write letters to each other on fans.
LETTERS ON FANS, you guys, what could be more awesome? And they draw on a traditional poetic vocabulary of favorite metaphors as they write, too, which utterly charmed me. I now wish to write all my friends letters in which I tell them we are like two mandarin ducks floating on a pond. I’m sure they’ll all think that’s incredibly normal.
I also read Lisa See’s Peony in Love, and you GUYS, the heroine is a 17th century Chinese fangirl. She owns twelve different copies of the opera The Peony Pavilion and spends acres of time loafing around reading it and is transported with delight when she gets to attend an ACTUAL PERFORMANCE.
But after a chance meeting with a charming young man in the opera audience, Peony - just like the heroine of her beloved opera, Liniang - contracts lovesickness. So fiercely does she pine for her young man that she starves herself to death. (And people complain that Twilight is bad for girls.) Apparently lovesickness was the disease for smart, dreamy young ladies in 17th century China.
Incidentally, 17th century China? Super interesting! Mid-century, there was a period of great political instability, and while the menfolk were occupied with the world falling down around their ears, the women took the opportunity to leave their houses and form poetry groups and publish piles and piles of books. Sort of like the 17th century French salons where women gathered to write fairy tales - a brief blossoming of opportunities for talented women, which closed up as society stabilized and was then forgotten.
It’s too bad that the Chinese women poets and the French women fairy tale writers never met, and probably couldn’t have surmounted the enormous language barrier if they had. I bet they would have had a blast together.
