Reading at the Lake

So, I learned something on this trip to the lake. No matter how little time you have to read at home, ALWAYS bring a second book to the lake...

On every single trip I have taken anywhere in the past 20 years I have always brought multiple books. Most of the time, I don't need the extras I bring. They usually sit in my bag, carefully protected by clothes and other items, and are not removed until I get home. On this past trip to the lake, I only brought the book I was about 1/3 of the way through, but did not bring an extra. Why would I? I hadn't gotten to read a significant portion of my book at home, and there are SO many more fun things to do at the lake, I didn't think I would have a chance to finish the book I was on, let alone start another one. How wrong I was! Because I don't want Rosalie getting too much sun, or being accosted by all of the evil bugs up here, we generally go outside at least once a day, but never for too long, always in the shade, and the nice clean air with a high oxygen content puts her right to sleep... for several hours. And what is the prime leisure activity for a book geek/snob/nazi? Read, of course!

So this is the book I swiped off of my mom's lake bookshelf in order to have something to read for the last half (!) of my lake trip. For the record I did not realize that it was a movie before I started reading it. I didn't realize this until I was a few chapters in and one night my mom suggested watching a movie and she listed off the ones she brought up, and lo and behold, Sun Flower and the Secret Fan was one of them! So I apologize for doing two reviews in a row on books that have been made into movies, the next one, I promise, will not be.

~*~

In nineteenth-century China, in a remote Hunan county, a girl named Lily, at the tender age of seven, is paired with a laotong, “old same,” in an emotional match that will last a lifetime. The laotong, Snow Flower, introduces herself by sending Lily a silk fan on which she’s painted a poem in nu shu, a unique language that Chinese women created in order to communicate in secret, away from the influence of men. As the years pass, Lily and Snow Flower send messages on fans, compose stories on handkerchiefs, reaching out of isolation to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments. Together, they endure the agony of foot-binding, and reflect upon their arranged marriages, shared 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 deep friendship suddenly threatens to tear apart.

As with many historical fiction novels, this book makes a point of giving the reader a glimpse of what the cultural beliefs of the time were. I am always shocked by the way women were treated in various historical societies. In this case, the Chinese culture, where women are tortured with their footbinding traditions and where the sentement “Thank you for raising a worthless daughter” is a typical statement made by a new bride to her parents as she is leaving her natal home, on her way to her new husband's abode, among other ghastly scenarios. This hatred of women is something I don't believe I will EVER understand. How can women be considered so worthless when they are the ones that bring men into this world? I know this is a very modern consideration, but I don't understand how it could possibly be overlooked in the past, by anyone, anywhere.

I was really moved by this book on several occasions because of the fabulous sisterhood and female friendships in this book. I loved the concept of a friendship that was arranged, similar to an arranged marriage, and was meant to be more intimate and loving than a husband/wife relationship. I thought it was such a fabulous idea, and it was unfortunate that not all girls had them. When I first read about this laotong relationship, my first thought was “Wow, I wish we had things like that!” then I realized that we have the option of choosing our friends for ourselves, which these girls didn't have... so... we're way better off... I guess I just got into the main character's head a little too much. She was really excited about it, so so was I. :)

Along with the great, exciting times, I also cried on two separate occasions while reading this book. The first was at the loss of a child at birth, which I read, while sitting next to my sleeping daughter. I could not imagine the pain and suffering another mother can endure while holding one of their children that have died, by any means. It's not the right order of things. Children are meant to bury parents, not vice versa. Having only known my daughter for a few months (or almost a year, if you count the time she spent in utero), I cannot imagine my life without her, or how I would have reacted if something had kept her from me after she was born. I don't think I would have accepted it as well as the woman did in this book.

The second time was when a correspondence, which turns out to be a miscommunication, leaves one of the girls feeling betrayed and abandoned, and the other feeling confused and alone. I can relate to both women on the side of this misunderstanding. On the one hand, Women are fickle, spiteful, horrible creatures. I have been scorned on so many occasions by female friends throughout my entire life I don't care to even think about how many of them there have been. Whether it has been as a young girl when someone I considered an extremely close friend abandoned me with the potential to hang out with a more popular crowd; to the preteen and teenage years where, like some people are serial daters, I was the victim of serial “bestfrienders”, where I went from being the first person my bestfriend wanted to hang out with, to being slowly forgotten for someone else; and then right up through to my late-twenties when friends have chosen to determine my motives before I have even acted and made me feel like an outsider that's not welcome. I dealt with this situations very differently when I got older. When I was young, I would be hurt, but I would accept the change and move on. As I got older I got progressively more angry and dealt with things more rashly. I think it's because my friendships now mean so much more to me, that it hurts more to feel that you aren't worthy, or aren't loved in return. I don't blame the character in this book for acting so impulsively and trying to hurt the other woman as much as she had been hurt.

On the other hand, women react according to our emotions rather than logic on many occasions. I have seen this in myself as well as every single one of my female friends. When someone insults or betrays a woman, many of us react with anger and hostility and are so content to be angry and hostile that we may not listen to reason after the fact. Anger makes you see red, and very little can disorient that skewed vision. The written word is the worst for leading to these assumptions. Misinterpretations happen all the time simply because of the lack of tone in anything written. Another problem is that many women love drama, and will throw others under the bus in order to gossip and hate or be angry other women. It's brutal. I have had enough fortune that I have not been entirely cut from another woman's life because of a misinterpretation of what I have written or said, but I have had friends that have. So I can understand how awful it is for the second woman, who scorned her friend unintentionally and had to suffer the consequences without really knowing what happened.

These types of problems don't seem to happen with men. Who knows why, but I am glad my daughter will grow up surrounded by many boys the same age as her. Hopefully, this will help spare her from the horridness of a clan of women, even if only in her early life.

Ok... back on track now (sorry for the tangent, but this book really did evoke plenty of emotions for me). This book is fabulous. If you love historical fiction, reading about friendships, enjoy a good cry once and a while, like chinese history, etc., etc., etc.,... basically if you are a woman that likes to read fiction. Period. Read this book. You will enjoy it I promise. And hopefully it'll give you a lot to think about, like the way it had for me.