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Get Breaking News on your cellLisa See discusses "Peony in Love"
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May 2008
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Lisa See makes an appearance 4 p.m. Tuesday (May 13) at Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, 2821 Turtle Creek Blvd. Your $25 ticket includes cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. Call 214-443-4747. I saw Lisa speak in New York last year at Book Expo America. It was an interesting presentation. We have an excerpt from her book here. You can also read our review of her book below. From the July 29, 2007 editions: By Anne Morris
In Lisa See's fifth novel, her first since the best-selling Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, the author again shares her deep knowledge of Chinese history and culture. The result is submersion into a faraway, long-ago formal society where lives are governed by ancient rites, and a woman's worth is best measured in her ability to give birth to sons. Peony in Love has its roots in such historical texts as The Peony Pavilion, a controversial 1598 Chinese opera in which the heroine took the unusual step of choosing her own destiny. As a girl, Peony was obsessed with the story of the opera, as were many other young Chinese women, attracted by its theme of true love. Peony was about to be married to Wu Ren, a man she had never met, when she fell in love with a handsome stranger, a poet, and risked everything to meet him at the Moon-Viewing pavilion. Long before Peony learns that the man she met secretly was in fact the man her father had arranged for her to marry, most readers will have guessed the truth. The success of the novel depends not on its soap opera plot, but on the way the details are elaborated. For example, when Peony looks back on her privileged girlhood, she sees that she and her rival female cousins "were trapped like good-luck crickets in bamboo and lacquer cages." Foot-binding, writing poetry, playing the zither and embroidering filled their days. (An interesting side-note is that foot-binding comes across as a source of pride among these women. They are the ones who impose it on their daughters.) Even so, one thrust of the novel remains the rise of women who express themselves artistically. In her research, Ms. See came across thousands of women artists and writers living and creating during the 17th century. She puts that idea into this novel, concentrating on Peony and her sister-wives, the three real women who contributed to "The Three Wives Commentary," published about the opera. But the feminist slant will probably not be what keeps you reading this book. What captivates is the real emotion that rises from the characters, ghosts included. Anne Morris, a member of the National Book Critics Circle, lives in Austin. |
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