"Highminded, but entertainingly semi-trashy"

Shanghai Girls: A Novel Lisa See

See's in DC tonight, doing a reading for this. I wish I could go, but I can't. :(

May and Pearl are sisters, living just outside the International Concession in Shanghai and, even though it's fairly looked down on, they pose for "Beautiful Girl" posters at night. They love their life and then their father gets in trouble with some gansters and loses everything and sells them off to get married. Then they trapped behind Japanese lines during WWII and then escape to LA and live in China town and face the problems many Chinese immigrants faced during WWII and the Cold War, as well as many personal tragedies.

When I was almost done reading this, I saw Roger Sutton's tweet, "Rather be listening to Lisa See's highminded but entertainingly semi-trashy Shanghai Girls." I never would have thought of it that way, but as soon as he said it, that's all I can think of. He's right. May and Pearl's life is tragedy after tragedy after tragedy and fairly soap-opera-y... in the hands of a less-skilled writer, this plot would ruin the book. However, it doesn't. It's a good read and enjoyable.

I liked the relationship between the sisters, they were best friends but still had their grudges and sister-issues. I do really wish I could have seen more of May's side of things. As it stands, we only get her side when she's fighting with Pearl.

My only complaint is one of Chinese history (surprise, right?) The Chinese civil war started before WWII. In fact, they Communist and KMT forces formed a pact to stop fighting each other and start fighting the Japanese (the United Front). Then, once the war ended, they started fighting each other again. As far as Pearl's concerned, the civil war doesn't really start until after WWII. Now, I don't necessarily think this is See's error, because in her party lifestyle life in Shanghai, I could see Pearl not knowing, but it did give me pause.

It's not my favorite See book, but I do recommend it to her fans.

Poetry, erm... Saturday

So, I was going to post this yesterday, on Friday. But I was sick, so it didn't happen, as I spent all yesterday afternoon sleeping...

So, first, a history lesson:

In 1644, the Ming Dynasty fell to the conquesting Manchu Dynasty. Ming means bright, and the character is made up of the characters for the sun and the moon. The new dynasty took the name Qing, which means clear and has the water radical, thereby dousing the Ming. (The Qing would last until the Nationalist Revolution of 1911.) The final decades of the Ming and the first of the Qing were a time of changing social mores. During this time, there were many female poets who started gaining slight fame, even if many were anonymous. One place such poems were found were written on walls. More information and more poems can be found The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China (which is a great anthology, btw).

Now, a poem, written on a wall in the late Ming in Xinjia by someone only known as the "girl from Guji":

My silvery-red singlet is partly covered by dust,
Only a single dying lamp to keep my company.
I am just like the pear blossom after a rain storm:
Strewn all about and never making it to spring.

Now, more history:

Some of the greatest Chinese operas were written during the Ming dynasty. One such opera is The Peony Pavilion. In this opera, Du Liniang is a young maiden who dreams of the lover she hasn't yet met. She paints her portrait and then wastes away. Meanwhile, Liu Mengmei comes to the garden where Du Liniang has hidden her portrait. He falls in love with her ghost and his love brings her back to life. There's a lot more to the opera than just that, but that's the relevant part for the point I'm meandering towards.

So, the opera had a great effect on the upper class women on China. Many women responded Du's character and, like Du, wasted away and died.

In 1694, a poet named Wu Ren published The Three Wives Commentary, an edition of The Peony Pavilion with literary commentary written by his three wives.

Now, a book review:

In Peony in Love by Lisa See, See takes this commentary and imagines the lives of these three wives and how the commentary came to be written.

Peony lives a proper life and has never left her family compound on Hangzhou's West Lake. She is to be married to her father's friend's son. But on her birthday, her father stages a production of The Peony Pavilion and, when taking a break, she accidentally meets a man and falls in love. Unable to marry the man she loves, and faced with marrying a man she has never met, she becomes so wrapped up in writing her thoughts on The Peony Pavilion that she forgets to eat. Days before her wedding, she dies.

Through a series of misunderstandings, her ancestor tablet remains undotted, and she becomes a hungry ghost. She haunts her husband's family and influences his subsequent wives to continue working on her project...

This is a story that needs background information--you might want to read the ending Author's Notes before you read the book. See's imagining is tender and well-written and pays close attention to historical detail. Her portrait of Hangzhou in the years following the Cataclysm (the name given to the overthrow of the Ming) and the changing role of women during this time of extreme political upheaval. I was excited to see a tale narrated by a hungry ghost, and a sympathetic one at that.

I loved it. I know a lot of people have said that it's not as good as Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but I haven't read it yet, so I can't compare. Also, I want to thank Lotus Reads for the recommendation!