Peony in Love by Lisa See

Back in 2008, I read Lisa See’s interesting novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.  The story, set in China, thoroughly examined the role and treatment of women in 19^th century China.  I had a vague notion of “foot binding” but no detailed information.  After Googling images, I was horrified.  When a book club member suggested See’s 2007 novel, Peony in Love, I winced just a little.  This time the author sets her story in 17^th century China.  Embedded amongst all the feet, the I discovered a love story like no other I have ever read.  I forgot the feet and switched to the heart.

The Organization of Chinese American Women named Lisa See the 2001 National Woman of the Year.  She has written several novels, all of which revolve around lost or covered up stories and the relationships among women.

Peony is a young girl of about 15 – only weeks away from her marriage to the son of a moderately well-off family.  Peony has never seen her intended, but at an intermission in an opera, The Peony Pavilion, she steps out and meets a handsome young man and immediately falls in love.  As her wedding approaches, she fears a wizened old man would be her husband.  She pines for her mysterious young man to the point of starvation and exhaustion. 

The array of unusual customs and habits of the period staggers the imagination.  After a meal, Peony hears a drum and cymbals calling the women to the garden.  Peony is first out the door.  See writes, “I needed to proceed cautiously, fully aware that men who were not family members stood within our walls tonight.  If one of them should chance to see me, I would be blamed and a bad mark set against my character” (9).  Hard for us to grasp such a mindset in today’s society. 

In addition to other men, Peony has a deep and abiding commitment to respect and honor her father.  See writes, Peony ‘had lived fifteen years without having committed a single act that anyone in my family could call unfilial” (11).  Peony becomes a writer, commenting on the opera she has seen.  He father gives her a present.  “He went to a camphor-wood chest, opened it and pulled out something wrapped in purple silk woven in a pattern of willow.  When he handed it to me, I knew it was a book. […] I loved books.  I loved the weight of them in my hands.  I loved the smell of ink and the feel of the rice paper.  ‘Don’t fold over the edges of the page to mark your place,’ my father reminded me.  ‘Don’t scratch at the written characters with your fingernails.  Don’t wet your finger with your tongue before turning the pages.  An never use a book as a pillow” (25).  A wise man indeed.

I did see one anachronism, which I always enjoy finding in novels.  Peony mentions “Piles of fruit […] in cloisonné dishes” (52).  While the Chinese did produce dishes with pieces of metal that pooled glaze of a certain color, the term, cloisonné first appeared in French in 1863.  Peony could not have known that word, which means “compartment.”

As a note in the front of the novel explains, the opera, The Peony Pavilion, was first produced and published in 1598.  See based Peony on Chen Tong born about 1649.  The Three Wives Commentary on the opera, became the first book of its kind written and published by women anywhere in the world.  The factual basis for this story makes it all the more horrific and wonderful.  Lisa See’s Peony in Love, is a wonderful historical novel, which opens windows on a secretive and hidden period in Chinese history.  See has several other novels, and I think I hear them calling from my PC.  5 stars

--Chiron, 5/1/15

Her Texas: Story Image, Poem & Song Edited by Donna Walker-Nixon, Cassy Burleson, Rachel Crawford & Ashley Palmer

We round out the first Women Writers Month on “Likely Stories” with a wide-ranging and interesting collection of writings in multiple genres.  Creative non-fiction leads off, followed by song, poetry, fiction and an interesting section on “Lagniappe: An Editorial Extrusion.”  A lagniappe is a small gift given to a customer by a merchant following a purchase, for example, a thirteenth donut when someone purchases twelve.  Three of the editors contributed to this section.  Rachel Crawford begins with “First Names,” an especially interesting short story.  Cassy Burleson adds five fine poems, and novelist Donna Walker-Nixon contributes an excellent short story, “Johnny Messy Skin.”

This volume, published in 2015 contains so many impressive works, I hardly know where to begin to offer samples, as I usually do.  Among the creative non-fiction pieces, I especially liked Betty Wiesepape’s interesting and detailed story of a marriage in the beginning of the twentieth century.  Wiesepape writes, “Ransom Filmore Holland took Vera Kate Bruner to be the mother of his five children on December 24, 1913.  It was not the kind of wedding young women dream about.  No courtship, no matching gold bands, no long white wedding dress – only a hurried buggy ride to purchase a marriage license and stand before a justice of the peace before the Smith County courthouse closed for the Christmas holiday” (55).  Santa never delivered a wedding present quite like he did that day.

Amanda Pearcy wrote four songs, and I especially appreciated “Make Me a Pallet on the Floor.” Perry wrote, “Mama prepare, prepare a room for me. / Mama make me a pallet on the floor to sleep / I’m comin’ home to you / I’m comin’ home to you / I ain’t gonna go on like this no more // Papa bring your mean, bring your mean on me / Papa ain’t no mean I ain’t known or seen / I’m comin’ home to you / I’m comin’ home to you / Like the Prodigal Son, I’m comin’ home” (179).  Like many of the works in this collection, women’s anguish, hope, fears, and joy are expressed with words of truth and emotion.

The collection of poetry contain a number of well-known writers.  Anne McCrady has a reputation in Texas, and someday, I believe her value as a poet will expand well-beyond the Lone Star State.  In “camp Song,” she wrote, “In the pale light / of a canvas tent dawn, / cicadas kazoo / the last verses of their camp song, / that tinnitus of summer. / Hidden in beds of thin grass, / crickets whistle / their own tinny hymn / and out by the pond, / amorous tree frogs blurt / wet advances too late for now / for evening love” (259).  A poet, who can write such a tender, pleasing poetry, full of vivid images, certainly deserves a wider audience.

The fiction selection also presented some difficult choices for a favorite, but since I love – and play – word games, I am going to go with Laurie Champion’s neat and compact little slice of life story, “I’m Her(e).”  A couple meet up in a motel room and duel with pronouns.  Champion writes, “We laughed a lot.  ‘Knock-knock,’ you said one morning when you heard my knock at your hotel door. // ‘Who’s there?’ I asked. //’It’s I’, you said.  You cracked open the door. // ‘Yeah,’ I said.  ‘It’s me.’  You told me I should keep my pronouns straight, said something about subjects and objects and explained the difference between the use of me and I, her and she.  I listened to you, watched you smirk.  I stood outside the room and waited for you to open the door wider, invite me in.  You finished talking, paused, and looked at me, gazed at me as though sizing me up.  Not quite sure what to say, I finally twisted one corner of my mouth into a faint smile and said, ‘It’s you,’ I said.  ‘I’m here.’ // ‘This is he,’ you said. // ‘I’m hemmed,’ I said.  I rolled my eyes and wondered why I told these stupid jokes, played dumb word games.  Perhaps it was part of our agreement.  Our unspoken promise to each other not to take things seriously, or too seriously, as you once put it” (316).  Seems to me these two have a case of the nerves, and from the mention of another woman, I am betting this is a tale with a tryst. 

Interspersed among the writing are many interesting black and white photos of children, adults, and flowers, portraits and landscapes.  Also included are a number of photos of drawings and paintings.  These images make wonderful decorative elements among the words.

While Her Texas: Story, Image, Poem, & Song Edited by Donna Walker-Nixon, Cassy Burleson, Rachel Crawford, & Ashley Palmer does have some pieces less equal than others, it most certainly would make a wonderful gift to the reader in your life.  This celebration of woman belongs on every reader’s book shelf.  It has plenty of writing to justify 5 Stars.

--Chiron, 3/15/15

Maru by Bessie Head

I recently reviewed the great Alice Walker novel, Temple of my Familiar.  In this novel, she mentions an African writer Bessie Head.  Most of the time, books and authors mentioned in novels are as fictional as the rest of the story.  I had never heard of Bessie, but something in Walker’s description piqued my curiosity.  I did a search and found numerous websites devoted to this important African writer. 

Bessie Head was born on July 6, 1937, in Natal.  She did not know her parents.  Her mother was a Scottish woman and her father was an unknown Black South African.  As a result of her mixed-race status, she suffered greatly from discrimination by Africans.  In January 1956, at age 18, Bessie received a teaching certificate. She immediately began teaching at the Clairwood Coloured School in Durban.  In June of 1958, she resigned to become a journalist in Durban.  After stints at few newspapers and magazines, she began her own newspaper, The Citizen, which promoted Pan-African views.  In 1964, she left South Africa for a teaching job in Bechuanaland Protectorate, in a village called Serowe.  In late 1965 she began writing seriously with financial help from some writer friends.

In early 1969, she suffered a mental breakdown and was briefly hospitalized.  Surprisingly, this setback had two helpful outcomes. First, the villagers who had resented her now accepted her as crazy and left her alone.  She became calm and creative once again.  A novel, Rain Clouds was published in New York and London, and it received excellent reviews.  With encouragement from new friends, and in a wave of creativity, she began a new novel, Maru, which was published to rave reviews in 1971.  Maru won numerous awards in Africa and Europe.  She had become Africa’s first great woman writer.  Unfortunately, she suffered another breakdown in late 1971 and was again hospitalized.

Once on the road to recovery, she started her most difficult book, A Question of Power. It is an autobiographical novel, using incidents from her early life as well as her recent nightmares.  A Question of Power appeared in October 1973 to immediate praise and acclaim.

A Question of Power is the first of her works I found.  This horrific tale of her breakdowns, nightmares, hallucinations, hospitalization was difficult to read, yet I found myself unable to put it aside.  Over the years I have read a few novels depicting mental illness, but Bessie Head’s work tops them all.  I frequently found myself stopping, reflecting, re-reading paragraphs, and shaking my head at the inhumanity among members of the human race.  This novel is not for the faint of heart.

Maru on the other hand, bears only scant comparison to Question.  This award-winning novel tells a story of an orphan, Margaret Cadmore, raised by a white Englishwoman.  Margaret is lonely, and she suffers discrimination by the dominant tribe in her village, the Botswanans, which considers Margaret and her people, the Masarwa, as “less than human,” “unable to think and reason,” and “so stupid the only blanket they have is to turn their back to the fire.” 

In an interview, Bessie said of Maru, “With all my South African experience, I longed to write an enduring novel on the hideousness of racial prejudice.  But I also wanted the book to be so beautiful and so magical that I, as a writer, would long to read and re-read it” (xii). 

Some of the Botswanans feel the winds of change coming.  Head wrote, “Should [Maru] bother to explain the language of the voices of the gods who spoke of tomorrow?  That they were opening doors on all sides, for every living thing on earth, that there would be a day when everyone would be free and no one the slave of another?” (49).

Enduring and magical are two apt words to describe this work.  Her lyrical descriptions of the people, the village, her friends – and those who fought against her – are as memorable as any novel I have ever read.  5 Stars

--Chiron, 11/9/13