Peony in Love: A Novel (Paperback)

by Lisa See (Author)
Key Phrases: viewing terrace, spring pavilion, flower spirit, The Peony Pavilion, Doctor Zhao, Madame Qian (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Set in 17th-century China, See's fifth novel is a coming-of-age story, a ghost story, a family saga and a work of musical and social history. As Peony, the 15-year-old daughter of the wealthy Chen family, approaches an arranged marriage, she commits an unthinkable breach of etiquette when she accidentally comes upon a man who has entered the family garden. Unusually for a girl of her time, Peony has been educated and revels in studying The Peony Pavilion, a real opera published in 1598, as the repercussions of the meeting unfold. The novel's plot mirrors that of the opera, and eternal themes abound: an intelligent girl chafing against the restrictions of expected behavior; fiction's educative powers; the rocky path of love between lovers and in families. It figures into the plot that generations of young Chinese women, known as the lovesick maidens, became obsessed with The Peony Pavilion, and, in a Werther-like passion, many starved themselves to death. See (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, etc.) offers meticulous depiction of women's roles in Qing and Ming dynasty China (including horrifying foot-binding scenes) and vivid descriptions of daily Qing life, festivals and rituals. Peony's vibrant voice, perfectly pitched between the novel's historical and passionate depths, carries her story beautifully—in life and afterlife. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Nicholas Delbanco

Lisa See's new novel continues her exploration of the Chinese past. Peony in Love is in no formal sense related to her bestselling Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, or her memoir On Gold Mountain, but it profits from the same sensibility and comes from the same pen. This book has a three-part structure ("In the Garden," "Roaming with the Wind," and "Under the Plum Tree") and is deeply rooted in such texts as Tang Xianzu's opera "The Peony Pavilion," first produced and published in 1598. Importantly, too, it derives from The Three Wives Commentary of 1694, "the first book of its kind to have been published anywhere in the world to have been written by women -- three wives, no less." As historical fiction, Peony in Love attempts -- almost entirely successfully -- to immerse the reader in a world both strange and distant; whereas Snow Flower dealt with 19th-century China, the action of this book transpires two centuries before.

See's love story takes as its narrator a girl dead at 16 and doomed to be a "hungry ghost" for decades until she can be "transformed into an ancestor." That narrator, young Peony, is a beguiling mix of innocence and experience; we watch her both as the pampered and studious daughter of a wealthy family and as a starveling wisp of air who cannot negotiate corners and must avoid mirrors and swords. There's a prodigious amount of information here digested and conveyed.

"I thought of the gifts my father would send with the pieces of pig," Peony tells us, "sprigs of artemisia to expel evil influences before my arrival, pomegranates to symbolize my fertility, jujubes because the word sounded like having children quickly, and the seven grains, because the character for kernel was identical in writing and sound to offspring." This comes as preparation for marriage. Peony dies before that ceremony can be consummated, however, and here is part of how -- still conscious, still serving as our narrator -- she is prepared for death: "Mama placed a thin sliver of jade in my mouth to safeguard my body.

Second Aunt tucked coins and rice in my pockets so I might soothe the rabid dogs I'd meet on my way to the afterworld. Third Aunt covered my face with a thin piece of white silk. Fourth Aunt tied colored string around my waist to prevent me from carrying away any of our family's children and around my feet to restrain my body from leaping about should I be tormented by evil spirits on my journey."

That journey does seem strange. These characters cannot bear too much scrutiny; it's never clear, for example, why the poet Wu Ren fails to declare himself to her on their "three nights of love." That the girl should not know him makes sense; she's been protected all her life and forbidden to meet men. But he's her father's chess-playing companion, familiar with the great Chen house, and would know by her dress and deportment that she's his bride-to-be. Also, the behavior of the 9-year-old Tan Ze, who becomes Wu's second wife, is capricious to the point of caricature.

The last line of the first paragraph of the book, though true enough, strikes a discordant note, "It was going to be amazing," and often there's a romantic breathiness to the prose that feels like poor translation: "Grandmother laughed. The sound was so foreign that it jarred me from my tragic circumstances. I turned to her and her face practically danced with mirth and mischievousness. I had never seen that before, but I was too heartbroken to be hurt by that old woman's amusement at my desperate circumstances."

Finally, there can be inadvertent humor in the fantastical aspects: " 'We asked the netherworld bureaucrats and received one time return-to-earth permits,' Grandmother explained. More pearls filled my heart." But these objections belong to another tradition than the one See is writing about. She manages, with great dexterity, to make them seem irrelevant. A novel whose protagonist hangs, after death, from a room's rafters and climbs inside a rival's womb to untangle a child's umbilical cord, who dies of self-starvation and communes with the ghosts of her mother and grandmother, who pens a major commentary on a seemingly seditious text and ends up reconciled with both of her successor-wives -- well, suffice it to say that the pleasures of Peony in Love are neither those of logic nor chronology. Years pass in a paragraph; realms are traversed in a line. This reader felt, from time to time, almost literally transported and commends the willing suspension of Western disbelief. There's much here to be savored and a great deal to be learned.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (February 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812975227
• ISBN-13: 978-0812975222
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (125 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,713 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Love is of source unknown, yet it grows ever deeper, August 4, 2007

By	Amanda Richards "Modest to the extreme" (Georgetown, Guyana) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Peony in Love: A Novel (Hardcover)

The old theme of star-crossed lovers takes an Oriental twist in this historical period drama about a love-struck young girl, an enamored poet, and the opera that not only brings them together but casts them apart.

This story is about Peony, a young woman and only child of a wealthy family. Set in seventeenth century China, when well brought up young women weren't allowed to be seen or heard, especially by strange men, Peony's father organizes a theatrical performance of the opera "The Peony Pavilion", and although her mother doesn't want her to see it, arrangements are made for a screen to be erected, behind which the women can get a glimpse of the epic opera. Peony is a big fan of "The Peony Pavilion", having collected many editions, reading and memorizing many of the popular segments, but even though seeing it live is a big thrill, she becomes more interested in observing a young man sitting in the audience.

Risking her reputation, she wanders off on her own, and as fate would have it, she encounters the young man in an isolated place, where they discover that they enjoy each other's company very much. Unfortunately, Peony is already betrothed by way of an arranged marriage, and as the big day approaches she spends her days dreaming of the young man and obsessively recording her thoughts in an edition of the great opera, refusing food and ignoring the advice of the doctors and other experts that come to see her. From this point her life takes a dramatic turn with a cruel twist, and the story and the opera fuse together in elaborate fashion, becoming a dark fantasy full of ghosts, superstition and tradition.

The author lingers over the historical details, the proud traditions, the poetry of the opera and the protocols of the afterlife, as well as other remarkable activities such as foot binding and embroidery, and although this is an extremely poignant and melancholy book, it is so rich in description that you won't want to put it down. A dramatic, absorbing and informative story that will remain with you for a long time after you've finished reading it.


Amanda Richards, August 4, 2007

56 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Peony in Love, June 25, 2007

By	Karen Ornelas (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Peony in Love: A Novel (Hardcover)

"There are several elements here - Tang Xianzu's opera, the lovesick maidens, the history of The Three Wives' Commentary, and the societal changes that allowed it to be written. I know they're rather complicated and overlap a bit, so please bear with me." So says Lisa See, the author of Peony in Love in her notes at the end of the novel.

Fortunately, I also found the text of the notes on the author's web site under the heading `On Writing Peony in Love' while I was reading the book. If I hadn't, I'm sure I would have given up on this novel at about page 110. The notes provided much needed insight into the author's purpose and an invaluable historical context for what I was reading.

I did find the historical aspects and the vivid descriptions of the Chinese afterlife fascinating. Having already read Snowflower and the Secret Fan I didn't feel I needed another description of footbinding so I confess that I skipped that brief passage. The author's ultimate point is clearly the issue of women's voices and `a woman's need to be heard.' She makes this point strongly - and repeatedly. For all of that, there was still much to enjoy in the novel.

In my opinion, this book doesn't live up to her earlier novel, Snowflower and the Secret Fan. I really feel the publisher should change the Author's Notes to a Foreword and I urge anyone who chooses to read this to read the Author's Notes first.

45 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Romantic, but definitely not a romance, June 26, 2007

By	Diana Raabe (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Peony in Love: A Novel (Hardcover)

Lisa See's latest endeavor, Peony in Love, is destined to be as successful as her previous novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. With too much intelligent history to be pegged a romance, Peony in Love is, indeed, romantic. It is a tale of love and death in 17th century China - a time of Cataclysm and a place where, pound for pound, salt was more valuable than women. Painting her words on a ghostly dreamscape, See once again explores themes of love, language and the strength of women amidst a revealing and sometimes disturbing history.