Peony in love

Review by New York Times Review

TO the discerning eye the account of Tang Xianzu's late-16th-century Chinese opera "The Peony Pavilion" and the writing and publication in 1694 of what is known as "The Three Wives' Commentary" might seem a kind of historical "ready made." Lisa See, author of four previous novels, including "Dragon Bones" and "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan," obviously saw a crosshatched density of themes and scenic opportunities. Her new novel, "Peony in Love," is - for the reader willing to venture a crucial suspension of disbelief - a complex period tapestry inscribed with the age-old tragedy of love and death and bordered round with vignettes from Chinese metaphysics, dynastic history and the intimate chamber tales of women's friendship and rivalry. The totality is more than a reviewer can illuminate in a few paragraphs, and often more than the novelist can sublimate into the flow of a convincingly dramatic narrative. Part of the storyteller's art has always been to conceal potent meanings and implications behind the artifice of happenstance. See, obviously in thrall to the possibilities of her subject, spends much time drawing her multiple arrows of connection, but in the end achieves not so much the stylized grace of Chinese opera as the clutter-effect of a vast topical agenda. The animating premise is that of life as a shadow dance to art, in this case the celebrated opera "The Peony Pavilion," first performed in 1598 but staged in See's novel a half-century later by a well-to-do scholar and former government official, ostensibly to celebrate the 16th birthday and imminent betrothal announcement of his daughter Chen Tong, known to her family as Peony. The opera tells of love and desire so powerful that they call the heroine, Liniang, back from death - the ultimate romantic apotheosis. There is already a legend of susceptible young women succumbing to love's siren song, and the impressionable Peony will follow suit. On the first night of the performance, as she watches through a slit in the viewing screen - she is sequestered with the other young women - her gaze finds that of a handsome young man named Wu Ren. When she wanders away to the lakeside pavilion, he is there waiting. The sacred mysteries of attraction flash forth in period dress: "I stared at the ground. My bound-foot shoes looked tiny and delicate next to his embroidered slippers." By the time the nights of opera are over, Peony cannot think of an arranged marriage to an unknown man. Confined to her chamber by her mother for wandering off, she fantasizes the romance of her beloved opera, putting herself in Liniang's place and casting Wu Ren as the lover. She refuses to eat and begins to waste away. Eventually, like Liniang, Peony dies of love - or for love. Of course we await the drama of parallel redemption. But Chinese metaphysics are complex. Upon death the soul is said to separate into three parts, each with its own journey to traverse before attaining an integrated afterlife. Because a key ceremonial act has gone unperformed, Peony enters a quasi-purgatorial state. She becomes a so-called hungry ghost, capable of certain haunting visitations and contact with other dead, but denied rest. The whole novel, then, including the stories of Wu Ren's two successive wives, is presented in the voice of the restless revenant hovering in the near beyond. How you respond to this extended account of bitter frustration and longing very much depends on whether you can will yourself to invest in an essentially disembodied presence. Though the libraries are full of works about ghosts and wandering souls, few feature them as protagonists. This is for a good reason. The narrative of a human confronting the unknown generates fear and tension and nudges open the door to the mysteries. A ghost trafficking with humans offers less dynamic potential, Alice Sebold's "Lovely Bones" notwithstanding. Our interest in Peony is rooted entirely in who she was when living, and as that memory dims we register the diminishing return. Her interventions in the world of the living feel willed by the author: "When Yi did her hair, I became the teeth in the comb, effortlessly separating each snarl, tangle and strand." The friction of direct interaction is nonexistent. Luckily, See is gifted with a lucid, graceful style and a solid command of her many motifs. These - like the fascination of "The Peony Pavilion" and the inscription of commentary, first by Peony in her feverish last days and later by the ill-fated Tan Ze and then Qian Yi, both Wu Ren's wives - are worked through with care; the historical panorama, meanwhile, encompasses everything from governmental politics to foot-binding procedures. The reader is given much to ponder, but much pondering takes the place of the emotional immersion proper to opera. The ultimate artistic effect of "Peony in Love" hinges on the acceptance of the two great givens: the overpowering love ignited by a chaste moonlight tryst, and then, almost as much of a stretch, the "hungry ghost" taking long years to learn the lessons of love. Such acceptance is hard, even as we chase the carrot of suffering redeemed. Sven Birkerts is the author, most recently, of "Reading Life: Books for the Ages."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]

---

Review by Booklist Review

In seventeenth-century China, Peony, a sheltered and obedient young girl, is allowed to see the controversial opera The Peony Pavilion as part of her sixteenth-birthday celebration. During the performance, which takes three evenings to complete, she meets and falls in love with a mysterious young man. Already promised in marriage, she mourns for the love she cannot have, only to discover as she is dying that her stranger is her betrothed, Wu Ren. After her death, the burial rituals are unfinished, and she cannot go to her ancestors. Instead, she haunts her lover and uses Ren's new wife to write commentary on the opera to try to reach him, beginning a long and harrowing journey toward fulfillment and eternal rest. See brings the Chinese culture of the Manchu dynasty to life, using the wedding and burial customs to further the plot. Her novel takes on the feel of ancient writing and rivals The Peony Pavilion in romance and political commentary. But through it all, she manages to make her characters real and sympathetic and the plot twists compelling.--Dickie, Elizabeth Copyright 2007 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

---

Review by Publisher's Weekly 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) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

---

Review by Library Journal Review

In 17th-century China, pampered daughters of wealthy families emulated the romantic tragedy depicted in the popular opera The Peony Pavilion. These teenagers, known as the lovesick maidens, starved themselves to death, writing of romantic perfection. Such is the basis for See's extraordinary new novel. During a performance of The Peony Pavilion on her family's estate, 15-year-old Peony (the real-life Chen Tong) has a chaste but daringly forbidden chance encounter with a young poet just as she is about to enter into an arranged marriage. Now unable to bear being wed to a stranger, Peony refuses all sustenance while she writes her thoughts of romance in the margins of the play's script. At her death, Peony, trapped in the afterworld as a tortured "hungry ghost," infiltrates her beloved's subsequent marriages, seeking respite from her torment. See takes another little-known chapter of Chinese history, flavors it with the minutely researched customs and superstitions of the time, and produces a soaring, stunning novel of Chinese women who gave voice to their creative endeavors, no matter what the cost. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 3/1/07.]-Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

---

Review by Kirkus Book Review

Foot-binding, opera and anorexia are feminist statements in See's (Snowflower and the Secret Fan, 2005, etc.) ghost story set in 17th-century China. The monumental (55-scene) opera Peony Pavilion, written in the twilight of the Ming Dynasty, tells the tale of Liniang, who defies convention by seeking to choose her own mate, then wastes away of lovesickness. Peony, coddled teenage daughter of the Chen clan, is not the only aristocratic maiden to be love-struck by the opera (still considered outr in China today). Although promised in an arranged marriage, Peony observes a "man-beautiful" poet from behind a screen at a performance of Pavilion, and she falls in love. Risking ruin, she meets him for chaste garden trysts to discuss poetry and qinq (emotion-ruled life). As her marriage approaches, Peony emulates Liniang's self-starvation, devoting her time to annotating the pages of various editions of Pavilion. Through a tragedy of errors, Peony learns, on her deathbed, that her betrothed Wu Ren is her poet. After death, someone hides Peony's ancestor tablet, condemning her to wander the earth as a "hungry ghost." She visits Ren in dreams and pens more Pavilion marginalia. On a limbo-like "Viewing Terrace" she meets her grandmother, killed during the "Cataclysm," the carnage marking the advent of the Manchu Dynasty. Horrified, Peony witnesses Ren's marriage to her spoiled rival, Tan Ze. She molds Ze into an ideal wife, daughter-in-law and fellow Pavilion annotator. But Ze dies while pregnant, and is consigned to the Blood-Gathering Lake, special hell of women who fail at childbirth. In a world where women are punished in life and afterlife, the Manchus threaten more oppression, toward female literati who organize writing groups and publish their poetry. Peony atones for Ze's fate by helping peasant girl Yi advance socially and buck the Manchu regime--by binding her feet. As Ren's third wife, Yi joins Ze and Peony in coauthoring the groundbreaking Three Wives Commentary, which examines Peony Pavilion. See's gossamer weave of cultural detail and Chinese afterlife mythology forms an improbably inspiring tapestry of love and letters. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

---

Chapter 1 part i In the Garden Riding the Wind two days before my sixteenth birthday, i woke up so early that my maid was still asleep on the floor at the foot of my bed. I should have scolded Willow, but I didn't because I wanted a few moments alone to savor my excitement and anticipation. Beginning tonight, I would attend a production of The Peony Pavilion mounted in our garden. I loved this opera and had collected eleven of the thirteen printed versions available. I liked to lie in bed and read of the maiden Liniang and her dream lover, their adventures, and their ultimate triumph. But for three nights, culminating on Double Seven-- the seventh day of the seventh month, the day of the lovers' festival, and my birthday--I would actually see the opera, which was normally forbidden to girls and women. My father had invited other families for the festivities. We'd have contests and banquets. It was going to be amazing. Willow sat up and rubbed her eyes. When she saw me staring at her, she scrambled to her feet and offered good wishes. I felt another flutter of excitement, so I was particular when Willow bathed me, helped me into a gown of lavender silk, and brushed my hair. I wanted to look perfect; I wanted to act perfectly. A girl on the edge of sixteen knows how pretty she is, and as I looked in the mirror I burned with the knowledge. My hair was black and silky. When Willow brushed it, I felt the strokes from the top of my head all the way down my back. My eyes were shaped like bamboo leaves; my brows were like gentle brushstrokes limned by a calligrapher. My cheeks glowed the pale pink of a peony petal. My father and mother liked to comment on how appropriate this was, because my name was Peony. I tried, as only a young girl can, to live up to the delicateness of my name. My lips were full and soft. My waist was small and my breasts were ready for a husband's touch. I wouldn't say I was vain. I was just a typical fifteen-year-old girl. I was secure in my beauty but had enough wisdom to know it was only fleeting. My parents adored me and made sure I was educated--highly educated. I lived a rarefied and precious existence, in which I arranged flowers, looked pretty, and sang for my parents' entertainment. I was so privileged that even my maid had bound feet. As a small girl, I believed that all the gatherings we held and all the treats we ate during Double Seven were a celebration for me. No one corrected my mistake, because I was loved and very, very spoiled. I took a breath and let it out slowly--happy. This would be my last birthday at home before I married out, and I was going to enjoy every minute. I left my room in the Unmarried Girls' Hall and headed in the direction of our ancestral hall to make offerings to my grandmother. I'd spent so much time getting ready that I made a quick obeisance. I didn't want to be late for breakfast. My feet couldn't take me as fast as I wanted to go, but when I saw my parents sitting together in a pavilion overlooking the garden, I slowed. If Mama was late, I could be late too. "Unmarried girls should not be seen in public," I heard my mother say. "I'm even concerned for my sisters-in-law. You know I don't encourage private excursions. Now to bring outsiders in for this performance . . ." She let her voice trail off. I should have hurried on, but the opera meant so much to me that I stayed, lingering out of sight behind the twisted trunks of a wisteria vine. "There is no public here," Baba said. "This will not be some open affair where women disgrace themselves by sitting among men. You will be hidden behind screens." "But outside men will be within our walls. They may see our stockings and shoes beneath the screen. They may smell our hair and powder. And of all the operas, you have chosen one about a love affair that no unmarried girl should hear!" My mother was old-fashioned in her beliefs and her behavior. In the social disorder that followed the Cataclysm, when the Ming dynasty fell and the Manchu invaders took power, many elite women enjoyed leaving their villas to travel the waterways in pleasure boats, write about what they saw, and publish their observations. Mama was completely against things like that. She was a loyalist--still dedicated to the overthrown Ming emperor--but she was excessively traditional in other ways. When many women in the Yangzi delta were reinterpreting the Four Virtues--virtue, demeanor, speech, and work--my mother constantly chided me to remember their original meaning and intent. "Hold your tongue at all times," she liked to say. "But if you must speak, wait until there is a good moment. Do not offend anyone." My mother could get very emotional about these things because she was governed by qing: sentiment, passion, and love. These forces tie together the universe and stem from the heart, the seat of consciousness. My father, on the other hand, was ruled by li--cold reason and mastered emotions--and he snorted indifferently at her concern that strangers were coming. "You don't complain when the members of my poetry club visit." "But my daughter and my nieces aren't in the garden when they're here! There's no opportunity for impropriety. And what about the other families you've invited?" "You know why I invited them," he spat out sharply, his patience gone. "Commissioner Tan is important to me right now. Do not argue further with me on this!" I couldn't see their faces, but I imagined Mama paling under his sudden severity; she didn't speak. Mama managed the inner realm, and she always kept fish-shaped locks of beaten metal hidden in the folds of her skirts in case she needed to secure a door to punish a concubine, preserve bolts of silk that had arrived from one of our factories for home use, or protect the pantry, the curtain-weaving quarters, or the room set aside for our servants to pawn their belongings when they needed extra money. That she never used a lock unjustly had earned her added respect and gratitude from those who resided in the women's chambers, but when she was upset, as she was at this moment, she fingered the locks nervously. Baba's flash of anger was replaced by a conciliatory tone he often took with my mother. "No one will see our daughter or our nieces. All the proprieties will be maintained. This is a special occasion. I must be gracious in my dealings. If we open our doors this one time, other doors may soon open." "You must do what you think best for the family," Mama conceded. I took that moment to scurry past the pavilion. I hadn't understood all that had been said, but I really didn't care. What mattered was that the opera would still be performed in our garden, and my cousins and I would be the first girls in all Hangzhou to see it. Of course we would not be out among the men. We would sit behind screens so no one could see us, as my father said. By the time Mama entered the Spring Pavilion for breakfast, she had regained her usual composure. "It doesn't show good breeding for girls to eat too quickly," she cautioned my cousins and me as she passed our table. "Your mothers-in- law will not want to see you eat like hungry carp in a pond--mouths open with yearning--when you move to your husbands' homes. That said, we should be ready when our guests arrive." So we ate as hurriedly as we could and still appear to be proper young ladies. As soon as the servants cleared the dishes, I approached my mother. "May I go to the front gate?" I asked, hoping to greet our guests. "Yes, on your wedding day," she responded, smiling fondly as she always did when I asked a stupid question. I waited as patiently as I could, knowing that palanquins were now being brought over our main threshold and into the Sitting-Down Hall, where our visitors would get out and drink tea before entering the main part of the compound. From there, the men would go to the Hall of Abundant Elegance, where my father would receive them. The women would come to our quarters, which lay at the back of the compound, protected from the eyes of all men. Eventually, I heard the lilting voices of women as they neared. When my mother's two sisters and their daughters arrived, I reminded myself to be modest in appearance, behavior, and movement. A couple of my aunts' sisters came next, followed by several of my father's friends' wives. The most important of these was Madame Tan, the wife of the man my father had mentioned in his argument with my mother. (The Manchus had recently given her husband a high appointment as Commissioner of Imperial Rites.) She was tall and very thin. Her young daughter, Tan Ze, looked around eagerly. A wave of jealousy washed over me. I had never been outside the Chen Family Villa. Did Commissioner Tan let his daughter pass through their family's front gate very often? Kisses. Hugs. The exchange of gifts of fresh figs, jars of Shaoxing rice wine, and tea made from jasmine flowers. Showing the women and their daughters to their rooms. Unpacking. Changing from traveling costumes to fresh gowns. More kisses. More hugs. A few tears and lots of laughter. Then we moved to the Lotus-Blooming Hall, our main women's gathering place, where the ceiling was high, shaped like a fish tail, and supported by round posts painted black. Windows and carved doors looked out into a private garden on one side and a pond filled with lotus on the other. On an altar table in the center of the room stood a small screen and a vase. When spoken together, the words for screen and vase sounded like safe, and we women and girls all felt safe here in the hall as we took chairs. Once settled, my bound feet just barely floating on the surface of the cool stone floor, I looked around the room. I was glad I'd taken such care with my appearance, because the other women and girls were dressed in their finest gauze silk, embroidered with patterns of seasonal flowers. As I compared myself to the others, I had to admit that my cousin Lotus looked exceptionally beautiful, but then she always did. Truthfully, we all sparkled in anticipation of the festivities that were about to descend on our home. Even my chubby cousin Broom looked more pleasing than usual. The servants set out little dishes of sweetmeats, and then my mother announced an embroidery contest, the first of several activities she'd planned for these three days. We laid our embroidery projects on a table and my mother examined them, looking for the most intricate designs and skillful stitches. When she came to the piece I'd made, she spoke with the honesty of her position. "My daughter's needlework improves. See how she tried to embroider chrysanthemums?" She paused. "They are chrysanthemums, aren't they?" When I nodded, she said, "You've done well." She kissed me lightly on the forehead, but anyone could see I would not win the embroidery contest, on this day or ever. By late afternoon--between the tea, the contests, and our anticipation about tonight--we were all fidgety. Mama's eyes swept through the room, taking in the wiggling little girls, the darting eyes of their mothers, Fourth Aunt's swinging foot, and pudgy Broom pulling repeatedly at her tight collar. I clasped my hands together in my lap and sat as still as possible when Mama's eyes found me, but inside I wanted to jump up, wave my arms, and scream my exhilaration. Mama cleared her throat. A few women looked in her direction, but otherwise the tittering agitation continued. She cleared her throat again, tapped her fingernail on a table, and began to speak in a melodious voice. "One day the Kitchen God's seven daughters were bathing in a pond when a Cowherd and his water buffalo came upon them." At the recognition of the opening lines to every girl and woman's favorite story, quiet fell over the room. I nodded at my mother, acknowledging how clever she was to use this story to relax us, and we listened to her recount how the impudent Cowherd stole the clothes of the loveliest daughter, the Weaving Maid, leaving her to languish naked in the pond. "As the chill of night settled in the forest," Mama explained, "she had no choice but to go in nature's full embarrassment to the Cowherd's home to retrieve her clothes. The Weaving Maid knew she could save her reputation only one way. She decided to marry the Cowherd. What do you suppose happened next?" "They fell in love," Tan Ze, Madame Tan's daughter, piped up in a shrill voice. This was the unforeseen part of the story, since no one expected an immortal to love an ordinary man when even here in the mortal world husbands and wives in arranged marriages often did not find love. "They had many children," Ze went on. "Everyone was happy." "Until?" my mother asked, this time looking for a response from another girl. "Until the gods and goddesses grew weary," Ze answered again, ignoring my mother's obvious wishes. "They missed the girl who spun cloud silk into cloth for their clothes and wanted her back." My mother frowned. This Tan Ze had forgotten herself entirely! I guessed her to be about nine years old. I glanced at her feet, remembering that she'd walked in unassisted today. Her two-year footbinding was behind her. Maybe her enthusiasm had to do with being able to walk again. But her manners! "Go on," Ze said. "Tell us more!" Mama winced and then continued as though yet another breach of the Four Virtues had not occurred. "The Queen of Heaven brought the Weaving Maid and the Cowherd back to the celestial skies, and then she took a hairpin and drew the Milky Way to separate them. In this way, the Weaving Maid would not be diverted from her work, and the Queen of Heaven would be beautifully robed. On Double Seven, the goddess allows all the magpies on earth to form a celestial bridge with their wings so the two lovers can meet. Three nights from now, if you girls are still awake between the hours of midnight and dawn and find yourselves sitting beneath a grape arbor under the quarter moon, you will hear the lovers weep at their parting." It was a romantic thought--and it coated us in warm feelings--but none of us would be alone under a grape arbor at that time of night, even if we were within the safety of this compound. And at least for me, it did little to still my quivering excitement about The Peony Pavilion. How much longer would I have to wait? Excerpted from Peony in Love by Lisa See All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

---