‘Snow Flower’ detailed, fascinating read

Most novelists who create an entire world for their readers have stepped forward into science fiction. Lisa See has taken a step into the past.

She has set “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” in rural 19th-century China, in a richly described culture where women squeeze themselves into expectations as narrow as the exquisitely embroidered shoes on their artificially tiny feet.

Lady Lu, 80, is confessing. She begins with the waning of her milk years, the time when she was a nearly genderless little kid named Lily, running through the village with other little kids.

This time was to end when she was 6, when her feet were bound and she was transported into her daughter years. She would spend these years in the women’s chamber upstairs, stitching her trousseau.

Instead, a matchmaker comes from town and proclaims that her feet will be perfect if the binding is postponed a year, and that an advantageous marriage might be arranged if Lily can be matched with another little girl. Girls matched in this way are called laotongs – “old sames” – and remain best friends for life.

Lily’s old same is Snow Flower, the daughter of a more prosperous family in town. The girls communicate by exchanging a silk fan on which they take turns writing delicate little notes in the elegant secret language of women called nu shu.

The girls’ bond grows after they have their feet bound, a hideous process that Lily describes with the matter-of-fact details of the doomed. Her feet must be perfect; her family’s fortunes depend on it.

Lily marries well, as promised and moves into her rice and salt years. Snow Flower is not so lucky – indeed, was never lucky.

Three-quarters of a century passes quickly in 200-plus pages, and Lady Lu’s tone is so straightforward, the story goes flat at times. But what she lacks in drama, See more than makes up with details.

Is she a brilliant researcher, or just really imaginative?

Either way, “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” is fascinating.