"Peony in Love"

I've always had a special place in my heart for Peony in Love (2007).  I'm deeply impressed by the artistic courage it took Lisa to finish and publish this novel.  She had earlier published Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, a masterpiece by any standard.  And then she follows it with perhaps the riskiest of her novels.

Lisa faced extensive criticism of her concept for this book, told over and over that a ghost story like this has never been successful and probably never would be.  But she stayed true to her artistic vision -- and we are all blessed that she did.

Here are my first reactions to this very special novel.

I  just finished Peony in Love.  What a ride.  This novel stands out from Lisa’s previous work, the closest novel to compare it to being Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Where Lisa’s earlier novels (especially the Red Princess series) have solid structure and a somewhat Dickensian complexity and plot resolution, PL flows, carrying the reader along with it.

This novel presents the most elaborate treatment of love that she has explored so far.  Although the love of two women for each other is beautifully treated in SF, PL goes way beyond it in Lisa’s portrayal of the complex relationship of Peony, Ze, and Yi to each other  -- mostly built on love but sometimes darker emotions (Ze and even Peony herself at times).  All three of them are joined in their relationships to Ren and by the impact of The Peony Pavilion on each of them.

The brutality and insensitivity of men is powerfully shown – in the horrific experiences of Peony’s grandmother and mother during the Cataclysm and in male determination to keep women in the inner world, leaving the outer world to themselves.

Peony is a fascinating character.  She dies so early in the novel that many readers may be caught off guard.  Before she dies, she is an attractive, talented, romantic young woman with little knowledge of the world.  As a ghost, on the other hand, her experiences help her to become a wise and loving woman, as her mother immediately recognizes when they meet after the latter’s death.  Her love for Ren is so great, that it sustains her through many years of sorrow and loneliness and gradually reaches out to all who are close to him, especially her sister wives.

Lisa’s treatment of the need for women artists to be respected and to have a voice is effectively presented.  Virginia Woolf would certainly applaud.  The Peony Pavilion and its evolving commentaries are part of this as well as Lisa’s treatment of Peony’s mother and the other talented, artistic women whom Peony has a chance to meet and learn from as a ghost.

Lisa’s treatment of Peony’s father is very good.  As is true of much of the novel, as Peony’s experiences and knowledge of the past grow, she can see her father as a man who loves her very much, as a man who betrays both his principles and his family to gain power and influence, as a coward who puts personal survival ahead of protecting his family, as a man who buys his wife back from the Manchus, despite everything that has happened to her, and as the loving father who cares for her even more than she thought he did.  Changes in Peony’s perspectives of a number of people and circumstances provide very interesting reading.

PL is a fine novel – one that deserves and demands a second reading.