I’m reading Collette’s Complete Claudine but despite Claudine’s charm, the narrative is starting to drag a bit and I’ve decided to take a break from Collette.
I just finished reading Jane Harris’s The Observations and Lisa See’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.
The Observations is similar in tone to Sarah Water’s Fingersmith but the intrigue is somewhat watered down. Bessy, a 15 year old Irish girl, recollects her experience as a maid in Victorian Scotland and the discoveries she made while in the employ of Arabella Reid of Castle Haivers. Blindly devoted to her missus, Bessy’s observations are candid and engaging as she recounts how she became entangled in the events that resulted in the fall of Castle Haivers.
The relationship between Arabella Reid and Bessy, that between mistress and maid, and the observations that these two engage in make for an interesting examination of the nature of observation and power. A well-situated woman, Arabella Reid was married out from her home in Wimbledon and shipped off to rural Scotland where her education was of little value. Interested in learning more about the nature of the lower classes, Arabella takes it upon herself to begin a set of “Observations” — noting the habits of the girls that she took on as maids and the results of experiments conducted to see their willingness to serve and obey regardless of the request. Arabella holds both physical and emotional power over her maids through her observations, testing their attachment to her by forcing them to complete tests that require them to sit and stand repeatedly or walk for miles, and asking them to maintain a journal wherein they describe their feelings regarding her and the work they complete. It is not until Bessy arrives that the power that these observations hold over Arabella becomes apparent. Though Arabella initiates the observations, she grants Bessy power over her through writing.
Through writing, these two women find voice. Bessy tells The Observations, embodying her mistress in writing and controlling her narrative. It is also through writing that Arabella wishes to gain power, hoping to be published one day as a serious scientist. As a maid and child-whore, Bessy yearns for her mistress’s love and finds a means of expression through her journal — suddenly there is someone who wants to know what she is thinking. When Arabella’s observations reveal what her mistress truly thinks of her, Bessy finds that writing can also serve her to exact her revenge, an act that drives her mistress mad. As someone from the lowest class, Bessy is accustomed to the gaze of another; through writing she becomes the one who observes.
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The relationship between women of different classes is also central to Lisa See’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, as is the theme of writing and
the power that this holds for women in a society that only values men. As laotong, Lily and Snow Flower are inextricably bound, a connection that suffers but is never truly broken despite the misunderstandings, misreadings, that mar their relationship. The art of nu shu, secret woman’s writing, is the means through which they record and express their joys and sorrows, but this mode of communication requires more than an understanding of the limited set of characters with which nu shu writing is composed; an emotional awareness is necessary. As Lily’s experiences cloud her reading, Snow Flower’s writing becomes subject to misinterpretation, the emotion behind her words becoming lost in Lily’s own self-doubt and confusion.
It is Lily’s regret that urges her to write Snow Flower’s tale; driven by her yearning to mend their bond Lily practices nu shu to make her misreading known and lend voice to her silent woman’s tale.
