Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See is a historical novel. It follows Tan Yunxian, a female doctor in 15th-century China, through the four stages of her life from age 8 (milk days) to age 15 (hair pinning days-awaiting marriage) to rice-and-salt days (“the most important years in a woman’s life. They are when I will be busy with wife and mother duties”) and finally sitting quietly days. 15th century China was not a good time for women, even high-ranking women like Tan Yunxian. This was a time of foot binding for high-ranking women and domination by husbands whether she was a wife, concubine, or servant. Lady Tan’s circle of women does their best to support each other in the strange misogynistic world.
Every historical novel is a balance between the historical research and the storytelling. This book is dominated by the historical. At times, it feels like non-fiction as the author packs in so many fascinating details. Much of the novel is based on Miscellaneous Records of a Female Doctor written by Tan Yunxian, “in a standard catalog of the twelve thousand known Chinese medical works to be found in Chinese libraries, only three were written by women, with Tan Yunxian’s text being the earliest.”
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