The Ten Thousand Things (2014)
John Spurling (1936)
354 pages
Chaos and uncertainty enveloped China in the 1300’s as the Yuan dynasty, founded only a century before by the leader of the invading Mongol army, slowly lost its grip on power. A succession of ineffective Mongol emperors opened the door in China for rebel movements to gain followers, and upstart warlords fought the Mongols and one another for control of the country. While farmers and merchants struggled to survive the physical destruction of the battles and wars that swept back and forth across the countryside, those who served as civil servants faced the additional risk of being seen as supporting the wrong side in a delicate and constantly shifting political environment. Some, of course, took on active roles in the government or with rebel groups, assuming the risk of making the wrong choice in exchange for their pursuit of personal gain.
What, however, of the artists and scholars who struggled over the decision of whether to withdraw from public and pursue a quiet, scholarly life, or to engage in the political sphere in the hopes of bettering the lives of the common people? Although they may have had their hearts in the right place, and not have considered themselves actual supporters of a particular regime, they often risked the wrath of skeptics who doubted their motives. These artists and scholars faced a dilemma common to people of conscience in similar situations around the world and across the centuries: How does one best live one’s life in turbulent times? How to balance the pursuit of one’s personal passion for art or scholarship with one’s public responsibilities as a human being to others?
John Spurling’s historical novel The Ten Thousand Things, explores these questions through the life of a historical figure of that period, Wang Meng, an artist of considerable talent who also occasionally served as a magistrate. Spurling includes a painting by Wang as a frontispiece to the book, which I’ve reproduced here, and which plays a role in the story. Other historical figures, including artists, scholars, and political figures, populate the novel as well. Though I can’t vouch for the historical accuracy of all the details in the book, I did search out more details on some of the characters (an obsession my smartphone only reinforces), and what I did find mostly fit in with how they are represented in the story.As the story opens, Wang sits in prison on (an unfounded) suspicion of conspiracy against the new emperor of China, the victorious warlord who, having defeated the other rebel Chinese armies, went on to oust the Mongols, end their Yuan dynasty and found the Ming dynasty. Confined to his cell, Wang reflects back on his nearly eighty years, and how the experiences he has had and choices he has made during the tumultuous period of the decline and fall of the Mongol’s Yuan dynasty and the subsequent rise of the Ming, colored and altered his understanding of himself and the world. The novel represents, in fact, an extend flashback of Wang recalling and writing about key moments in his life.
As a painter Wang doubts his own abilities, but his work is admired by friends, art collectors and other artists. Wang in fact wishes throughout his life for nothing more than to be able to retire off to a quiet spot in the countryside and spend his time improving his technique and painting the mountain scenes that he loves so much. Inevitably, however, the real world pulls him back again and again into the fray. Sometimes his involvement comes by force or out of necessity, but other times he finds his own conscience leading him to reengage with the outside world, to use his education and abilities to better the lives of the Chinese people as a civil servant.
Though his participation in the Mongol government lasts only a relatively short time, Wang comes to find his past as a civil servant a burden as the uprising against the Mongols gains strength: despite his claims of having had only the purest intentions in serving as a magistrate, he constantly faces questions about his loyalty. A similar dilemma arises for Wang when the rebel groups begin to coalesce into a few large factions which compete to be the one that will overthrow the Mongols and claims the emperorship; caught in a region controlled by one of these groups when he returns home to care for his father, Wang again accepts a position as a civil servant, deciding that he cannot remain on the sidelines:
“Why? Because this was not so much a matter of assisting [the rebel leader] Zhang’s regime as of bringing relief to many ordinary people --- mostly farmers and traders --- in the city and district of his birth. Public order and justice, he told himself, were of more importance than the purely selfish question of his tangled loyalties…” (p. 221)When the political dynamic later shifts around him, his decision to serve comes back to haunt him again; whatever his reasons for becoming involved may have been, some among the new leadership in power are suspicious of his loyalties given his earlier willingness to serve other rulers.
Wang shares with many of the artists and scholars he feels closest to this dilemma about whether and how to help the wider public, and the risks that come with serving in government; it is, however, far from the only question that occupies his thoughts. In Spurling’s novel, Wang also reflects deeply on the inner world of his painting, as well as the works and methods of other artists he encounters or studies. Through his contemplation of his own work and that of others, and his discussions with artists and scholars about each other’s work, he develops his only abilities as a painter, as well as his appreciation of what he finds to be the wondrous variety of the world --- the ten thousand things of the title, a reference to the Chinese concept of all the parts that make up the heavens and the earth.
Through these imagined discussions between influential artists of 14th century China, Spurling reveals to us the techniques, subjects and meanings that Chinese artists were exploring in that period, as well as the importance they placed on a connection to --- or movement beyond --- their cultural and artistic traditions. For the uninitiated (such as I), and coming from a western perspective, Chinese landscape paintings --- while beautiful --- can seem to have little variation, one to the next. But through Wang and his artist friends we come to a better understanding and appreciation of the truly wide variety of themes and techniques that these paintings represent.
John Spurling’s The Ten Thousand Things succeeds splendidly in the way a historical novel should, introducing us to the culture and norms and concerns of a distant age and place, and through this journey, gives us a fresh understanding of our own daily world.
Quote from this book:
One of the quotes in the epigraph to the book particularly sticks with me:
“The empire, long united, must divide, and long divided, must unite. Thus it has ever been.”
--- Attributed to LUO GUANZHONG:
Three Kingdoms (?14th century)
Three Kingdoms (?14th century)
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf
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