The Ten Thousand Things: A Novel - Softcover

Spurling, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1468310127 ISBN 13: 9781468310122

Publisher: The Overlook Press, 2015

Synopsis

In the turbulent final years of the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Meng is a low-level bureaucrat, employed by the government of Mongol conquerors established by the Kublai Khan. Though he wonders about his own complicity wit this regime―the Mongols, after all, are invaders―he prefers not to dwell on his official duties, choosing instead to live the life of the mind. Wang is an extraordinarily gifted artist. His paintings are at once delicate and confident; in them, one can see the wind blowing through the trees, the water rushing through rocky valleys, the infinite expanse of China’s natural beauty. But this is not a time for sitting still, and as The Ten Thousand Things unfolds, we follow Wang as he travels through an empire in turmoil. In his wanderings, he encounters, among many memorable characters, other master painters of the period, including the austere eccentric Ni Zan, a fierce female warrior known as the White Tigress who will recruit him as a military strategist, and an ugly young Buddhist monk who rises from beggary to extraordinary heights. The Ten Thousand Things is rich with exquisite observations, and John Spurling endows every description―every detail―with the precision and depth that the real-life Wang Meng brought to his painting. But it is also a novel of fated meetings, grand battles, and riveting drama, and in its seamless fusion of the epic and the intimate, it achieves a truly singular beauty. A novel that deserves to be compared to the classic Chinese novels that inspired it, The Ten Thousand Things is nothing short of a literary event.

About this title

About the Author:

John Spurling is the author of many novels and plays, including The Ten Thousand Things, winner of the 2015 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, also available from Overlook. His plays have been performed on stage, television, and radio, including at the National Theatre. He lives in London and Arcadia, Greece, with his wife, biographer Hilary Spurling.

Review:

“Enchanting . . . Mr. Spurling traverses [the plot of The Ten Thousand Things] without a shred of the grandiosity or portentousness often found in historical fiction. Wang Meng’s fascinating life seems to flow ahead with the grace of a leaf on a stream. He is always richly attentive to the state of the world―and what he philosophically calls its ‘mere tangle of circumstances’―as it passes by.”
- Wall Street Journal

“[Combines] the delicacy of an old Chinese landscape painting with the brutality of Chinese history . . . The narrative resounds with the vivid detail and the ever-changing tides of war and politics, art and nature.”
- Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“One of the greatest pleasures of this novel is seeing fourteenth-century China come vibrantly alive. The countryside is painted in rich evocative detail and readers will be completely transported . . . It is striking that a novel set hundreds of years ago in China can have lessons that resonate even in our times . . . The beauty of John Spurling’s novel is that it is at once an incredibly detailed story and a sweeping view of the times . . . The Ten Thousand Things is not unlike a beautiful Wang Meng landscape painting―full of intricate gorgeous details that together coalesce into one stunning work of art.”
- Bookbrowse

“I was amazed by The Ten Thousand Things, and by John Spurling’s powerful imagination―with ten thousand details, he has brought the ancient Chinese artist Wang Meng to life in beautiful prose.”
- Xinran, author of Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother

“In this immersive tale of a landscape artist’s life, written with restrained lyricism, John Spurling has also given us an entertaining and insightful study about the art of Nature, and the nature of Art.”
- Tan Twan Eng

About this edition

• Publisher: The Overlook Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1468310127
• ISBN 13: 9781468310122
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368