The ten thousand things : a novel

The Resource The ten thousand things : a novel
Label
The ten thousand things : a novel
Title remainder
a novel
Statement of responsibility
John Spurling
Title variation
10,000 things
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
"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, areinvaders-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"--
Storyline
Tone
Writing style
Character
Award
Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, 2015.
Assigning source
Provided by publisher
Cataloging source
DLC
Dewey number
823/.914
Index
no index present
LC call number
PR6069.P8
LC item number
T46 2014
Literary form
fiction
Target audience
adult

Context

Context of The ten thousand things : a novel

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