John Spurling
Teoksen The Ten Thousand Things tekijä
Tietoja tekijästä
John Spurling is the British author of The Ten Thousand Things which won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in 2015. The prize carries a monetary award of £25,000 (A$50,217). The novel tells the story of painter Wang Meng during the final years of the Yuan dynasty in 14th-century China, näytä lisää as `subtle and rewarding¿. `Through John Spurling¿s writing you feel as though you are reading Wang Meng¿s paintings as he created them. (Bowker Author Biography) näytä vähemmän
Tekijän teokset
Merkitty avainsanalla
Yleistieto
- Muut nimet
- Spurling, John Antony (birth name)
- Syntymäaika
- 1936-07-17
- Sukupuoli
- male
- Kansalaisuus
- UK
- Ammatit
- playwright
- Suhteet
- Spurling, Hilary (spouse)
Jäseniä
Kirja-arvosteluja
Listat
Palkinnot
Tilastot
- Teokset
- 15
- Jäseniä
- 148
- Suosituimmuussija
- #140,180
- Arvio (tähdet)
- 4.0
- Kirja-arvosteluja
- 6
- ISBN:t
- 32
The narrator is Wang Meng, later recognized as a master painter of the final decades of the Yuan Dynasty, what Westerners would call the midfourtheenth century. Wang’s artistic gifts, however, are matched by his uncanny talent for playing a minor role in significant events, a journey that occupies this supposed memoir, written in prison during his last years. His career as artist and sometime civil servant correspond with (and take flight from) the political upheaval that brings the first Ming emperor to the throne. (The manner in which this dynastic founder seizes and employs power resembles the rise of Mao, by the way.)
The novel begins, though, with a small moment, a fruitless search for a jade ring, a coveted family heirloom. Typical of The Ten Thousand Things and its protagonist, the effort evokes deep feelings in Wang, which he examines for their justness and morality, but also in light of his love for life and beauty.
Many such small moments, rendered in prose that flows like the streams and waterfalls that Wang enjoys painting, yield fascinating, knotty musings on politics, war, justice, government, friendship, sex, art–many of the ten thousand things, in other words. Often, I had to look up from the book to ponder what I’d just read, and I came away admiring how Spurling has thought deeply about life.
Most of the narrative unfolds in first person, but sometimes in third, as if the editors of his memoirs were speaking, but it could as well be Wang himself, in his self-conscious complexity. Several times, other characters accuse him of being emotionally cautious, and outwardly, he is. But inside, he’s a boiling cauldron, and his struggle to manage that and do the right thing makes him human. At the same time, he’s always trying to improve as an artist and is terrified of allowing pride, laziness, or foolishness to hamper his vision, an internal conflict that speaks to me
Despite its philosophical nature, I find the narrative compelling and tense, and the pages turned quickly for me. I do think Spurling does himself or the reader no favors by occasional foreshadowings, like “he would never have believed that such-and-such could happen,” which to me only get in the way. But in any case, you have to be in the mood for a meander, not a gallop, and though the story grows, it’s not what you’d call a coherent, classic plot.
All told, a wonderful book.… (lisätietoja)