敦煌

by Yasushi Inoue, 井上 靖

官吏任用試験に失敗した趙行徳は、開封の町で、全裸の西夏の女が売りに出されているのを救ってやった。その時彼女は趙に一枚の小さな布切れを与えたが、そこに記された異様な形の文字は彼の運命を変えることになる……。西夏との戦いによって敦煌が滅びる時に洞窟に隠された四万巻の経典が、二十世紀になってはじめて陽の目を見たという史実をもとに描く壮大な歴史ロマン。

Genres: China, Japan, Fiction, Japanese Literature, Historical Fiction, Asia, Literature

238 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Yasushi Inoue (井上靖) was a Japanese writer whose range of genres included poetry, essays, short fiction, and novels.

Inoue is famous for his serious historical fiction of ancient Japan and the Asian continent, including Wind and Waves, Tun-huang, and Confucius, but his work also included semi-autobiographical novels and short fiction of great humor, pathos, and wisdom like Shirobamba and Asunaro Monogatari, which depicted the setting of the author's own life — Japan of the early to mid twentieth century — in revealing perspective.

1936 Chiba Kameo Prize --- Ruten,流転
1950 Akutagawa Prize --- Tōgyu,闘牛
1957 Ministry of Education Prize for Literature --- The Roof Tile of Tempyo,天平の甍
1959 Mainichi Press Prize --- Tun-huang,敦煌
1963 Yomiuri Prize --- Fūtō,風濤

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[William2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A historical novel. Translated from the Japanese. Set at the time of China’s relationship with indigenous peoples living to its west, c. 1030 CE. The protagonist is Hsing-te who has traveled to the Silk Road Town of Tun Huang to take the orals for the Palace Examination, but he falls asleep and loses his turn. Next he finds a naked Hsi Hsia woman in the market letting herself be sold off piecemeal by a man with a cleaver; he purchases her freedom; in gratitude she gives him a cloth written with her name in Hsi Hsia script which fascinates him because, being of a scholarly bent, he did not know that that people had developed a form of writing. In order to study this script he joins a caravan to travel to the Hsi Hsia heartland in the west. Here we start to get a lot of geopolitical explication, which I suppose is unavoidable. Various ethnic groups have positioned themselves along the Silk Road and the cities are fought over for their trading rights. The main regional threat is the Hsi Hsia, though they are ostensibly vasals of the Sung Dynasty, they are also their rivals. Other groups include Turfans and Uighurs. Hsing-te gets shanghaied into a Chinese unit of the Hsi Hsia army. He makes friends after brutal fights with the unit’s commander who agrees that he, Hsing-Te, should go learn Hsi Hsia script then return to his unit and become his official reader, since orders are only delivered in the little known Hsi Hsia script of which the Chinese commander is illiterate. Frankly, it seems, the writer in more interested in the cities and wars of this era than he is in the travails of his characters, which are merely a device to string together his word picture of life in the region at the time. This is not literary fiction, but a rather desultory historical yarn. Worth reading.

[withdrawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent novel. While the book is relatively short, it contains several themes and relates a nice amount of history. The greater part of the book is a real page turner, adventure, battles, intrigue, love, sex (sort of), religion and a good deal of suspense. I shall have to find more books by Yasushi Inoue. The translation is flawless also.

——————

As the fierce sun beat down, Hsing-te continued his walk. Sweat poured from his arms, his legs, his neck, from his whole body.

“I humbly revere the Buddhas of the Three Realms,
And am converted to the teachings of the Buddhas of the Ten Directions.
I now take the Universal Vows
And chant the Diamond Sutra
To requite the great favors received
From Heaven and earth, my parents, and my country-men
And to save the deceased from the suffering in the Three Hells.
And when people see or hear the Truth
They will all follow in the footsteps of Buddha
And will thus devote the rest of their lives. . .”

—————

[Mariel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have been reading this small book for weeks. It should not take me so long to read a barely two hundred page book. I'm a reading ninja! Not to bang my own gong or anything but I am.
It's boring. Maybe it'll take me fourteen years like it took the translator to translate it from Japanese into English.

I appreciate that Inoue wanted to fill in the decade gap of history about the thousand Buddha caves and the silk road but... Yawn. Boring. It reads like James Cameron's Titanic if it were not even hocking loogies and evil henchmen and rapes from gay looking men (the kind of fun in a twisted not exactly fun as we know it way). We don't know how people really were for these ten years so let's just shoot for the mark somewhere between dead boring and stilted. Let's take something historically interesting and instead focus on a generic Hollywood love triangle type romance! The cover of my copy is even a still photograph of the failed epic production Dun-Huang (it's epic because it's big!). I'm unsure if that is connected to this story or not. It looked boring to me, anyway, from clips. The worst movie I've ever seen (Pavilion of Women) was a co-production with China and also epically sucked. You could say that I am prejudiced, if you wanted to say that I was prejudiced. Anyway, exactly my point! Battle scenes, battle scenes, battle scenes. It reads like the token racial acknowledgement in the Kevin Costner Robin Hood (the Morgan Freeman/Allah stuff, not the Christian Slater parts). Wouldn't that be fun? It's not. They have adventures and do stuff and it is all for looooove. I hate reading now! I guess I shouldn't have been reading a "novel" instead of history if that's not what I wanted. This is what people did before they wrote histories. They made shit up. Too bad that shit had to be boring.

But can't there be real characters? Inoue's The Hunting Gun was so good. What happened? There were scrolls that were hidden and then found. There are drawings and meaning attached to the caves and struggles for cultural identity. So why would you imagine what happened to happen to bloodless people that could have happened in any crappy old movie to any old crappy movie people? To please imagined generic people who probably don't have as little imagination as they are purported to have? Let's say let's not. Tun-Huang the novel has a good reputation. I thought it was going to be a different kind of historical novel, you know? It's not. It's the same.

Fourteen years... How did this lady go to work every day? I'm dying after fourteen days. (It could be all her fault. BORING.)

I talked myself out of it. I give up right before the end. Go on without me. At least Inoue got a promised trip to China out of it (I don't know if he really got to go). I didn't get to go to Tun-huang. It's not fair that my feet hurt after walking around for hours in a museum with the wrong cards. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. What's hsia-hsia for Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz? Maybe you have to be buddhist and like stories with a moral to them. I wanted real characters who come to believe rather than believe because that's the moral the story wanted. I don't know. Ask me in fourteen years!

P.s. I should research before I write reviews. The film Dun-Huang was an adaptation of this book. It makes more sense they used those film stills now.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someone, we don’t know who, chose one of the caves in the Thousand Buddha Caves to hide thousands of Buddhist sutras and other manuscripts. That was in the early 11th Century in Central Asia, a time of invasions and devastating war. Such an invasion was the likely reason that someone caused the sutras to be hidden. It could not have been an easy task, but the few people with knowledge of the hiding place did not survive; at least they took the secret with them. It took nine centuries for the remarkable cache to be discovered.

In Tun-Huang, Yasushi Inoue, a Japanese, weaves a compelling story about the long-ago Chinese events.

Inoue does so without resort to stock characters. There is, instead, a scholar, adept at languages, too numb to fight yet unafraid to die. There is the trader, driven only by greed, who easily slides from one camp through another. There is a naked woman, pleading to be dismembered. (There are only two female characters and their appearances are profound, memorable). But not just people are characters, such is the writing. A necklace is a character. The cave where the sutras are hidden is a character. The place itself, Tun-Huang, is a character. The manuscripts. The wind. The sand. All of it.

I’m not competent to say there are Buddhist themes running through the writing. But there are certainly universal themes. In 1907, an Englishman came. He took one-third of the sutras. Then came a Frenchman. Then a Japanese. Then a Russian.

And now the cave is just a cave, the sutras just someone’s treasure.

[Talbot Hook · Rating 5 out of 5]

2021: This book seems to fit perfectly into a distinct niche in my soul, where the Japanese temperament, Chinese history, Buddhism, caves, archaeology, Central Asia (especially the western reaches of China), deserts, and a love of manuscripts all intersect in an oddly-specific, uniquely-fulfilling manner. I can't quite explain it, but reading it produced a mélange of feelings similar to finding the long-missing piece to one's 10,000-piece puzzle — relief, ecstasy, wonder, bafflement, comfort, peace. Or perhaps it is more akin to opening a sealed grotto a thousand years closed . . .

The writing is subdued and straightforward. It is historical fiction that is far more historical than fictional in style. Inoue writes as though he were piecing together a story from antiquated scrolls and historical accounts (which, to an extent, he was); he lets the weight of history do most of the work on the reader, and his narrative sits lightly, almost airily, atop that larger, more prominent structure. Most historical fiction tends to be overwrought and a bit gaudy, as if history requires prodigious embellishment to either interest or make sense to the modern reader; yet this work, centered as it is on events that took place almost a millennium ago, feels fresh, stirring, and without affectation. Some have decried it as boring, but I don't quite think that's the case. Or, if it is, it is purposefully so. Rather, the book has all the taciturnity of a sand dune, and, when it speaks, it does so matter-of-factly and without pretense. Some have also decried the characters as rather flimsy or lacking in substance. But, again, I disagree: Inoue simply eschews the desire to give pages of diegesis to each of his character's actions, whims, and emotions. He prefers to say things like: "He was moved by powerful and deep feelings" and leaves it at that. In a way, it is purer and truer to speak of feelings and perceptions in such a manner, as any rationale we give to our feelings is by nature a post-hoc exercise in retroactive meaning-making. To say simply that we are moved, and that we know not why — what could be more honest, more humble?

In short, the book moved me, and I know not why.

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

His style is concise to the point of historical summary, frequently, but he seems to cover large ground in his books of 200-250 pages. The haiku of historical novels? I didn’t know what to make of this at first, particularly with the summary passages. It slowly dawned on me that it’s quite the little work of art. Probably better in Japanese.

The characters were drawn in enigmatic strokes. I couldn’t predict what they were going to do. The Uighur girl who changes lives, but is a victim of everyone herself, remains nameless. The hero is far from a saint, even a soldier-saint, but I cared, as us bookish types must, when he found his calling to save the Buddhist scriptures from the wars.

This is the only novel I know of about the Tangut, here in the early expansionist days of their state, Xi Xia in Chinese or with a native name that has been translated The Great State of White and High. There were odd details. His early job as a conscript is to fire a ‘whirlwind cannon’ from horseback as he gallops through enemy lines; he faints each time, but that’s fine as he’s hooked onto his horse. Later he’s involved in the establishment of a Tangut script. This state on the outskirts of China was in constant tension as to how influenced by China/how independent to be, and Inoue paints the changes of policy, and the consequences of statehood, in his brief but telling brushstrokes. Our Chinese hero has been mysteriously attracted hither, after another short, strange, never-forgotten encounter with a girl, Tangut this time. I was made uncomfortable by his attention to ‘race’, which you can argue isn’t very eleventh-century, but these are muddy waters.

Great little book. I’m onto my next of his.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strange little novel from late fifties Japan, in which Yasushi Inoue built a narrative around the texts hidden in the Thousand Buddhas Caves in Central Asia during what the West calls the early eleventh century. The Hsi-Hsia were pushing back the borders of China's Sung Empire. There were also Muslim armies in the area. Inoue creates a Chinese, Hsing-te, who improbably survives when the rest of his detachments are slaughtered, and when not in the service of the Hsi-Hsia military, translates Buddhist texts into their language. Two other military men play prominent roles, one a grizzled commander determined to avenge the Uighur princess that both he and Hsing-te loved, the other a prince of a destroyed kingdom of Khotan who is motivated by greed. Fair enough; both the commander and the dethroned prince of Khotan become vivid characters. However, the tension between Hsing-te's Buddhism and his success in the Hsi-Hsia military is not fully explored. It is not even clear what kind of Buddhism Hsing-te practices, although he is devoted to it enough that he essentially abandons the Uighur princess to her destruction. The Uighur princess is one of only two female characters, both of them brutalized by men, who appear, only briefly, and principally to motivate Hsing-te and the vengeful commander. That may be more historically accurate than we would like to admit, but this a bloody world in which women (and most men) are subject to violence, in which war for territory and treasure are the principal occupation (aside from Hsing-te and a handful of monks). Not much of an Eightfold Path there, and no sense of how people who claim to be drawn to the practice of which it is a central tenet, including soldiers, justified their actions to themselves.

[Cool_guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great historical fiction puts the reader in the mindset of the era. The characters aren't our contemporaries. Their motivations and feelings are fundamentally different. It's hard to capture just how slowly things moved in the 11th century. It's even harder to capture it without putting the reader to sleep. The author, Yasushi Inoue, pulls it off.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a deep, deep understanding of the (Han) Chinese culture, history and ethos here, in addition to a healthy dose of criticism of traditional Chinese historiography. Chinese historical records (i.e. The Twenty-Four Histories) have placed far too much emphasis on kings and generals and who controls what territory. Here, the historical events of the period serve as the mere backdrop to the action of the protagonist who completes the most historic act: the preservation of the Buddhist sutras.

Psychology matters little here. The focus is on the Act--a more "Chinese" outlook, perhaps, than what most GR readers are accustomed to.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I saw an NYRB edition of this for £4.00 at www.skoob.com and I didn't buy it! It is rare for me not to buy a book by a Japanese author when found browsing in a used bookshop and I really like the NYRB classics editions....

...I didn't buy it because it looked boring. My experience of Japanese authors writing about somewhere other than Japan was limited to the opening of Mishima's "Temple of Dawn".* I really didn't get along with that. All those temples and sutras and bodhisattvas ... "Tun-Huang" looked like it was going to be the same; 200 pages about the sunset on temple walls.

But then I found another copy at an Oxfam for £1.99 and so I bought it.

And it was not quite as dull as it looks; certainly not as ponderous or as worthy as the introduction seems to suggest. I gather that historical fiction fans like it because Yasushi Inoue doesn't dwell too much on the bullshit of his characters' lives and he's not afraid of discarding some of his research. He knows how his main character sets fire to wolf shit. He doesn't share with the readers because we don't need to know. Which is cool. It feels like someone from the 11th century could read it without going "Why's he telling me how I set fire to wolf shit?".

But the story should have been exciting. There are wars, there are treks across deserts, there are naked girls being sold in marketplaces, there are cities on fire. Thankfully there's very little about temples.

But Hsing-te's not loads of fun and he brings it down. He should have been the 11th century Indiana Jones but he keeps fainting. His bromances with Wang-li and Kuang don't really get beyond shouting at each other. There's a weird love/rape triangle that fizzles out when Hsing-te stops caring. There's an attempt to re-kindle but it's quickly snuffed out.

So, yeah, not as bad as I feared but I wouldn't go out of my way to hide it in some caves for future generations.

(* This isn't strictly true ... Mishima takes us to San Francisco in "Thermos Flask", Ryuji gets laid in Hong Kong in "The Sailor...", Endo was in France for a bit of "Wonderful Fool" I think, Murakami starts "Norwegian Wood" at an airport in Germany...etc...)...

[Lois · Rating 4 out of 5]

A historically and culturally fascinating story told in spare, precise, and beautiful language. Inoue especially excels at creating vivid images of the natural background to the human actions (or inactions) of his characters, for example:

'The sun had set below the desert horizon. In the crimson afterglow, a cloud floated, resembling the head of a yak; then its form and color slowly changed. The blinding crimson with its golden overtones gradually turned to orange, to vermilion, and finally to a light purple. When the evening dusk absorbed that purple, Hsing-te left his headquarters and mounted his camel.'

The snippets of ancient and (presumably) original poetry scattered throughout the chapters were also a unique and delightful aspect of this book. Unfortunately, the pacing felt a little slow, and I didn't find myself all that compelled by the plot. However, the interesting historical content and shimmering language more than make up for that, in my mind. I also appreciated the spiritual and philosophical side of the narration, which never felt overbearing and added a necessary layer of depth to both the storyline and the protagonist.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book's description speaks of "magically vivid scenes, fierce passions, and astonishing adventures....a profound and stirring meditation on the mystery of history and the hidden presence of the past." I'm surprised by this description of a very boring book. Interesting concept, extremely boring implementation. The skeleton of the plot is somewhat interesting, but overall it's battle after battle with very little about the caves at Dun-Huang.

[Nosemonkey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The mark of a good historical novel is whether it leaves me thinking I know something of the period it's set in, but wanting to find out more. This has made me ponder whether to pick up a history of India (to improve my knowledge of Buddhism, central to the story), one of China (the starting point, but secondary), or Central Asia (the mysterious West, about which little is known). So yeah, it does the job.

It's also impressively tightly written, considering all the historical context given to help you understand the shifting nature of the 11th century Chinese frontier that provides much of the impetus for the slightly meandering plot.

Do the characters lack depth and complexity? Yes. But it's not really about them - it's about the events they're caught up in, and the places those events happen. The characters are secondary, because they're a means to an end. It doesn't matter that you don't really care much about them - because you get caught up in the events just as they do, even if sometimes we're just on the periphery, with incomplete knowledge, just like them.

So yeah, I'm off to check the shelves for appropriate history books to find out more...

[Dianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found myself dreaming and skipping over things as the main episodes are about warfare in which the sides seem to change constantly. It is a book of verbs. I mean that actions and not thoughts or descriptions dominate. Hsing-te drifts into different situations, wars, lives, without any care for himself. And then he becomes the vehicle to rescue the Buddhist scriptures from the burning of the city. Karma fulfilled? I wondered how Hsing-te became interested in Buddhism but how little it really changed him. I welcome any answers to this question. This book grows on me as I think about it, but I had a hard time reading it. Strange, hmmm

[Hisham · Rating 5 out of 5]

In which an affable Chinese scholar leaves the imperial capital on a westward mission to obtain Buddhist sutras, accompanied by a boorishly militaristic, yet likable companion, and another greedily materialistic arrogant one.

[Terence]

5 out of 10.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a beautiful story, such an incredible event. Being quite enamored of ancient languages, this is exactly the kind of historical event that arouses my curiosity and wonder. Now we need a sequel detailing the sealing away of the Sakya library.

It is certainly a much better-constructed story than the other of Inoue's I recently read, Furin Kazan, and relates an imagined scenario for the preservation of the Dunhuang library a thousand years ago, rediscovered about a century ago.

The old Wade-Giles transliteration was annoying at first and seemed so unnecessary, given the widespread prominence of Pinyin these decades, but it grew on me by the end and I came to see the archaic spelling as suitable for such a story.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

fun out West!

Yasushi Inoue's Tonkou invents a story behind the supposed monk who sealed off the Dunhuang cave during the Song, for Aurel Stein to "rediscover" it in 1907, marking the beginning of a time-honored tradition of stealing delicious texts from Dunhuang. Four chapters in, Xingde has fallen asleep at his jinshi exam at Kaifeng and has had several adventures out west meeting sexy women as a Xixia soldier. As if the conceit of this historical fiction weren't cool enough, it also reads interestingly. Does it read funny because it is an English translation of a Japanese re-imagining of a Chinese encountering a liminally Chinese civilization? Or is it just funny?

It's nice to read about Xingde the soldier without worrying that he's not going to kick the bucket, having to fulfill his destiny of sealing the cave and whatnot. He goes to places like Ganzhou and the Uighur frontier, seemingly on the spur of the moment, but he doesn't really feel anything. He's kind of like an automaton, sometimes puzzling over things, but never very deeply. He just finished a Xixia-Chinese dictionary, and started to "get religion," as they say, but he's still a soldier-man. His superior, Wangli, commander of the Chinese contingent of the Xixia army, yells a lot and wants to die in battle. Not a contemplative, sensitive literatus like Xingde here. But bookworm that he is, he travels around and fights Uighurs too, letting fate drag him around, but not whining about it either.

In my moments of career-related anxiety, I wish to move forward like this fictional character with such confidence in the future.

[Michael Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

May I please quote, I know your time is precious dear reader, but may I please quote, for all the saints in heaven and demons under the earth, may I please quote simply one line that will convince you to read this important work?

to understand the ancient Japanese people's spiritual and psychological relationship to color-in the broadest sense, the inner lives of men and of women who trod the earth at that time, the past of its mentality shared by many who have since perished-may I say, it is absolutely essential to have their sense of color and how it affected them while pursing their daily rounds-and we also need to use the dyeing techniques of the past.

If you are not moved to read this book, what will do the trick?

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm... I found the central characters rather two-dimensional and nothing particularly interesting in the plot. Perhaps I am not Buddhist enough to appreciate the pointlessness or simplicity of it all.

[David Greaves · Rating 3 out of 5]

"You came back with your mind made up to grow old and wither away in the white grass plains." - whatever else I thought about the book, Inoue pretty much nailed it right there.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tun-Huang is a fictionalized account of how a trove of scrolls came to be stored in a sealed cave between the Taklamakan and Gobi deserts. The sealed cave, Cave 17 of the Thousand Buddha Grottos was excavated in the early 1900s and the texts unearthed therein spanned centuries, religion, and language. Most were Buddhist texts, such as a copy of the Diamond Sutra that proves to be the oldest woodblock printed work ever found. Other diverse finds involve Manichean texts, critical to our understanding of that religion, Nestorian Christian texts, and a prayer in Hebrew. It's an archeological find that sparks the imagination, and Yasushi Inoue spins a narrative towards it.

**Spoilers***
The tale is centered around Hsing-te, and administrative official in 11th century Song China that journeys north after sleeping through his civil service examination. Most of the novel takes place in the Gansu corridor, between the undulating borders of the Song, Western Xia, and Tibetan and Turkic tribes. Early his travels he becomes second in command to Wang-li a military commander saves a Uighur princess in a watchtower of an abandoned town. She assumes her fiancé dead and since Hsing-te, despite forcing himself on her, is otherwise kind and offers to hide her.

Three other characters are involved with this Uighur girl romantically. Hsing-te is ordered to go east to learn to write the Hsi-Hsia language. He asks Wang-li to watch over her in his absence. Wang-li initially refuses saying that she's a willful, demanding person who will be the death of anyone who sleeps with her, but eventually agrees. The Uighur girl has two moonstone necklaces and gives one to Hsing-te to remember her by. These necklaces pass hands over the course of the novel and are important symbols of the Buddhist vice of attachment. These moonstones could be seen as diamonds, or fake diamonds, and the reader should note a connection to the Diamond Sutra.

Hsing-te is supposed to return within a year, but is late due to getting overly focused on studies in the Hsi-Hsia capital. He returns to learn Wang-li had taken the princess as a lover, but lost her to a prince who demanded her as a concubine. The princess throws herself from a wall, in view of Hsing-te. Hsing-te comes to meet Kuang, a travelling merchant who is apparently a former royal of Khotan. He sees the necklace on Hsing-te and becomes obsessed with it. Though unstated until the epilogue, he's obviously the missing fiancé.

Kuang is the owner of the caves in which the scrolls are buried. Ultimately, he, Hsing-te, and Wang-li perish in the climax of the novel, with the prince lives to a ripe old age of 45. This is a rather ironic result given Wang-li's ominous dictum at the beginning. We would assume that the princess is taken away repeatedly by someone who is in turn more violent. Presumably, the Hsi-Hsia prince slept with her as his concubine, and presumably Kuang had not, yet their fates are reversed. Given this irony, perhaps Wang-li's dictum is wrong or incomplete. It was not necessarily sleeping with her that led to their deaths, but attachment to her and the necklaces that symbolized this attachment.

***end spoilers***

It's been over a decade since I've read either, but the Diamond and Heart Sutras are mentioned repeatedly in the text, and reading those before the novel will likely enhance the reader's appreciation. There is a point towards the end - and I'm not sure if this is a conscious decision of the author or an error in the translation - where it is very confusing as to which sutra is being immediately dealt with and transcribed. Overall, an unfamiliarity with either won't ruin the novel; the descriptions of the setting and character's mindsets are beautiful images on their own.

[Rise]

A view both macroscopic and microscopic emerges in Yasushi Inoue's historical novel of ancient China. Looking from afar, the protagonist Hsing-te sees someone as a “black speck” trailed by a long tail. It is a woman committing suicide.

Then it happened. Hsing-te saw the black speck, which had stood motionless for a while on the wall, suddenly leap off. It dropped beside the wall, trailing a long tail behind it. It was over in a second. There was no reaction in the gathering; no one else seemed to have noticed.

In time, he remembers her up close—her eyes, nose, mouth, and smile—yet always returns to her final act as seen from a great distance, as “that small dot tracing a fine line as it fell to the ground.”

Hsing-te seldom thought of the woman now. It was not that he made an effort to forget her, but somehow as time passed he thought of her less often. It did not mean that his love for the Uighur woman had decreased. He thought of her infrequently, but whenever he did, her image was always clear. In fact, each time it became more vivid. Hsing-te could recall the woman’s eyes, nose, and mouth. He also remembered her complex smile the last time he had seen her—joy, sorrow, and surprise all fused together. And he remembered, with vividness and clarity, that small dot tracing a fine line as it fell to the ground from the wall of Kan-chou.

Elsewhere, Inoue writes of “Turfan soldiers, like little moving dots, covered the plains as far as you could see.” Standing atop a fortress, “People walking about looked as small as peas.” From a window, “a large flock of birds at the edge of the sky migrating to the south like specks of dust.” By the novel’s end, a group of men is described as “walking toward the northern section of the Thousand Buddha Caves resembled ants compared to the scale of the mountain.”

The images of specks, dots, peas, and ants convey the infinitesimally small roles of individuals within the vast expanse of history. History in Tun-huang unfolds simultaneously at two scales: the intimate world of memory, grief, and daily life, and the vast movements of armies, kingdoms, and civilizations. The shifts in perspective recall Benjamin's “old rapport between the microcosm and macrocosm.”

Continued here: https://booktrek.blogspot.com/2026/07...

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yasushi Inoue is not well known in the United States. That is a pity, because he is not only my favorite Japanese author, but also the greatest ever writer of historical novels. His Tun-huang is one such historical novel, about an 11th century event that had wide-ranging results -- even if they are not known by American (or even European) readers.

I am referring to the discovery of a vast hoard of Buddhist sutras and other scrolls that had been hidden in the caves of Dunhuang (formerly Tun-huang) during wars between China and the peoples of Hsi-Hsia (the Western Xia Kingdom), Turfan, the Uighurs, and other peoples of Southwestern China. In those same caves were murals of Buddhist religious themes.

A couple of years ago, I visited the Getty Center in Los Angeles when it had an exhibit of the art of Dunhuang; so I was predisposed to like this book.

Once you get over all the Chinese place names and character names, Tun-huang is an exciting book with scenes of warfare and romance. Altogether, it is one of the best books I have read so far this year.

[Thy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm at a strange place in my life right now where I find myself deeply and strangely relating to our protagonist, Tsing-hue. To let go of what once and what could be in order to find yourself in the present is a herculean task no less. What I find admirable about Tsing-hue is his perseverance to forging (and sticking by) his own moral compass in the face of looming destruction, of divine certainty of the end. Though he is often swept away by forces larger than his own will, Tsing-hue never lets go of his commitment to life and to love. How can we transform our emotions, our legacies beyond transient moments in time and into true pillars of this earth? The answer from this book points to a dedication to the Buddha––the complete and self-initiated abdication of all material desires and wants. To live is to lose over and over again and live in despite.

[aaron trowbridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Based on incredible true events -- known to us through the discovery of a trove of documents hidden in caves in western China -- this story follows a young man as the vicissitudes of life and forces outside of his control carry him ever deeper into the frontier wilderness and epic adventures.

Just as water flows from higher to lower levels, he, too, had merely followed the natural course of events. [...] If he could relive his life, he would probably travel the same route given the same circumstances.

Steeped in Buddhist philosophy and written in the style of history -- but not missing humor, wit, and emotion -- this book vividly animates a clouded and important historical moment.

[M.R. Dowsing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Inoue is Japanese, he had an interest in Chinese history, which he used as the basis for much of his fiction. This novel provides a possible explanation of how a vast number of Buddhist scrolls discovered in a cave in the early 20th-century came to be concealed there 900 years earlier. It's a wonderfully well-imagined novel which is highly readable and more of an adventure story than I expected it to be. The only slight disappointment is that the characters lack a little depth, but otherwise I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys quality historical fiction.

[JoeG · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who knows anything about the 11th century conflicts in what we call today Inner Mongolia? The Mongols - not for another century: this conflict is between the Hsa-Hsia expansion, the Turfans, and sometimes, the Chinese and the Khitans.
Mr. Yasushi takes a few threads of known history, invents characters and complications and weaves a Silk Road carpet.
It's not perfect for many reasons: his characterization is especially weak, but the main character Hsing Te and Mr. Yasushi try hard and in the end, make for a decent read.

[Gurldoggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting as a historical piece, purporting to solve the ancient mystery of who buried thousands of Buddhist scrolls in rural Chinese mountains in the 11th century. The unusual details describe a long vanished way of life, rich cultures and fascinating traditions. It’s less successful as a novel - the characters tend to be one dimensional and the adventures limited to battle scenes and underdeveloped love affairs.

[Magda · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you tend towards history, China, ethnic conflict, military themes, Buddhism or ancient cultures, this relatively short novel set in what is today the Gansu province of China might be perfect for you. Starts slowly, and provides a lot of clearly presented details throughout, all while being an enjoyable, calming read.
My only frustration was that I don’t know the system of transliterating Chinese characters that is used in the book, as pinyin is what is used today.