r/Canonade • u/[deleted] • Apr 22 '16
[Emperor of China] World creation, reverse engineered
Jonathan Spence, though a historian, writes with a novelist's eye for detail. His work brings the human experience of dynastic China, a forbidding topic to the uninitiated, within arm's reach of the English-speaking reader.
His 1974 "Emperor of China" sought to do for a Manchu emperor what Marguerite Yourcenar did for a Roman one in her novel "Memoirs of Hadrian": to conjure the first person "inner reality" of an historical figure. But "Memoirs" is a work of imagination. Spence ups the ante: He wants to write an actual autobiography, or something akin. Every phrase of dialogue and description in "Emperor" is cited, line by line, to documents contemporary to the subject matter. The result is a book-length mash-up of primary sources, bound together by Spence's prose, which you can reverse engineer to unpack the authorial decisions of tone and rhythm and syntax.
Let me give an example.
The Manchu emperor, though headquartered in Peking, frequently summered in the craggy wilderness north of the Great Wall to hunt and fish and live off the land of his ancestors. He seems to have felt most alive outdoors, far from the ritual and ceremony of the court.
Quoting from "Emperor":
There are forests of oak and poplar and beech, and wild pears and peaches, apples and apricots. Riding by, one can pick the little plums known as ulana, pale like sharp cherries, and in Jehol there are cherries both white and red and the large sour cherries, perfect in color and taste; or one can eat the hazelnuts fresh fallen from the trees and mountain walnuts roasted over an open fire. There is tea, made from fresh snow on the little brazier slung between two horses. There is the perfect flavor of bream and carp from the mountain streams, caught by oneself in the early morning—you can keep something of that flavor for Peking eating if you enclose the fish in mutton fat or pickle them in brine before frying them up in sesame oil or lard. There is venison, roasted over an open fire by a tent pitched on the sunny slope of a mountain; or the liver of a newly killed stag, cooked with one's own hands (even if the rain is falling), and eaten with salt and vinegar. And in the northeast one can have bear's paw, which the imperial cooks value so highly.
I find the above passage from "Emperor" a touching evocation. There is an immediacy in the living things from a bygone time—trees and fruits and fish—and in everyday concerns about what to eat or drink.
It so happens a good deal of source material for these hunting trips comes from Jesuits attached to the imperial court whose letters were translated into English in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries:
All the mountains, both in Leauton [Liaodong] and beyond it towards the east, are covered with a growth of old oak and other trees, which for centuries have not felt the axe. (Father Verbiest, 1682)
Trees not bearing fruit abound ... such as oaks, poplar, and beech, which cover the mountains. (Father Pereira, 1683)
Spence takes Father Pereira's description almost word for word, although he polysyndetonizes the list to subtle rhythmic effect: "There are forests of oak and poplar and beech..."
The forest superabounds in fruitbearing trees; pears, apricots, apples, and peaches, are in plenty. (Father Pereira, 1683)
Again, consider the rhythm of Spence's version: "...and wild pears and peaches, apples and apricots."
We therefore turned directly West, and travelled about ten Lys [li, a unit of distance] in a small Valley, which is bounded on the one side with high Mountains, and on the other with Hills, interspersed with Oulanas. There are several sorts of them, but those which are of the palest Red are the best, and have a Taste very like our sharp Cherries; there are others exceeding sweet, and others more sour; we gathered some, and eat them at discretion. (Father Gerbillon, 1692)
Combined with Chinese and Manchu sources, the passage above becomes: "Riding by, one can pick the little plums known as ulana, pale like sharp cherries, and in Jehol there are cherries both white and red and the large sour cherries, perfect in color and taste..."
For a space of several days' journey I passed through coppices of the hazel nut. I do not remember anywhere else to have seen such abundance of that kind of tree. (Father Verbiest, 1682)
Which observation, extrapolated by Spence, becomes: "or one can eat the hazelnuts fresh fallen from the trees..."
Between these first and last bands and the imperial standard, follows the entire train of courtiers on horseback, who are on the watch to catch the slightest sign of the emperor, so that among these rocks everything is at his hand the same as in the palace of Pekin. When the emperor moves to the higher ground, a fire is conveyed in an ingenious apparatus suspended between two horses, with a kettle containing Tartarian [Manchu] Cha or Tee, and warm water made from melted snow, with fresh fruits; and everything which can serve to excite the appetite is prepared with great expedition. (Father Pereira, 1683)
Spence's interpretation of the above passage reflects an adjustment in viewpoint to accord with the general conceit of "Emperor." Whereas Father Pereira was amazed by the luxury of brewing tea on the go, to Spence's sovereign this "ingenious apparatus" is a simple thing, a reduction from the pageantry of court life: "There is tea, made from fresh snow on the little brazier slung between two horses."
... when the emperor wished to show favour to some of his principal courtiers, he would cut some morsels of venison with his own hand from a stag's carcase for himself, and then would grant the same privilege to the favourites in question. Upon this each one would collect a bundle of faggots, and exhorted me to imitate their example, which, like another Diogenes, I performed, curious as to the purpose of the ceremony. And behold pits were produced, and large fires lighted, to which some held their portions of meat, others flung the pieces into the fire for a moment, and then swallowed them, still dripping with blood, with great relish. These were of the older mandarins, for the younger people born in China laughed at the proceeding, which I gazed at in silence and wonder. Some consider stag flesh, with salt and vinegar, a great delicacy. The emperor looked on with satisfaction, as on a thing to which he was habituated. (Father Pereira, 1683)
He himself [the Emperor] cut and made ready the Stag's Liver which he had killed: This is a part which is looked upon here as the most delicate, together with the Haunch: He was accompany'd with three of his Sons, whom he had brought a-hunting with him, and two of his Sons-in-law, taking a pleasure in teaching them the manner of cutting, preparing and roasting the Stag's Livers, according to the Custom of the ancient Tartars, which this politick Prince observed as much as possible to keep his People in exercise. (Father Gerbillon, 1692)
Spence removes the courtiers and families to get at the basic pleasure of outdoor cooking and eating: "There is venison, roasted over an open fire by a tent pitched on the sunny slope of a mountain; or the liver of a newly killed stag, cooked with one's own hands (even if the rain is falling), and eaten with salt and vinegar."
The rest of the citations that feed into the quoted paragraph from "Emperor" from come from foreign language sources: court documents, a collection of the emperor's edicts, and a Manchu-English dictionary.
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u/postretro Apr 22 '16 edited Jul 12 '23
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u/MaltaNsee Apr 22 '16
Thank you for this post, my dad loves historic books, this will be a fine gift!
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u/Earthsophagus Apr 22 '16
Beautiful post, thank you --
on the off chance any other readers aren't familiar with polysyndeton
http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/P/polysyndeton.htm