I am sure I will not do justice to this magnificent and complex book, which immerses the reader in 18th century China. Döblin, who I had only known through his most famous work, Berlin Alexanderplatz, meticulously researched everything about China -- landscape and countryside, buildings and cities, clothing and interior decor, religions and mythology, imperial pomp and rural poverty, weather, salt production and other economic activities, secret societies and pirates, and much more -- and wove a not always easy to follow story out of this knowledge. The story is loosely based on a true episode, in which a man named Wang Lun led a rebellion against the emperor, but Döblin only used this as a starting point and created a whole rich imaginative world. Only occasionally did I feel I was not in 18th century China, and that was when either Döblin or the translator used words I associate with Catholicism, like "mass" and "rosary," to describe Chinese religious practices.

The novel starts by by following Wang Lun after he runs away from home, takes up with some less than savory characters, kills a man who has himself killed an innocent man, escapes the law, meets up with a Buddhist hermit named Ma No, and eventually starts leading a group of peasants and petty criminals known as the Truly Powerless. The story takes off from there, with many many twists and turns as the group develops slowly into a fighting force that attacks the powers that be. Some of it is truly horrifying. An interlude in the third of four sections focuses not on Wang Lun but on the emperor, who hosts a visit from a man who is what we would now call the Dalai Lama. The rebellion Wang Lun is leading is partly political (against the current Manchu emperors of China) and partly religious. And there the main conflict of the novel lies.

For while the book is action-packed (although it is not always clear what is happening when), it poses a deep philosophical conundrum. The Truly Powerless start off believing in the concept of wu-wei, which seems to be a Taoist concept of nonaction, or letting things happen to you without resistance (I am sure I am oversimplifying). But then they, and Wang Lun, morph into people who take definite action, and action of the most violent sort. Wang Lun is dramatically conflicted about this as the novel progresses.

This novel is deeply centered in the very specific world Döblin has created, but the issues of the powerless versus the powerful, the multiple functions of religion (including as a motive for war), and action versus inaction or nonaction have been with us throughout history. They are with us today.

Döblin is a wonderfully evocative writer. He paints vivid portraits of Wang Lun and many other characters, and of the landscapes and cityscapes they traverse. He followed the then new Futurist movement in literature, which called for concise and direct language (again, an oversimplification), up to a point. (The introduction quotes him writing to Marinetti, the main founder of Futurism, "You tend you Futurism; I'll tend my Döblinism".)

This book is part of a new series called Calligrams put out by New York Review Books (NYRB) (I found out about it because I get e-mails from NYRB). Calligrams is a partnership with the Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, and will issue books written by Chinese authors or about China. Unfortunately, because the book is handsomely designed and printed, it was marred by several typographical errors.