Gull Between Heaven and Earth

by Boey Kim Cheng

For Emperor and Country, or Love and Family?

Zimei (子美) is faced with a bleak future. Despite his great potential and hailing from an illustrious lineage, he serves his Emperor as a lowly Tang Dynasty official, having failed the Imperial Examinations twice.

He sets out on a lifelong journey, seeking out first hermits and sages, then peace and home while documenting in verse the sufferings unleashed by civil war, sealing a friendship with the infamous Li Bai that will leave a remarkable legacy to Chinese literature.

Zimei's story is the life of Du Fu (杜甫, 712-770), China’s first poet-historian and the nation’s greatest poet, reimagined in this epic debut novel by multi-award-winning author Boey Kim Cheng.

“Subdued and sensitive. The triumphs and sorrows of one of China’s greatest poets are narrated with grace and autumnal beauty.” —Tan Twan Eng, Man Asian Literary Prize-winning author of The Garden of Evening Mists

Genres: Fiction, Historical

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2017

About the author

Boey Kim Cheng is a multi-award winning Singapore-born poet, and a 1996 recipient of the National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award. He emigrated to Australia in 1997, but returned in 2013 as one of Nanyang Technological University's writers-in-residence; he is currently Associate Professor in the NTU Division of English. He has published five collections of poetry, including Clear Brightness, which was selected by The Straits Times as one of the Best Books of 2012. His writing is frequently studied in tertiary and university institutions in Singapore and abroad.

Boey co-founded Mascara Literary Review in 2007, the first Australian literary journal to promote Asian Australian writing, and in 2013 co-edited the groundbreaking anthology Contemporary Asian Australian Poets. In 2017, Epigram Books reissued his celebrated travel memoir Between Stations, and released his first novel, Gull Between Heaven and Earth, on the life of the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu.

Reviews

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a truly exceptional book--a 'fictionalized' biography of Du Fu (whose familiar name was Zimei), considered to be China's greatest poet, extracted by the author from the many poems Du Fu wrote describing what he saw and was experiencing around him--preserved not only by him but also by anthologists and his peers during one of the most turbulent periods in Chinese history (the end of the Emperor Xuanzong's reign, the Battle of Talas and the An Lushan Rebellion of the mid-800s).

What makes the book so exceptional are the details. As a lover of Chinese history, I have travelled and spent time in most of the locales Du Fu passed through during his lifetime (Xi'an, Luoyang, Chengdu, Tianshui, Longmen Grottoes, the Xiang River, Dongting Lake) albeit in the past 30 years, not the 8th century. But the geographical descriptions of these locales is spot-on, not only in the broader details of the terrain (mountain ranges and rivers), but the very fauna and flora found at each of these locales--the very cliffs, waterfalls and passes. Couple that with details of what was happening politically in China during those years (730-770 CE) and you have a book which captures a time and place like few others. The only corresponding book I have found that was as similarly engrossing 'you-are-there-tale' of a Tang poet is Arthur Waley's The Life and Times of Po Chu-I 772-846 A.D..

Why was this particular period in Chinese history (the Tang Dynasty, 618-907 CE) so given to the appearance of China's best poets? The answer lies in a conversation (clearly fictionalized but included by the author to help readers understand the important role of poetry during the Tang Dynasty) between Du Fu and Zheng Qian, a historical figure born in 691 and a drinking companion of Du Fu's during their early years: "What is poetry for? Why do we spend our lives chasing lines that are useless, words that can't feed even a starving child? It can and must do some good. Remind the rich and powerful of their responsibility towards the poor, awaken the ruler when he neglects his duties, and give comfort to those suffering. How can one have inner peace when there is so much injustice and suffering in the world? As Master Kong [Confucius] says: 'The junzi's [superior person's] first duty is to serve his country. To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order; we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right." (p. 62)

Du Fu, who never saw himself as a great poet during his lifetime, was able to capture a time and place better than any other poet of the age. Each of his poems reflects a page in the story of his and his country's life. As he is told by a fellow poet "Poetry can and must face up to what is happening in the world, must somehow record the sufferings of the people, make it into song, and by doing that, yield some consolation" (p. 184). No poet did that as well as Du Fu, perhaps best known for the famous line--as he looked out over fields strewn with the dead after years of famine and internal wars--"The country is broken, only the hills and rivers remain" (written in 757--two years into the An Lushan Rebellion).

This book would make an excellent gift to anyone interested in Chinese history who hasn't yet discovered Chinese poetry. An excellent little volume to read at the same time is Arthur Cooper's Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems for its introduction to understanding Tang poems.

I would also highly recommend it to anyone studying Chinese history. Forget the poetry and just read it for one of the best (fictionalized) first-person accounts of one of China's most colourful and traumatic periods when greed, corruption and natural disasters caused the death of an estimated 30 million people.

[Nathanael Chan · Rating 2 out of 5]

honestly a very disappointing read :( it's clear that Boey is a poet-turned-novelist - the writing is painfully poetic and self-conscious; every word and sentence seems to scream, "hey i'm literary!", making reading this a real slog.

the best kind of writing dissolves itself, but this novel was dense, turbid, yet, strangely, empty. bad start to the year 🫠

[Jeff Carnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes on a topic that you would rarely see on shelves in the West. It is novel based on the life of famous Chinese poets, Li Bo and Du Fu. The story eloquently takes us through the lives of these men and their friendship. The writing is rich as it describes not only these poets but the times in which they lived. I have never seen a novel that takes place in this time period and is very authentic. Too many writers make China so orientalist and fake.
The novel includes beautiful translations of Classical Chinese poetry. This adds to the texture of the novel.
I tip my hat to this author for a unique and much needed story.

[bkwurm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Autobiography of the poet DuFu. Captures very well the inner thoughts of a man.

Caught up in the turmoil of the AnLushan rebellion and his failure to secure a place in the Imperial court, DuFu is constantly plagued with inner doubt, frequently wondering whether he had let down his ancestors and when living close to starvation, whether he had let down his wife and children.

The novel is filled with his self doubt and feeling of inadequacy as he compares himself to his, from his point of view, much more accomplished friends like the equally famous LiBai.

It portrays quite vividly the suffering of the general populace, something usually glossed over in historical accounts of the period which tend to focus on the war between AnLushan and his successors and the Tang court. What was amazing is how, even in a region as vast as China, Dufu could find relatives or friends who would take him in and share what little they had. Even more amazing was that total strangers would also do so.

My only complaint was a strange discontinuity between chapters 12 and 13. At the end of 12, the author has DuFu visiting a tomb of a friend. In chapter 13, he has DuFu planning the visit and then apparently abandoning it because of news that his daughter had fallen ill. So did the visit in chapter 12 take place? A small irritant but it was confusing.

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a highly accessible (fictionalised) take on the lives of Du Fu, Li Bai and other creative/political intellectuals of the Tang Dynasty period. While clear creative liberties were taken in terms of factual correctness, the book remains a thoughtful exploration of what it was to live in a time of changing sociopolitical currents as a poet, as well as the more individual tensions between the pursuit of an art and the desire to fulfil responsibilities to others whom one loves; as well as the protagonist's desperate wish for liberation/freedom not at the expense of these other desires, but in spite of conflicts between his aspirations. Like the gull of the title, this book creates a portrayal of not just Du Fu, but the country itself as torn between the idealist perfection of 'heaven' and the complex realities of 'earth' that inevitably emerge in pursuit of these ideals.