Wolf Totem

By Jiang Rong. Translated by Howard Goldblatt. Penguin, 527 pp, $26.95, hardcover

Viewed solely as a literary object, Wolf Totem is overlong, repetitious, and at times yawningly didactic. It’s also an oddly compelling look at a culture most of us will never see firsthand, and circumstance has thrust greatness upon it. Thanks to where it came from and when it was initially released, it is probably one of the most important novels of this decade.

In its original Mandarin, Jiang Rong’s fictionalized memoir of his 11 years with the Mongol nomads of the Olonbulag steppes has become the second-best-selling volume in Chinese history, eclipsed only by Mao Zedong’s “little red book”. And, like that slim, scarlet catechism, it’s going to have a transformative effect on many of its readers, in China and abroad.

On the surface, it’s a poignant adventure story: during the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, a student from Beijing is sent to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia to do his proletarian duty as a shepherd. Chen Zhen is also supposed to assist in converting the Mongols from their nomadic way of life to a more settled, agrarian existence. Instead, he finds that his tribal hosts have a sophisticated and holistic philosophy in which men, wolves, sheep, and marmots all have a part to play in ordering the universe. And despite his best efforts, this understanding is ignored by Chen’s fellow colonists.

We know what happened next: the once-lush steppes were overgrazed to the point of desertification, and today, instead of sending tons of wool and mutton to the south, they’re the main source of the choking dust storms that regularly descend on Beijing and other Chinese cities.

Jiang is relentless in his criticism of official arrogance and greed, and there are obvious parallels to be drawn between what happened in Mongolia and what is happening today in Tibet. His ecological insights are also timely, given China’s reputation for unregulated pollution. But his message will alarm Beijing bureaucrats and western readers alike: if China is to survive and prosper, he writes, its inhabitants must transform from passive sheep to freedom-loving wolves—a suggestion that could well cause turmoil if misinterpreted.

Peter Jackson, of Lord of the Rings fame, has bought the film rights to Wolf Totem and will likely make something wonderful of it, but we don’t really need him. Or I didn’t, anyway. Despite its structural problems and prescriptive tone, Jiang’s novel is a rich and fascinating debut—and after finishing its 527 pages I dreamt a vivid green-and-yellow dream of steppes and wolves.