Shi Nan Zhi Tu by Ma Boyong

Weekly book 24: Shi Nan Zhi Tu by Ma Boyong

The author seems to be using the Han dynasty’s Nanyue issue to map onto the Taiwan issue. Ma Boyong is still as good as ever at taking a few scattered words from historical records and imagining a complete suspense story out of them. His earlier The Longest Day in Chang’an and The Lychees of Chang’an are both like this.

It is a very good full-length novel, especially in its descriptions of food, which feel sincere and mouth-watering. The ending is just too tragic: “Gaozhe’s” whole family dies. The old case is ultimately never solved or cleared, although both readers and the male protagonist know the truth. The punishment, delayed by more than 20 years, comes far too late. If the male protagonist had arrived a few years later, the murderer would have ended his life peacefully. But he still abused power for so many years and harmed many people.

“When a fox dies, its head turns toward its native hill.” Transporting jujube saplings across ten thousand miles, guarding a lonely palace alone. These feelings of Zhao Tuo, as someone who left his hometown more than ten years ago and is now even drifting overseas as an immigrant, really resonate with me. I almost cried. But like Zhao Tuo, I also know that I cannot go back. The hometown in memory has already gone far away. Even if I force myself back to ease homesickness, it will not help, and may instead bring greater pain. Because the real hometown is completely different from the one you imagine. Homesick people always beautify these things: remembering the food and forgetting the beatings, forgetting the pain once the scar has healed. The past was not as beautiful as imagined, the present is not as bad as imagined, and the future is far better than imagined.