Mentored by Books Part III: Facts with Skin On

Wuzhen: Ancient Town South of the Yangtze

Nonfiction is my go to genre. Sometimes, if I’m really driven to know more about something, I’ll endure the painful process of gutting it out with a nonfiction book that’s poorly written, which reveals that I’m a junkie, an information junkie.

But nonfiction that is written really well, now that’s a five-star restaurant.

Simon Winchester, one of my favorite nonfiction authors, consistently delivers narrative replete with historical background that educates, in the best sense of the word, and at the same time threads together a cast of characters that pull you into story. He has written about a volcano that erupted, annihilating an entire island in his book Krakatoa, about a mad genius responsible for a large body of work in the Oxford English Dictionary in The Professor and the Madman, and about the intricate and complex history at the heart of China in The River at the Center of the World, to name a few.

In The River at the Center of the World, Winchester begins with a brief introduction to Lily (not her real name), his guide through most of his travels on the Yangtze, “a mother-river” that “cradles an entire country and nurtures a civilization.” Lily remains anonymous in many ways. Her identity must be protected because of the governmental restrictions on her participation and the danger that involves. Yet Winchester finds a way to let us glimpse something of her nature, her strength and self-confidence that mark her as the perfect companion for the adventure he is about to set out on.

Before he began his travels on the Yangtze, Winchester tracked down Wan-go Weng, who had in his possession a 300-year-old painting of the river, which Winchester believed to be critical in his understanding of the framework of his research. Weng’s ancestor, an artist commissioned in the early Qing dynasty to accompany the emperor’s court on tour, painted several handscrolls of the southern and eastern provinces as well as the Yangtze River. Winchester visited Weng in his home and saw the ancient scroll for himself.

Winchester communicated Wan-go Weng’s heart, history and heritage in just a few of the opening pages of his book with such care that to me, Weng’s presence seemed almost palpable throughout Winchester’s travels on the Yangtze.

Even many years after reading The River at the Center of the World I remember Lily and Wan-go Weng clearly. It wasn’t as though Winchester devoted huge amounts of space for their development. The paragraphs given to them are few. It’s the skill he exercises in bringing a well-rounded character into view with great economy and yet the distillation is of the quality that allows a real and lasting connection.

I thrilled at hearing of the maps and books he procured in preparation for the trip, “a 1954 copy of The Admiralty Pilot for the Yangtze,” nautical charts of the Royal Navy, and even U.S. Defense maps and charts of the Chinese countryside. It’s details like these that allowed me to travel along with him before he even began his journey.

The main character of the book is, of course, the Yangtze. The lives of the people who live there and have lived there, its history, its countryside, its culture, the heartache that seems to bleed out of the very soil in some of its treasured places, all brought to life through the lens of Winchester’s travels down the heart of China on the Yantze.

What I’ve learned from Winchester and what I’ve learned to love about him is his unrelenting passion to make facts into story, to allow me to inhabit the lives, hearts heads of the people in the time and place he’s writing about. This makes for an unforgettable reading experience. But more than that, it makes for a transformation of my very self into a better member of the human race, more aware, more connected, more alive.

What is the last book that made you a better human?

Writing Prompt for the Week: Treasured Places