There is a taste of Kafka in this story. I don't know if Kafka read the Revolt of the Tartars but his voice is here, in the distant Russian empress, Chinese emperor and even the Dalai Lama, all of them with inscrutable designs; the armies of burocrats inside the imperial system, a machine meant to crush the will of the subjugated peoples, a power that sometimes is stronger than even the emperors and khans words; the infinite deserts to travel, the hundred of thousands of persons mandated to attempt projects as terrible as the construction of the Chinese Wall. Kafka propends in the end to the nightmare; De Quincey (without giving spoilers) to a bitterness with self-deception, as if choosing the words will make up the reality at least a bit.
I am aware the De Quincey takes literary licenses, he is an extraordinary writer so these licenses are fantastic; at least it works for me here, what didn't happen with his "Joan of Arc" as hers is a famous life with which you can notice fast any literary license . His narrative style in this book is a narrator talking to us from the future and knowing what happened, but never delates what will be going to happen. The richness of the motivations of the actors in this event is staggering, for example persons choosing a simulated defeat to win; and the wisdom to choose which actors (mostly the Empress) are seen through a veil of mystery makes a strange narration.
About the edition to me it is three stars. Except the educative and useful appendix of terms, translations of the non-English text, commentaries and questions to the reader, the rest is a bit tiredsome. A long prologue with the abussive 4th footnote long as a book itself, how could the editors introduce a footnote so large?! @_@ That extra material is neither needed nor recommendable. But the Revolt of the Tartars itself is glorious!
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