topics: |  mongolia | fiction | historical | genghis | french

A tale of wide open spaces

    Thinking of those expanses where whole skies could collapse in rain without
    anyone every knowing made me feel somewhat hollow, a sensation I would gladly
    have been spared, empty as I already was.
	- Nicolas Bouvier, Le Poisson-Scorpion

This fictionalized account tells Genghis Khan's story from the viewpoint
of Bo'urchu [alt. spelling Boorchu, Bo'orchu], one of his earliest followers,
who participates in the Merkit raids where Ogotei is wounded, and has a small
falling out with Temujin after he becomes Genghis Khan and wants the first
cut of all spoils, including the princess Qulan, whom Bo'urchu also desires.
Eventually Qulan becomes one of Genghis' favourite queens (after his first
wife Borte).

The name "Blue Wolf" reflects the Mongolian origins of the name Genghis,
Mongolian chin = strong, firm, unshakeable, fearless; and is close to
chino, the word for wolf, the ancestor from whom Mongols claim descent. 65

The narrative largely follows the text of the Secret History of the Mongols -
so called because it was little known outside China and Mongolia until the
19th century, when it was discovered by a Russian scholar
(look it up on  wikipedia). It became more interesting to the Russians during
the second world war as a source of ideas on strategy.

The fictionalized story intersperses Genghis' campaigns with family
squabbles, and his infatuation with women.  The novel itself is far from
fluid however.

Power, Sex and Violence

The book leaves the impression that the main factors driving Genghis Khan's
thirst for empire was a lust for power and for sex. The book highlights the
tendency to violence, which appears to have been formed in their teenage
years.  Bo'urchu, the narrator and blood brother (anda) of Temujin:

    I was sixteen, in the prime of my youth, and I had a fearsome appetite for
    destruction...[p.2, preface]

[Violence starts early - perhaps a childhood spent hunting and skinning
animals - drinking blood was a common practice - prepares one for it.  In
this sense, perhaps nonvegetarians (at least of yore) were more likely to be
violent.  At the age of 16, Temujin and Bo'orchu meet and chase down some
horse-raiders from the tribe "Sovereigns" that has usurped his father's
authority.

    Only when he opened his eyes did I drive the stone from the riverbed down
    onto his forehead.  His skull gave a cracking sound; blood spurted out of
    the bridge of his crushed nose and flooded his eye sockets.

    He stumbled but managed to knowck Temujin off balance, who rolled over
    him.  I had more luck.  I grabbed his topknot, wrenched back his skull
    and slit his throat.  Inflamed now, I cut off his head and laughed at the
    sight of his face in the first light.  His bulging eyes wore a look of
    dumb amazement. 8

Killing his stepbrother Bekter

[By then, Temujin has already killed a stepbrother, Bekter who could have
been a few months older and therefore a claimant to his father's
legacy. Weatherford suggests as a further motive the fact that according to
Mongol norms, as eldest, he may also have been eligible to consort his
step-mother Hoelun. ]

   Temujin: One day when I was fishing, [Bekter's] mastiff snatched up my
   catch which I had laid on the ground behind me and took it to Bekter,
   looking pleased with itself.  That night I slit the dogs throat as it
   slept and tossed its head into the river.

   Bekter kept goading my patience with his thieving... One day Qasar and I
   brought down two skylarks, but we could not retrieve them.  That evening
   Bekter entered the yurt carrying them, our two arrows in his quiver.  The
   next day, Qasar and I climbed to his lookout point... [Bekter sees them
   and taunts them] My arrow struck him in the liver, Qasar's in the heart.
   Before he died, he begged us to spare Belugtei so that his bloodline could
   continue 65

This story more or less follows the Secret history and is also corroborated
in Ratchnevsky's Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy)
and Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World]

[Belugtei is to become one of Genghis' generals, but he dies issue-less, like
Bo'orchu].

[Temujin takes a wife - Borte - at the age of 16.  The book shows the women
as quite untamed in their sexual desires - in his first encounter, in the
presence of others, Temujin is shown touching Borte inside her skirt and
bringing her to climax.  Later, Qulan, and to some extent Queen of Flowers,
fall in love for Bo'orchu immediately.  While some women like Qulan [Kulan]
are historical, others may be fictionalized.  Temujin's appetite for women
may have some substance: recent genetic evidence appears to  indicate
that as many as 8% males in a large swath of Eurasia may be carrying a
Y-chromosome that might have originated in Mongolia about 1,000 years ago.

Campaigns

Genghis is magnanimous in victory - he accepts Jebe the arrow, who had once
almost killed Temujin with his arrow.  He rises to become one of Temujin's
greatest generals.

Human life is at discount.  Men are killed casually, during battles, but also
afterwards (women are selectively spared).  After he becomes Khan, Temujin
becomes the final arbitrator of how spolis of victory are to be distributed,
esp including women.

GK takes several wise advisors - first the Chinese Tata Tonga, who spoke many
languages and could read and write Chinese, Uighur, as well as Persian.  The
yasak or the Mongol code is gradually incorporated - some of the rules
dictated by GK.  In this sense it's origins resemble perhaps the telling of
the Quran - as ideas come to GK they are incorporated in the canon.

But soon, his hunger for power becomes increasingly violent and leads him to
experience overwhelming paranoia and a growing mistrust of old friends and
allies.  He has a scrap with Bo'orchu over how he delayed killing Jaime
because he was telling him about his earlier love.  In the end he also falls
out with most of his brothers, only the youngest Temuge remains - he is the
one who looks after the home base while GK is gone on his campaigns.

In the campaign to Persia, Qulan goes with GK.  The story comes to a close
with the despoiling of Kiev, after which Genghis' eldest son Jochi (who may
have been fathered by someonw while Borte was kidnapped) dies, and shortly
thereafter Borchu as well.

The story is a bit long drawn but the attempt to incorporate a love theme in
the narrative does infuse it with some interest, but on the whole it is far
from a successful novel.  Bo'orchu's own life is a long list of unfulfilled
desires, and even as he dies he sees a vision of his last love, Qulan, along
with the blue wolf who took her from him.  She is mounting him - her "full,
warm breasts tenderly pressed down", as the wolf smiles.