The Terracotta Army

Mark Bastien was a Toronto-based journalist.

Three centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ, the first emperor of China had an army of 8,000 life-sized clay soldiers and horses constructed. These hand-sculpted figures would serve as an “imperial bodyguard” in the emperor’s tomb after his death. For more than two thousand years, this silent army was sealed in the earth near China’s ancient capital, Hsienyang. In 1974 the figures were discovered (by accident) and restored. They are brought to life in Gary Geddes’s remarkable book, The Terracotta Army.

The book is divided into 25 sections: each is the voice of an army member, from charioteer to regimental drummer to military historian. Politicians are represented, too — the Minister of War steps forward to speak on two occasions. Geddes has given each of his army spokesmen a distinctive voice, from the chummy vernacular of the harness-maker to the arch high tones of the strategist. But what is most striking about the army members is what they have to say: for the most part, they talk about the potter and his construction of the clay figures. Geddes’s men are consistently charming and alarming; they are the proud products of a diligent and skilled craftsman. In one section, the paymaster asks the potter what he thinks of his terracotta army, and the potter replies: “‘...A life’s work that will never be seen, poems tossed in bonfires. A poem lives on in the ear, but a single push will topple all of these.”

Thanks to Gary Geddes and his amazing ability to transform the voiceless, the ancient imperial bodyguard lives on. The Terracotta Army is a stirring, ambitious work of art.