The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen is an ambitious book that tries to capture the essence of an ancient and highly cultured civilization and, in so doing, to re-create the art of ancient Chinese fiction. This attempt may put off some readers because of a key difference in approaches to storytelling. In Chinese literature, context has generally been more important than plot. Thus, a story may go on at length about place, situation, and people, including details about how and why the people came to be where they are and some of the history of the place they find themselves in, just to show how their actions fit into a larger historical picture.

The discursiveness of the Chinese tradition may be annoying, even tiresome, for readers familiar only with Western literature, which more often focuses on plot.

The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen is built of...