The Ten Thousand Things

The Ten Thousand Things (original Dutch: De Tienduizend Dingen, 1955) is a novel by the Indo-European novelist and writer Maria Dermoût. The story is a rich tapestry of family life against the exotic, tropical background of the Molucca Islands of Indonesia. Although never explicitly stated, the main setting is probably Ambon Island. The story is structured along geographical themes with four major divisions: the Island itself, the Inner Bay, the Outer Bay, and again the Island. Dermout's omniscient narrator is attempting to make sense of the whole generational saga by carefully reflecting on the wonder of this world while revealing some of the horrible evils that the characters commit. After the publication of the English translation by Hans Koning, Time magazine listed it as one of the best books of 1958.

The title of the book is indirectly derived from the poem Xinxin Ming, which is traditionally (although, according to modern scholarship, probably falsely) attributed to the Third Chinese Chán (Zen) patriarch Sengcan, as quoted by Aldous Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy "When the ten thousand things have been seen in their unity, we return to the beginning and remain where we have always been".