Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1446299 in Books
• Published on: 2000-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 510 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
As one of Gao Xingjian's characters remarks, if a fiction writer could know the true stories of the people he passes on the street, he would be amazed. Surely the Nobel laureate's own story, which forms the basis of Soul Mountain, is worthy of amazement. In 1983 Gao was diagnosed with lung cancer, the disease that had killed his father. At the same time, he had been threatened with arrest for his counterrevolutionary writings and was preparing to flee Beijing for the remote regions of southwest China. Shortly before his departure, however, the condemned man got at least a partial reprieve: a second set of x-rays revealed no cancer at all. On the heels of this extraordinary redemption, he began the circuitous journey that would lead him to the sacred (and possibly mythical) mountain of Lingshan--and to this daring, historically resonant novel.

A destination chosen arbitrarily, at the suggestion of a fellow traveller, the elusive Lingshan becomes rich with meaning for the narrator of Soul Mountain. Meanwhile, the narrator himself shows a tendency to go forth and multiply. First he divides into You and I. Then You generates yet a third voice, a somewhat simple but intense young woman named She, followed by He--and none of these personae can resist the elemental lure of the sacred site. Indeed, the search for Lingshan becomes a metaphor for all spiritual striving:

Would it be better to go along the main road? It will take longer travelling by the main road? After making some detours you will understand in your heart? Once you understand in your heart you will find it as soon as you look for it? The important thing is to be sincere of heart? If your heart is sincere then your wish will be granted?

Along the way, I and You mourn the devastations of the Cultural Revolution, when thousands of monuments, temples, and graves were reduced to rubble. The obliteration of these reminders of the dead becomes a torment to the narrators of the novel, who struggle to assert their individuality--itself a proscribed act in Communist China--against what they see as a false and brutal ideal that has swept away history, literature, and tradition as decisively as it has destroyed the ancient forests. (At one point Gao describes the sad spectacle of the few remaining pandas, who wander a shrinking woodland wearing electronic transmitters.) Seamlessly translated by the Australian scholar Mabel Lee, Soul Mountain is a masterpiece of self-observation set against a soulful denunciation of "progress" and practicality. --Regina Marler

Review
'Gao's portraits of fellow wanderers, farmers and party officials are vivid and shine a light on their place and time. The language (wonderfully translated by Mabel Lee) is luminous and tactile!There's a feeling of entering and moving through a place we had seen only through mist.' Time Out 'When he writes of his experiences in the real world, Gao transcends cultural barriers. A good story will out in any language, and when Gao is good he is staggeringly so. His writing about the Cultural Revolution is remarkable.' Daily Telegraph 'A picaresque novel on an epic scale!"Soul Mountain" bristles with narratives in miniature -- stories from ancient Chinese history, folk tales, childhood reminiscences, memories of the Cultural Revolution, as well as bitter arguments and passionate sex. Gao's aim is to represent "the ineffability of life", and, as far as that is possible to do, he has done it in this complex, rich and strange novel.' Independent on Sunday

Synopsis
A man fleeing from the repressive social conformity required by China's communist government journeys into the remote mountain regions of southwest China in search of meaning in his life and the elusive Soul Mountain.

Customer Reviews

Enigmatic essence of contemporary China.
Gao Xingjian was the winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature, the first Chinese author ever to be so honoured. In 1983 Chinese playwright, critic, fiction writer, and painter Gao Xingjian (pronounced gow shing-jen) was diagnosed with lung cancer and faced imminent death. But six weeks later, a second examination revealed there was no cancer, he had won a reprieve from death and was back in the world of the living. Faced with a repressive cultural environment and the threat of a spell in a prison farm, Gao fled Beijing. He travelled to the remote mountains and ancient forests of Sichuan in Southwest China and from there back to the East Coast, a journey of fifteen thousand kilometres over a period of five months. The result of this epic voyage of discovery is his novel "Soul Mountain."

If a fiction writer could know the true stories of the people he passes on the street, then he would be amazed. This is a bold, lyrical, prodigious novel, which probes the human soul with an uncommon directness and candour. Interwoven with the myriad of stories and countless memorable characters, from venerable Daosit masters and Buddhist nuns to mythical Wild Men, deadly Qichun snakes, and farting buses, is the narrator's poignant inner journey and search for freedom.

Fleeing the social conformity required by the Communist government, he wanders deep into the regions of the Qiang, Miago, and Yi peoples located on the fringes of Han Chinese civilisation and discovers a plethora of different traditions, history, legends, folk songs, and landscapes. Slowly, with the help of memory, imagination, and sensory experience, he reconstructs his personal past. He laments the impact of the Cultural Revolution on the ecology, both human and physical, of China. And in a polyphony of narrating selves, the narrator's "I" spawns a "you," a "she," and a "he," each with a distinct perspective and voice, the novel delights in the freedom of the imagination to expand the notion of the individual self.

Storytelling saves the narrator from a deep loneliness that is part of the human condition. His search for meaning, in life, in the journey, turns up the possibility that there may be no meaning. The elusive Lingshan "Soul Mountain," which becomes the object of his quest, never yields up its secrets, but the journey is a rich, strange, provocative, and rewarding one. This is truly a novel of immense wisdom and profound beauty.

A Lucid Journey Through Maoist China
I'm scarcely inclined to give 5 stars (I don't like to use full marks in vain), but this book is one of those rare pieces of art that is as much an experience as a novel. The first word that springs to mind when reviewing this book, and probably the best way to describe it, is "lucid". There is a tranquility to the writing that I found so accomodating, and being a relatively slow reader I find that 400 pages plus can often drag, but it honestly never did with 'Soul Mountain'.

To talk content, this is one man's journey around China in exile, having been forced to rome the expansive lands of his home nation to avoid arrest from the communist police that take a distaste to "Spiritual Pollution", or free expression and creativity that is deemed in opposition to the Maoist regime. To call it a "travelogue", however, would be misleading - to use a cliche, it is as much a journey into the author's soul and psyche as a more literal journey. The pronouns used in reference to the author change, usually, with each chapter - usually alternating between "I" and "You" for the first half of the novel, and then later also breaking into "He" (he apparently does this to distance himself from certain aspects of his personality, as if both he and the reader are looking down on himself from above - and also because he is lonely). I personally enjoyed the "you" sections the most, as they are the more personal accounts of a relationship between the author and an unnamed woman (referred to as "she").

Ignore reviews that talk about it being too experimental - if no-one experiments, how can literature move forward? Also ignore comments that it is too hard to read - there is no real cohesion, and this may be confusing, but never hard - I never experienced the apathy I have with books that I consider hard going, such as Heller's "Catch 22". Read this book for the comforting, zen-like narrative that you will experience if you truly let yourself go with this book. Don't try to analyse or scrutinise it (the author often does that himself, anyway), and just enjoy this book for what it is: an autobiographical masterpiece from a truly deserving Nobel Prize winner.

Interesting but at times a little hard
This book's main theme is that of a journey, the journey of one man, spiritually and phsyically. Indeed, it is a journey that Xingjian undertook himself, after being "cleared" of cancer, he fled from Beijing to escape a possible threat of prison.
This novel has many characters, and therefore many different themes and questions are raised. For example, alternate chapters address the reader, while discussing a relationship with a woman. This has the effect of studying how people interact with each other, as well as how people make their own journeys in everyday life in order to discover something about themselves spirirtually.
The way Xingjian introduces the different characters and different themes is by making the novel read like a set of fables or myths, each one with their own moral, yet each one connects and is related to what has occurred before.
This is an extraordinary novel, so that although it may be a little hard going at times, it never makes you want to turn away from it. It has many insights and is highly entertaining. You really should read this book! It's quite different from all the other books in the shops today.