Rating: 
Summary: A significant work but a tedius read
Review: Soul Mountain is a mountainous, momentous book. It is beautifully and evocative, a portrait of journeys both physical and spiritual. It is also a very tiring read, and is a chore to get through.The first third of this monstrously long tome is engaging and enjoyable, but the second third is dense, rambling, and confusing. I haven't managed to read past this point, but apparently things pick up at the end. This is not beach reading. This is the sort of book that you take a year on, reading a chapter a week. The "plot", if you can call it that, of Soul Mountain is well known already. It is significant in that Gao wrote it mainly for his own benefit, and as such is less carefully constructed than his plays and other novels. Soul Mountain's many unusual literary devices work very cleverly in the original Chinese, but are awkward in the translation. This is not to blame the translator, who did a brave job of a daunting task, as it's a matter of linguistic discrepancy. The book is so rife with folklore and obscure cultural and literary references that it will through even the most seasonsed China Hand, not to mention baffle the average reader. My friends who read this book in the original Chinese had much higher praise for it than I could muster, and apparently Gao's other novels are less existencial and far more enjoyable. There is an unfortunate paucity of Gao's works in English. The only other option, The Other Shore, a collection of his later plays, contains only a sampling of his later, more abstract works. Early scripts, such as Bus Stop, which first established his reputation and revolutionized theater in China, are unfortunately unavailable in English. Only as more translations become available will English readers become aware of the scope of Gao's talent and why he is so deserving of the Nobel.
Rating: 
Summary: Traveling with Xingjian Gao
Review: Soul Mountain is hands down one of the best books I have ever read. Epic in scope, not unlike the Fictional Lord of the Rings series that seems to take you to all corners of a land, yet personal in it's telling, in Soul Mountain, a book about one man's journey throughout China after rediscovering the gift of life after being misdiagnosed with terminal cancer (based on, but not entirely, a true story),you feel like you are really on a journey, and dont want it to end. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about traveling, epic adventures, or Asia. Since reading this book I have bought Gao's other writing, and while I have not yet begun to read the plays (the just released "One Mans Bible" has not yet reached me by mail) I am sure it will be an exceptional as this piece. Soul Maountain is truly a journey, epic, and beautiful, and not to be missed by readers who enjoyed such books as those written by Thoreaux, Iyer, Hansen, Childress, and Krakauer just to name a few (excuse me if I butchered their names, I dont have their books, also fine literature, by me). I truly cannot recommend this fantastic book highly enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Full of gems, but dense reading
Review: This book's greatest strength is that it is filled with gems of truths about human existence. What shows Xingjian's writing abilities best is how he makes an observation about how people behave and turn it into a universal human truth. However, finding those truths is not always easy. Some are stated, many are not. The point is that this book is incredibly dense, and very literary. Being a literary author myself, I appreciate that, but not all readers do. I recently taught this book to a class of college students and though they all read it, none understood what the book was trying to tell them -- and most of the class is pretty astute. I recommend this book to people who enjoy dense reading, books filled with meaning and human truths. If you're looking for a book to read in the sedan chair at the poolside, this is not likely your book.
Rating:
Summary: He deserves it
Review: I was attracted to the Soul Mountain by the negative remarks of my compatriots. I agree with everyone that there are many great Chinese writers in China, but their works have not been introduced to readers in other cultures due to the great difficulty of the Chinese language. I was a little doubtful myself that the Soul Mountain may not be representative of achievement of Chinese writers, but was among the lucky few noticed by the world. As I read, however, I could not put it down. Gao Xingjian absolutely deserves the Nobel prize. I have read enough of both English and Chinese authors to tell. I am overwhelmed, awed, amazed, dazzled, and deeply humbled at this powerful writing. There are so many things he is searching answers for. It will take me much more serching, much more thinking, much more exploring than my limited talent and experience could afford to be able to fully understand everything in this book. As far as I can tell, rarely has one writer ever produced as soul-searching, as provoking, as pounding a note in one single volume. How a work of such complexity is translated into other languages and accepted by other cultures is nothing short of a miracle. On the other hand, I believe Gao Xingjian's writing is a poem that transcends geographic border, time, and cultures. It searches answers for universal questions that have perplexed people everywhere at all times. I can't but feel sorry for those who allege that Gao won the Nobel Prize only by denigrating China. He doesn't have time nor does he need to denigrate China. There were already tons and tons of works on the Cultural Revolution and its calamities. He is not a historian or politician. He is a poet, a philosopher, a fine human being who takes life seriously. I have read many other books on all kinds of subjects. But few, in my view, have achieved this standing. Some may have achieved in several books what he has in one chapter, or in one small tale. Some have sweated in many volumes to achieve what he achieved on one subject. This artful weaving of facts and magic, present and history, folklores and modernity, reality and imagination presents a perfect reading for those who love literature and who also are looking for a meaning of life.
Rating:
Summary: Soul Mountain
Review: Soul Mountain is the story of one man's quest to discover the truth about himself, or, if you interpret it differently, it is the struggle of two men, or three men, or three men and a woman. In the quest for meaning he stumbles across many truths about humanity, the culture of China, and the effects of man on the environment. There are two main threads through this novel. First is the 'I' character, he is a writer, wandering through the small towns and farm-lands of China in an effort to find Lingshan, 'soul mountain'. Then there is 'You', another person searching the rural areas of China for Lingshan. Chapters alternate between 'I' and 'You', and there are a lot of parallels between the two. In one chapter, the 'You' character might have a run-in with some explorers searching for pandas, then, five chapters later, the 'I' character interacts with the same or similar people. There is a sense that these two are in fact the same, that they offer different perspectives on the same events, and how, to two different people, the same thing can have such different meaning. Later, a 'She' is introduced as an accompaniment to 'You', 'She' is represented not as a coherent female character, but rather as all females; her personality changes radically from chapter to chapter while still retaining a common thread. There is no real structure beyond that, however. Plots lines are taken up, then mysteriously discarded by the time we return to the character, never to be mentioned again. Small details change, and lots of story-lines are repeated. There is a lot of exploration into the mostly forgotten culture of China - or more accurately, a lot of the culture that was all but eradicated by the Cultural Revolution of the 50s and 60s - and with all of these sequences there is a sense of sadness. So to with the meditations on the effects the spreading, more technologically able population of China is having on the wilderness. There are a lot of passages which serve only to explore the mind and soul of the author. A lot of these occur in the 'You' sections, which serve to bring us, the reader, into the dilemmas and solutions presented. Without this technique, a lot of these chapters or paragraphs might have seemed self-indulgent. A primary concern of mine was the way the 'She' was treated. I don't know much about how women are treated in China, but in almost every instance, 'She' was either madly obsessive, fragile, weak and pathetic, or hopelessly domineering. Also, every sex scene had the woman become limp 'like a fish' and say 'no, no, no'. For me, this was disturbing to read. In the end, this book is for people willing to search within themselves and ask the hard questions. Solutions are offered, but just as easily rejected. By having a 'You', we are drawn into the story quickly, and without this, it would suffer as there is no real cohesive thread throughout the 550-odd pages. With it, we are sent on a journey through the soul of a man contemplating his own life, and through that, our own.
Rating: 
Summary: I hated this book
Review: This was one of the worst books I have ever read. It is just a rambling collection of uninteresting, pretentious, and unrelated stories. There is no character development at all. The English also flows very awkwardly, although since he did win the nobel prize, I'll have to give him the benefit of the doubt that it is just a poor translation!
Rating:
Summary: take time and enjoy...
Review: It is a masterpiece, though it does require the highest concentration...
Rating:
Summary: mixed blessings
Review: this book is mixed blessings, which perhaps best describes the author's feelings about his country, China, and about life in general.
the weakness of the book is that it is meandering -- just as the author meanders through China. There is little to no focus and one comes away with little clearness, of China or the author.
the greatest strength of the book, to me, was the descriptions of the great wild places left in China -- the places that have been left to nature. I found it quite instructive to read, not only that such places still exist in a country so over-populated, but that they are much like nature everywhere and invoke much the same responses in humans.
if you want to learn more about contemporary China, and what of its past and mythology are considered important to contemporary Chinese, you will definitely want to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Lyrical and Poetic Journey to the Center of the Soul
Review: In 1983, when Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian found he had been incorrectly diagnosed with lung cancer he also found himself facing arrest for "counterrevoluionary writings" in his native China. Xingjian's answer to both threatened arrest and a second chance at life, was to flee Beijing and travel 15,000 kilometers to the most remote parts of rural southwest China...to the ancient forests of Sichuan. Because of Xingjian's pain, readers have been rewarded with SOUL MOUNTAIN, an exquisitely beautiful, autobiographical tale of Xingjian's journey to the very center of his soul.
Outwardly, this book may seem to be about Xingjian's travels in rural China and his anger at the end of the Cultural Revolution. It is filled with poetic and lyrical descriptions of priests, monks, shamans, peasants, bandits, rivers, trees, mountains, forests and even pandas. The description of the pandas the author sees was truly heartbreaking. All the time he is describing the beauty and lushness of the most remote areas of China, the author lets us know that it is in imminent danger of being obliterated.
Inwardly, this book is something else, indeed. All of Xingjian's lush and poetic description is but a metaphor for China's obliteration of individual identity and Xingjian's journey, as an artist extraordinaire, to secure its place inside his own being. This is an outwardly political book, but inwardly, it is a highly personal, highly spiritual journey.
Alienation, identity, isolation and solitude are themes that are shot through the entire narrative of SOUL MOUNTAIN. What is individual identity? Can we have a true sense of self without relating to others? Is human companionship really a need, rather than a desire? Must individuality equate with alienation? These are some of the many questions SOUL MOUNTAIN asks the reader and each reader's interpretation will, of course, be quite different, since each reader much make his own journey inward...in isolation...just as Gao Xingjian did.
SOUL MOUNTAIN isn't an easy book to read. It requires much contemplation and quietness of spirit. The narrative, itself, is highly sophisticated, for even though the author made his journey alone, he doesn't confine his recitation to the first person "I." Instead, this "I" creates a "you" and the "you" soon creates both a "he" and a "she." This is a braided narrative as "I" and "you" and "he" and "she" converse among themselves and intertwine and enter and exit hallucinatory and dream like states, evoking memories and reflections. Eventually, these various narrators decide to journey to the sacred and mythical mountain of Lingshan.
This is a highly spiritual, highly sophisticated book and I think it's a book that people will either love or dislike intensely. Obviously, (I did give it five stars), I belong in the group that loves it. It reminds me that, ultimately, we all must travel down the road of life alone, that we are all living our lives in isolation and that this isolation is no doubt the most painful thing, yet the most lovely thing, the human spirit can bear. I can't praise SOUL MOUNTAIN highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: Stricly For Fans of Experimentalist Literature
Review: Unless you're a fan of experimentalist literature, any enthusiasm for reading this novel will probably evaporate if you come across the author's warning that: "The book is not plot-oriented, but based on the inner world of the author. Rather than plots and incidents, my heart is its basic structure. That's why it doesn't really fit into any category as a novel. In fact, there is no such novel in the history of literature." Hmm. Human heart as structure for fiction... OK... Factor in that this not-a-novel novel weighs in at 500+ pages, and it's really hard to make a good case for starting, much less, finishing this massive mess of travelogue, folk tales, memories, dialogue, verse, and laughable spiritual quest. However, since this was the book selected by my book group, finish it I did. A feat which none of the seven other avid readers in my group accomplished-not even the woman with a Masters Degree in Chinese Studies! Xingjian won the Nobel Prize for Literature, but a cursory inspection of his bibliography reveals that the bulk of his writings are plays, with critical essays coming next, and short stories a distant third. The novel is not a form he is comfortable with, which begs the question, why did he write this one? In the early 1980s he was misdiagnosed with terminal cancer, and when it was discovered he wouldn't die, he felt compelled to go walkabout in rural China in a quasi-spiritual quest. The results of Xingjian's travels form the basis for this semi-autobiographical novel, in which the narrator shares this history, and heads out on an identical journey to see what remains of China's wilderness and folk tales. The brief chapters alternate between the narrator's travel notes, some good vignettes about environmental degradation, retellings of folk tales, local stories of bandits and warlords, encounters with monks, dialogues with women who may only be in his imagination, and inner ramblings. A lot of this sounds like it might be interesting, but it really isn't. Since there's no plot (or any other reason) to throw all these things together on the page, it merely grows frustrating after about fifty pages or so. And we won't even get into the shifting use of pronouns. The banality of the narrator's experiences and observations cannot be overstated. For example, the "Soul Mountain" that the narrator is striving to locate proves elusive to him until he comes to understand that it is a state of being, not a physical place! Exceptionally profound... if you're thirteen years old. And the reason the book's various strands run hither and yon, without relation, closure, or plot? Because "that's how life is"? Again, very deep stuff here. The government is destroying the land in order to profit? Shocking! The book was written over the course of eight years, from 1982-89, which no doubt contributes to its disjointedness. If you absolutely must try it, I suggest reading the first fifty pages, then Chapter 52 (which sort of explains the pronoun use), and Chapter 72 (in which the author directly addresses a critic of the book). But as there are more books than time to read them, I'd suggest using your time for something else.
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