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Summary: The fusion of modern fiction with classical Chinese
Review: I read the novel in Chinese. I studied Classical Chinse at Princeton University. And I loved his words they are at time more poetry than prose. His love of nature reflected his deep root in the Taoist and Chan heart of Chinese culture. Yet, his erotic description of desire also related back to some to hte erotica work of ancient Chinese writting of the Golden Vase and other works. I
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Summary: Gao's dark night of the "Soul."
Review: The journey is beautiful, but travelling through the 506 pages of SOUL MOUNTAIN is a challenging and breathtaking experience. I did not understand Gao's novel as much as I experienced it. "Now that you're in the mountains," he writes, "be ready to suffer" (p. 80). After being misdiagnosed with lung cancer, Gao's protagonist flees "the world of hustle and bustle" (p. 49), hoping to "live again, to experience life again" (p. 41) by wandering through the mountains in search of an "authentic life" (p. 12). "How should I change this life," he asks, "for which I just won a reprieve?" (p. 74).This is "the story of one man's quest for inner peace and freedom" (p. viii), and the book's title is a metaphor for the human soul with its "deepest recesses" (p. 181). Long tired "of the struggles of the human world" (p. 410), Gao's wandering protagonist goes "deep into his soul" (p. 180) on his journey. "I don't know where I'm drifting" he says, "and I don't know what it is that I am searching for" (p. 136). Along the way, we find him longing for "the warmth of human society, despite its anxieties" (p. viii). "I must return to the smoke and fire of the human world to search for sunlight, warmth, happiness, and to search for human society to rekindle the noisiness, even if anxiety is regenerated, for that is in fact the human world" (p. 222). "When a man and woman are together," we're told, "the world no longer exists" (p. 405). I am not qualified to comment on Lee's translation, but it did seem clunky at times. Still, this criticism aside, it was evident to me while reading Gao's novel that I was in the presence of a great writer deserving of the Nobel Prize. SOUL MOUNTAIN is set in a sensual and atmospheric world of "fine drizzling rain" (23) and "swirling mists and vapours" (p. 416). Even snow, for Gao, absorbs "thought and meaning" (p. 483). This is a novel without especially strong characters or plot, but of "many stories, some with endings and others without" (p. 452). Gao's main character discovers that if life has meaning, it is not always obvious. "When God talks to humans he doesn't want humans to hear his voice" (p. 505). "There is little you can seek in this world," Gao writes. "There is no need for you to be so greedy, in the end all you can achieve are memories, hazy, intangible, dreamlike memories which are impossible to articulate" (p. 329). Page after page, SOUL MOUNTAIN left me in awe. G. Merritt
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Summary: Adrift Among the Ten Thousand Things
Review: This is a large, seemingly amorphous anti-novel composed of hundreds of stories -- but no characters who are named. There is no character development, no denoument: In a word, the unities of Aristotle are trashed. But SOUL MOUNTAIN is a veritable Everest among books. I spent a month savoring it slowly. Each day brought new spiritual and picaresque episodes. Interspersed is a story of a difficult relationship that begins in Wuyizhen in the early episodes and lurches forward and backward until it ends in a strange stand-off toward the end. Gao avoids the big cities and travels along the southern mountain regions of China, frequently in areas not populated by the majority Han population, in search of Linshan, or soul mountain. Does he make it? Yes ... and no! It was always just across the river all the time (in a manner of speaking). Gao laments in advance the destruction about to be wreaked by the building of the projected Three Gorges dam. His China is in the course of assimilation into the Han culture, so he seeks the folkways of minority populations, the poetry, music, festivals, and religious observances. "Even I can't distinguish how much is experience," writes Gao, "and how much is dreams within my memories and impressions, so how can you distinguish between what I have experienced and what are figments of my imagination? And in the end is it necessary to make such distinctions? In any case, they aren't of any significance whatsoever." He's right, too. This is a book that transforms the reader. All that is asked of the reader is to shed his plausibilist prejudices and drift in the stream. The ride is well worth it!
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Summary: As tolling to read as it was hard for the author to walk it.
Review: I am surprised by all the good word on these reviews for the novel, but i guess the ones who didn't like it also didn't bothered to write it a review. I have read "Soul Mountain" and the plays of "The Other Shore" in English and the upcoming "One Man's Bible" and "A Fishing Rod for My Grandfather" in French. I wish i could read on the original chinese (i always try that to be objective) like other reviewers here but i don't and could not comment on the subtleties of the language or the quality of Mabel Lee's translation so i leave that to others. But i have read enough of this author and several other Chinese writers working both in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the West to know 2 things: -Gao Xingjiang is not representative of Chinese Literature and was an obscure and unknown writer not only in China for obvious reasons of his anti-goverment stance but also in the West where we like to think we are not subjected to that censorship. And he was unknown for a reason: He is not that good. The traslation that we now have in the States was published previously in Australia and New Zealand (So that people in Wollongong think he is a well known writer) and some people in France knew of him, but all the major publishing houses in the country where he now resides (Some of which are highly respected and publish great works of serious fiction) passed on publishing his work. And not only because it might not be commercial enough or too difficult for its editors. -The Nobel Prize Swedish Academy should not have awarded Gao last year's Nobel. It is highly suspect that his swedish translator is also a member of the Academy, bound to profit from the book sales to come after the prize. It was expected the Nobel to go to China in these days of politically correctness but, critics agree that both the poet Bei Dao and the novelist Mo Yan (and i agree with them having read their works for many years) are much better writers, particularly Mo Yan. Now people, as is usually the case, find him the greatest writer ever to come out of Asia, and that bore of a novel a landmark in chinese and world literature. Get Real. I have dedicated a considerable size of my reading time to know ALL the writers awarded the Nobel since Sully Prudhomme in 1901, and although not all of them were great or deserving, Xingjiang is dwarfed by the company, and very little in his works make it merit it. The language of the novel is dull, at times hysterical, without innovation, except for the little game of the I, you, she, that after a book or two wears thin. If you read the book be prepared not only to the few interesting images referred to by previous reviewers but also to endless descriptions throughout 500 pages of what colors the sky, rivers, cobblestones, roofs of villages and roads were on that particular day. If you are respectful of women and like to see their fictional treatment accordingly and truthfully you will end up with a beef about this author, who has excused himself by saying no man can write trully from a woman's perspective. WRONG. I could introduce him to a few as recent as Frank McCourt. You come out thinking of him as the stereotypical mysoginist asian old man. Not all is bad and i clearly agree with some previous comments about the depth of his philosophical musings and his soul searching. Not enough to save this brick. I for one will look for my philosophy somewhere else. Reading his works kept me away from the sheer beauty of the verse of Heaney's Beowulf, The storytelling gift of Atwood's "Blind Assassing", The mastery of prose and topic of Jim Crace's "Being Dead" and the genius innovation of Richard Powers. Think this is a travelogue hard to categorize, deep, searching and sensous? Try W.G. Sebald's "Vertigo" for the real thing. Even if you are set on chinese writers, try "The Republic Of Wine" by Mo Yan, but avoid this one except if you have nothing better to read or really want to have your own opinion in the matter.
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Summary: The Dao of Fiction: Soul Mountain
Review: The writing in Chinese is more often tedious than fluid; the translation is more often stiff than inspiring. Now that that's out of the way, we can discuss the intellectual mountain of Gao's novel: mixing ancient Chinese philosophy with contemporary European theory, Gao Xingjian has succeeded in implanting the Great American Novel into China, where fiction has historically been less respected than poetry & where it has recently been influenced by the vapidity of television. Aiming for Modernism, of course, & self-admittedly failing, he nonetheless his Postmodernism in his bric-a-brac of allusions, thoughts, & alternately admirable and reprehensible expressions of individual character. The form of the book can neither be ignored: as many chapters as the Dao De Jing, each chapter both more and less than a synecdoche, each character a creation of both itself, its environment, & the reader, we have in our hands when we hold this book a soul's whirlpool as much as Soul Mountain. If the novel asks What is the purpose of life, the answer very likely trickles through: stories, nothing but stories.
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Summary: Difficult to read...but a unique experience
Review: I must admit that, when the Nobel prize was anounced last year , that I had never heard of the author Gao Xingjian, a feeling I shared most probably with 95% of the rest of the world. My first reaction was: how nice that the price has gone to China, but couldn't they have chosen one of the more well known writers? I think it was the Washington Post Review which defended the choice by saying, amongst other things, that the Nobel committe has chosen unknown writers before and they quoted Mahfouz, my absolute favorite writer and Saramango as examples. Therefore I decide to read Snow Mountain. Not to my regret! Soul Mountain is an epic voyage through China, through the inner self of the writer through philosophy, through I don't know what. You can read the book on several levels. His observations on China are wonderful and anybody who has traveled in that great country will recognize something about the strangeness and mystique that lure around every corner whilst at the same time also recognizing many of the very down to earth tableaus of the daily struggle for life. Quite often I had the feeling of being taken back into Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance or Thomas Mann's the Magic Mountain; here you are reading about a very ordinary situation and all of a sudden you are taken into a major philosophical treatise. The struggle of the writer with his inner self are dripping from every page. This perhaps, more than anything else, defines the strength of this book. It is a soul-searching effort which fortunately most people are not capable of. It would certainly not benefit my mental health to do the same. It felt gratified when it appeared at the end that the writer seemed to have found a workable peace in himself. Gao writes sometimes tenderly, sometimes coolly analyzing, sometimes rebuffing and that all magnifies the power of this book; it seems that in all instances, without having control over them, he is capable of describing his feelings. It is not an easy book to read. It does not have a plot and writing about feelings ensures a lack of coherence. However, he seems at all stages very much in command of what he is doing. I am sure I have to read it a second, and even a third time to be able to grasp everything Gao wants to communicate and I will. I will not comment on whether this book is worth a Nobel Prize but I know that, once again, the Nobel Committee has given us a writer of utmost quality which otherwise I would not have found.
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Summary: Take a deep breath and dive in
Review: I have been reading this book for what seems like months now! Each chapter is almost a self-contained story in itself, however, there are a few recurring characters...perhaps. It's difficult to tell, as Gao never names anyone. There is only "She" or "He" or "You", sometimes a Wild Man or Student thrown in for color. The book is alternately breathtaking in its prose and infuriating in the sloppiness of the editing. I've never seen soooooo many typos and out & out errors in a major publishing house work! My biggest beef with this work, however, was Gao's depiction of women...they were all deranged or hysterical drama queens of the highest order. Fortunately, I had the great luck to actually see Gao with Mabel Lee and a local university professor and writer (Charles Johnson, winner of the National Book Award for "Middle Passage") in conversation this last weekend. Gao admitted his portrayals of women were biased. In his words (a la Ms. Lee), "No man can know a woman. Only women can really write about women" Amen. All in all, read the book. If nothing else, the prose will sweep you away, and you will possibly learn something about humanity along the way.
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Summary: take your time reading this book
Review: Soul Mountain is a book you can not rush through reading. It's fairly long and lacks clear characters and a central plot. If you try to read it too fast, you will find yourself disinterested and a little confused. I read both the chinese and english version. Mabel Lee did a decent job in the translation. Even though Gao Xingjian is the first chinese-language nobel laureate, this novel is not very representative of chinese writing. However, it was an enjoyable experience once I stopped trying to figure out the plot. Gao Xingjian takes you with him through a long physical and spiritual journey.
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Summary: Something to discover
Review: Reviewing this book, I certainly do not want to add to the ongoing debate over whether or not Xingjian is a just laureate or not. And it is this very attitude that I recommend when taking a look at "Soul Mountain", the author's outspoken chef d'oevre. This book is an epic voyage of a really astonishing scale, far-reaching and opulent in it's vast line of images, tales and magnificent descriptions of nature. We follow the 1st-person narrator as he travels down the Yangtze River and it's adjoining provinces of mid-80ies China. All along this journey we get more than a mere impression of 'back land' China after the agonies of the Cultural Revolution, or slowly recovering from these: undeveloped, rural and at times infuriatingly ignorant of it's own ancestral achievements as well as it's environmental beauty and singular wealth. Apart from this, the narrator's experiences (with a strong autobiographical trace running through them) and his permanent self examination could take place in almost any cultural context of the west as well. What is most striking about this piece of fiction - and probably most specifically Chinese about it - is the almost excessive calm in the tone of the narrator's voice. This calm is seriously questioned throughout, but it is only in those instances where the alter-egos, especially the "she" are concerned, that he offers an insight in the emotional and metaphysical turmoil that set him going in the beginning. Although there may be relevant shortcomings in this translation it still reveals the author's sure enough routine in dealing with his literary undertaking. All in all this one is worth a strong recommendation for everyone who think they don't know enough about this amazing country, it's history and culture. This is true even more, as it is not at all as exotic a read as one could find oneself to believe at first sight. Take a look!
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Summary: self-indulgent and nothing but boring nonsense
Review: I'm a taiwanese.I have read the Chinese version of "Soul Mountain" here in Taiwan. I have to say that the word and language that Gao Xingjian use in this novel is quite boring. .Most of the chapters in this book are only meaningless language game.People should not say that this is a great book just because he won the Nobel Prize in 2001.Actually,most ot the Chinese in the world do not know who he is until he won the Noble Prize. And this novel is some kind of a big joke from western to the chinese literature world.
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