Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian ISBN: 0-06-093623-1 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 23 October, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.52 (65 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Lyrical and Poetic Journey to the Center of the Soul
Comment: 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: 1
Summary: Stricly For Fans of Experimentalist Literature
Comment: 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.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Stretch
Comment: I enjoy reading international authors and try to get a feel for how life looks in different parts of the world. Anytime you read a translated work, a reader must accept that some of the rhythms and nuances that inflected the original work may see off-kilter. From the United States reading Xingjian's work, it was a stretch. Structurally, the work seems to lack unity. Then there is Chapter 72 where the author argues with the editor, "This isn't a novel! A novel must have a complete story." You realize that even though it took Xingjian 5 years to write this, it was never intended to be a traditional structurally unified tale. I remember one chapter early in the text where he goes up a mountain, gets lost from his guide, and is stranded and lost in the forest. I stopped reading for awhile because I was worried about how the character would find his way down the mountain. I needn't have worried, because the whole thread was dropped. For all I know, he's still stranded on top of a mountain.
Once you begin to get used to the rhythm and seemingly disjointed structure of Xingjian's writing, it does unravel with a great beauty. Like a travel guide of sorts, you wonder where the next set of pictures will take you. The most dramatic and classically bite-sized engagement I had was in Chapter 46 where the man is trying to break off a relationship with a woman. He is sexually attracted, but with little else. She picks up a knife, eventually turning it on herself, and captures him at the same time, preventing him from leaving. It's a snapshot, but it's masterful.
My sense is that all of these pictures are freeze-frames about a soul who is lost, without a real purpose or something in which to believe. It is an exploration into loneliness, physical soulless liaisons, and stopgap celebrations. While it is very long and hard to feel a sense of the whole, in the end it was a meaningful experience for me. Enjoy!
 |
Title: One Man's Bible by Gao Xingjian ISBN: 0066211328 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 03 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
 |
Title: Fateless by Imre Kertesz, Christopher Wilson, Katharina Wilson ISBN: 0810110490 Publisher: Hydra Books Pub. Date: 21 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: Return to Painting by Gao Xingjian ISBN: 0060513543 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 03 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
 |
Title: Josephine: The Hungry Heart by Jean-Claude Baker, Chris Chase ISBN: 0815411723 Publisher: Cooper Square Press Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title: The Perfect Gift: The Philanthropic Imagination in Poetry and Prose by Amy A. Kass ISBN: 0253215420 Publisher: Indiana University Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
