Soul Mountain

By Gao Xingjian

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2000. Part travel diary, part philosophy, part love story, ‘Soul Mountain’ is an elegant, unforgettable novel that journeys deep into the heart of modern-day China.

In 1982 Chinese playwright, novelist and artist Gao Xingjian was diagnosed with lung cancer, the very disease that had killed his father. For six weeks Gao inhabited a transcendental state of imminent death, treating himself to the finest foods he could afford while spending time reading in an old graveyard in the Beijing suburbs. But a secondary examination revealed there was no cancer – he had won a ‘reprieve from death’ and had been thrown back into 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 first to the ancient forests of central China and from there to the east coast, passing through eight provinces and seven nature reserves, a journey of fifteen thousand kilometres over a period of five months. The result of this epic voyage of discovery is ‘Soul Mountain’.

Interwoven into this picaresque journey are myriad stories and countless memorable characters – from venerable Daoist masters and Buddhist monks and nuns to mythical Wild Men; deadly Qichun snakes to farting buses. Conventions are challenged, preconceptions are thwarted and the human condition, with all its foibles and triumphs, is laid bare.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Oct 7, 2010
• ISBN: 9780007385737

Gao Xingjian

Gao Xingjian (whose name is pronounced gow shing-jen) is the first Chinese recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in 1940 in Jiangxi province in eastern China, he has lived in France since 1987. Gao Xingjian is an artistic innovator, in both the visual arts and literature. He is that rare multitalented artist who excels as novelist, playwright, essayist, director, and painter. In addition to Soul Mountain and One Man's Bible, a book of his plays, The Other Shore, and a volume of his paintings, Return to Painting, have been published in the United States.

Reviews for Soul Mountain

[jonfaith · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Context is important. I was newly married and jumping through all sorts of bureaucratic hoops. I found a stack of copies of this novel remaindered. I bought them all. I mailed one to my wife and gave the others way. I then read this in tandem with a friend who was being chucked out of his house. Oh, it wasn't a foreclosure. He was leaving his wife, though sooner than he expected, obviously. I then began dogpaddling through this morass of a novel rife with nature and strange sex. It didn't reach me. I don't think my friend was touched either.

A month later while on the tube in London I saw someone reading it. I wanted to warm him. Maybe my reluctance to do so stemmed from an awareness of context.

[mbmackay · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good read, but a little over-rated - not Nobel prize winning stuff.Read in Samoa, April 2002

[qofd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't fall in love with this book although it leaves you with a hankering to visit China. I found the stories too disjointed for my liking.

[ziggaroth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An unusual book, one I found quite difficult to read, largely because of its complete lack of forward momentum. There is no strong narrative running throughout, and the characters are similarly muddled. I felt like the book could be equally well enjoyed reading the chapters in random order. But this muddling is clearly all deliberate, and in small doses it can be wonderfully enjoyable. The writing is always very good and often really quite beautiful. In the end, I was left mainly with the feeling that something had probably been lost in translation, and that the story in the original Chinese was likely much richer.

[jayne_charles_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book holds the impressive record of being the worst I have ever read! Impossible to follow, because if any scene showed any signs of being interesting the narrative immediately switched to something entirely new. There weren't any characters as such, just obscure beings labelled 'you' and 'he' and 'she'. The blurb on the back cover promised a 'journey into modern day China', which sounded absolutely fascinating and persuaded me to buy it. Unfortunately the text does nothing to conjure up modern day China, and the novel could just as easily have been set in modern day Milton Keynes.

[autumnesf · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Book written by an intellectual that wandered around China for a few years to keep from being arrested. It is a work of fiction but is based on his travels and the things running through his mind. It lost me at times but it was an enjoyable read. Not a have to have, check it out of the library.

[ashwell_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Not an easy read. So intense that it's overwhelming; poetic, melancholy, surreal, beautiful. One of my favourite books.

[bibliobibuli_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Soul Mountain- Gao Xingjian - another reading group choice. Only 2 out of 10 of us managed to get past the opening chapters. I did like some episodes, but overall found it incredibly slow, miserable, meandering and plotless. To add insult to injury, towards the end of the book the guy actually has a good laugh about his book being unreadable! If anyone has any doubt that the Nobel is awarded on a political rather than a literary agenda, this clinches it.