Want to know China? Read this book. Want to appreciate Chinese culture? Read this book. I just love it! The story within Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian is Nobel Prize-quality enough, but what enthralled me the most are the folktales, the poems, the songs, and the anecdotes- from the time of Yu the Great to Chairman Mao. It’s bucolic, romantic, and evocative all at the same time. It was really fun reading story after story while reading a story. I was a bit confused about the use of personal pronouns (the point of view shifts from I to you and there is a he and a she, which according to the instruction ‘compose the protagonist’). But once you get used to the shifts the reading is smooth. The story proper deals with one man’s search for his identity and the purpose of life. He ends up saying that he still doesn’t understand. But in searching for the meaning of life, you understand life better.The vivid descriptions of all the places- from villages to mountains; rivers and lakes- also reflect the author’s grasp of his subject matter. His imagery is so successful that I am reminded of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, and my own experiences in climbing mountains.
Combine all these elements and you have a masterpiece- one that cannot be easily forgotten. Chinese culture, which is so rich and complex, has comprehensively been compressed in Soul Mountain. Although I consider Ha Jin’s works very good fiction, they are still lacking in depth compared to Soul Mountain. Ha Jin only presents the realities of China today; Gao Xinjiang traces them to the past and heavily connect them to the psychology of the individual.
What else can I add? The book speaks for itself; I can only do one thing more: recommend the book to anyone I find interested in literary prose.
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