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A review by ocurtsinger
Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
4.0
I've just finished a long, deeply surreal and sometimes frustrating journey (but I guess most long journeys are) through Soul Mountain, the incredibly shifting narrative of Gao Xingjian. The first thing YOU will notice about this journey that I was on is how the narrative shifts from first person to second person between every chapter. At first it seems to create two separate threads of plot, both involving travelers; the first person I seeking enlightenment at Lingshan, the second person (is he really speaking to me?) seeking (and sometimes not seeking) some sort of compensation for a romance with a fellow traveler.
I really enjoyed the first person thread more than the second person. The first person narrative is a lot more lush and interesting to follow; Gao takes us to real places and meets people who share with him the rich natural and social history of a place. The second person narrative is too often a stark and repetitive back-and-forth dialogue between the lovers similar to the long romantic bantering and bickering that Hemingway was famous for creating between Freddy Henry and Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms.
An interesting part in the middle (or the peak?) of Soul Mountain is a chapter when Gao (in the first person) comes across another traveler who looks like a scrappier version of himself. He sits down to share a smoke with him but is cautious and guarded and barely exchanges a few words. They seem to mirror each other but aren't respectful or welcoming to each other. I feel like this interaction at the apex of the novel is an interesting little play upon the double narrative; the two threads seem to be passing each other by in the progression of the plot and choose not to reveal anything about themselves to each other. This is how the structure of the novel eventually winds up; there's no 'aha!' moment of the two threads becoming one. They each settle quietly into their own territory on opposite sides of the mountain that is this novel, and the reader is left to come up with his or her own conclusions.
Man Zou.
I really enjoyed the first person thread more than the second person. The first person narrative is a lot more lush and interesting to follow; Gao takes us to real places and meets people who share with him the rich natural and social history of a place. The second person narrative is too often a stark and repetitive back-and-forth dialogue between the lovers similar to the long romantic bantering and bickering that Hemingway was famous for creating between Freddy Henry and Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms.
An interesting part in the middle (or the peak?) of Soul Mountain is a chapter when Gao (in the first person) comes across another traveler who looks like a scrappier version of himself. He sits down to share a smoke with him but is cautious and guarded and barely exchanges a few words. They seem to mirror each other but aren't respectful or welcoming to each other. I feel like this interaction at the apex of the novel is an interesting little play upon the double narrative; the two threads seem to be passing each other by in the progression of the plot and choose not to reveal anything about themselves to each other. This is how the structure of the novel eventually winds up; there's no 'aha!' moment of the two threads becoming one. They each settle quietly into their own territory on opposite sides of the mountain that is this novel, and the reader is left to come up with his or her own conclusions.
Man Zou.