Read Soul Mountain (2001)

What do You think about Soul Mountain (2001)?

Philosophy horror? A haunting combination. Soul Mountain's dark ambiguity chews you up and spits you out. There's no linear direction or plot in the book, which means that there's no telling what kind of adventure or emotional struggle you or the author will end up in next (yes, the author writes about himself and you- you are a part of the book!) In that respect it's a very subjective, artistic book. I think of each of the chapters as paintings, or separate works in a gallery with an underlying theme- that is a theme suggesting an inability to achieve Taoist & Buddhist principles. In Taoism this is an inability to achieve permanent unity between the self and the opposing self, and my interpretation is that the chapters with "you" and "she" are metaphors for this yin-yang dynamic. In Buddhism I think he's illustrating the illusion of self that posits separation of all selves in the world by making "I" and "you" the same person, so he can write about any experience he's had and make you a part of it.For me the most memorable of these chapters were:10: lost on the mountain23: ultra-visual horrifying Taoist wet dream (best of the book, I think)28: above the village after the bus68: bizarre mysticism involving the mountain, a storm, and severed toads72: unique introspection on the nature of literature80: another bizarre mystical experience on the mountain- psychedelic, musical, snowyIt's definitely a unique book that you need to let soak in a bit. It's confusing at first but it gets better the more you read it. There are a lot of grim short stories and digressions on the history of China. Some of the prose was bothersome, but considering the difficulty in translating from Chinese to English I'm giving this 5 stars.
—Chris

This is barely a book. It's the at once epic and intimate journey of one man, told in different persons and with feelings sometimes instead of words (somehow), almost miraculously bound together and made tangible.I am prone to exaggeration. But I have such specific remembrances--memories of feelings and moments of hyper-awareness--tied to this book.... For all the incredible books I have come across so far, NONE of them gave me what this book did. None of them made me so viscerally part of their story.
—Tia

This was a difficult book to read. Not because I found Xingjian's writing style too disjointed or because I thought it was too dense, but because his gaze never seemed to swerve far away from his own navel. In the beginning the book seemed very promising but as I continued it read more and more like the recounting of a long and stupid dream.Xingjian's preoccupation with himself reaches the point that when one character has the temerity to impose on his splendid isolation with a story of her own suffering it makes him physically ill. In another chapter he abandons a child by the road. Allegory or not, it is very telling of the kind of character that the I, he, you of the book is. There were interesting parts in the book, yes, but they all seemed to be used solely as backdrops to his endless self-adoration.I realise the book is meant to be a meditation on the self and that is well and good but the impression it leaves me with is a man so enraptured by himself that he thinks every slightest creative whim of his own and every particular about his life has immediate significance and importance to the reader.His treatment of women is also off somehow. They are invariably portrayed as cluelessly drifting along until snatched up by some willful male. For example, there are countless references to horrible crimes against women, including a lot of rape, that do not seem to do much in the way of raising the ire of the author but are instead presented as some immutable law of the universe.That said, there were times when the book offered an engrossing window into the country and people there but without any overarching vision to tie those solitary gems together they remain unpolished diamonds buried in a soulless mountain of dung.
—Oscar