Soul Mountain (my views)
Gao Xinjian is the only Chinese novelist to have the honor of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature for his memorable novel ‘Soul Mountain’, which has charted a new path for the Chinese novel. It is an autobiographical social commentary that has a significant place for the supernatural in its plot. It describes self-imposed exile in Sichuan province from which the author draws plot elements. If he had been in central China, he would definitely have faced persecution, but the seclusion provided him with enough time to undertake his spiritual pilgrimage.
The story takes readers into the remote and bygone world of Eastern spiritualism and philosophical abundance. Soul Mountain is, in a real sense, a whole world unto itself.
Shamanic customs and traditions are still practiced in Sichuan province. Xinjian incorporates his experiences with monks, folk singers, and recluses into the novel, portraying the history and mythology of the people around him. Through Xingjian’s writing, history and reality are mixed with mythology and the natural distortion of time, and perceptions of the past and present are mixed with history and folklore in one experiential moment.
Xingjian’s writing appropriates Taoist concepts, according to which one seeks pure wisdom by exploring the paradoxes of truth. The contrast between truth and wisdom appears often in the book, especially when Xinjian speaks of his earlier disappointment in discovering that his immersion in books did not endow him with wisdom, but prevented him from truly living.
The novel’s perspective changes rapidly, the narrative voice switching between first, second, and third person. Each character’s perspective reflects aspects of a single fractured consciousness. Xinjian thus blurs the distinction between personal and social identities; her young companion represents not only her desires but also the emerging sexual freedom that began to appear in the post-Mao era. However, Xingjian’s prose is enigmatic, and the novel’s changing perspective and style force the reader to examine it in interpreting the story and to question internal and social mores.
Despite its ambitious philosophical premise, Soul Mountain has a very simple plot, focusing on a spiritual journey that mirrors Xingjian’s. The protagonist is meant to be a universal character, taking the forms of “I”, “you”, “he” and “she”. By alternating personal perspective from chapter to chapter, beginning one with “I” and the next with “you,” Xinjian forces the reader to compare and contrast these two different facets of oneself.
Embarking on your own odyssey, this tale provides a detailed account of a modern journey. The main character takes crowded trains, hitchhikes, and travels on foot. He travels the hard way into the interior of China, often going out of his way or staying longer than necessary in one place.
To further complicate the journey, the protagonist has a series of short-lived relationships with a number of women, always referred to as “she”. Relationships range from the ephemeral to the platonic to the carnally real. However, the sexuality that Xinjian explores in Soul Mountain has undertones of misogyny. Xinjian described one of the “them” as a “fighting wild animal” that “suddenly becomes tame” to him. In Soul Mountain, the understanding of women’s sexuality remains undeveloped, and thus each “she” is objectified and thus distorted.
Many images are drawn from the protagonist’s consciousness: “Ponds with floating duckweed, small town wine shops, upstairs room windows facing the street, arched stone bridges, canopied boats passing below of arched bridges and an old dry well. In order to enhance his awareness of his origins, he gains a sense of wisdom through childhood memories and by collecting traditional knowledge, ranging from tales of bandits to the tale of a raid on a monastery. .
Just as the protagonist visits the past, he also reflects on his destiny. An illuminating encounter with death resonates with a personal crisis in Xingjian’s past. In 1982, Xinjian was falsely diagnosed with cancer, forcing him to reassess his life, seeking solace in the classic Confucian text I Ch’ing or The Book of Changes. With personal insight, Xinjian vividly captures his protagonist’s fearful wait for a fateful X-ray: “As I awaited the pronouncement of the death sentence, I was in this state of nothingness, looking out the window at the autumn sun, silently chanting Namo Amitofu, over and over again in my heart.” The emotional and spiritual turmoil that Xinjian underwent caused him to question the very nature of his existence, and the fruits of this journey are shown in Soul Mountain.
Many stories collected along this journey involve cruelty. The first woman he meets describes her nausea at her love, her constant suffering and her desire for a death that will make others pity and admire her, her martyrdom. Hostile encounters in the novel seem to allude to Xingjian’s experiences with the Chinese government. A story that directly addresses the Cultural Revolution involves the savage execution of the radicals’ political enemies. However, the undercurrents of violence are oddly juxtaposed with the theme of spiritual growth, and the author never resolves whether any character can actually overcome these atrocities. By refusing to tell her own story while at the same time trying to relate universal themes, Xinjian pushes the limits of his fiction. Constantly vacillating between the search for individual enlightenment and an attempt to awaken social consciousness, the story seems to drift. The story has the enigmatic power to captivate readers and keep them engrossed from start to finish, as most non-Chinese readers will remain immersed in exploring the mysteries of the unseen world.
Raja Sharma