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Original Essays | November 9, 2009

Jesse Bullington: IMG Abash'd the Devil Stood



I don't believe in evil. It's a word I use, certainly, because words are shortcuts and we all take the short way round from time to time, but that's... Continue »
  1. $10.49 Sale Trade Paper add to wish list

Soul Mountain

by Xingjian Gao

Soul Mountain Cover

ISBN13: 9780060936235
ISBN10: 0060936231
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

Only 2 left in stock at $4.00!

Awards

Gao Xingjian was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature "for an ?uvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama."

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

In 1983 Chinese playwright, critic, fiction writer, and painter Gao Xingjian was diagnosed with lung cancer and faced imminent death. But six weeks later, a second examination revealed the cancer was gone, and he was 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 and began a journey of 15,000 kilometers over a period of five months. The result of this epic voyage of discovery is Soul Mountain. A bold, lyrical, prodigious novel, Soul Mountain probes the human soul with an uncommon directness and candor. Interwoven with a myriad of stories and countless memorable characters — from venerable Daoist masters and Buddhist nuns to mythical Wild Men, deadly Qichun snakes, and farting buses — is the narrator's poignant inner journey and search for freedom.

Synopsis:

Venerable Daoist masters, Buddhist nuns, mythical Wild Men, and deadly Qichun snakes populate this bold, lyrical novel, an extraordinary work of profound beauty by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2000.

Synopsis:

In 1983, Chinese playwright, critic, fiction writer, and painter Gao Xingjian was diagnosed with lung cancer and faced imminent death.But six weeks later, a second examination revealed there was no cancer—he had won "a second reprieve from death." Faced with a repressive cultural environment and the threat of a spell in a prison farm, Gao fled Beijing and began a journey of 15,000 kilometers into the remote mountains and ancient forests of Sichuan in southwest China. The result of this epic voyage of discovery is Soul Mountain.

Bold, lyrical, and prodigious, Soul Moutain probes the human soul with an uncommon directness and candor and delights in the freedom of the imagination to expand the notion of the individual self.

About the Author

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 asnovelist, 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.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
megcampbell3, October 9, 2007 (view all comments by megcampbell3)
It is true that readers of "Soul Mountain" will not lose themselves in narrative, and for a long book, this may make picking it up a daunting proposition. It has many charms, however. We are transported to a mountainside in China; I could nearly smell the earth and the clean air. From village to village we travel with Gao Xingjian as first person, second person (singular), and third person (male and female). At one moment we are in a small village shoulder-to-shoulder with the locals, drinking, dancing, laughing; the next moment we are alone together, thinking, among trees. Gao Xingjian has a way of laying words down: slipping what seems an easy thought right into the brain where it unravels and becomes profound. Perhaps he's always had such a gift; perhaps his gift arrived after a misdiagnosis of terminal lung cancer was discovered and he set off to find Soul Mountain. Not only did I find the novel worthwhile, but if I'm still around, I'd like to read it again in a few decades.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780060936235
Translator:
Lee, Mabel
Author:
Lee, Mabel
Author:
by Gao Xingjian
Author:
Gao Xingjian
Publisher:
Harper Perennial
Location:
New York, NY
Subject:
General
Subject:
Chinese
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
China
Subject:
Meaning
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Meaning (philosophy)
Subject:
China Description and travel.
Edition Number:
1st Perennial ed.
Series Volume:
350
Publication Date:
November 2001
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Yes
Pages:
528
Dimensions:
8.08x5.40x1.28 in. 1.01 lbs.

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