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xantaranth's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
krankliuk's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Tiktai reikėtų skaityti antrą kartą, bet nebeturiu tam jėgų.
Skaitant pajutau, kad ties gal knygos viduriu nustojau stengtis kažką suprasti ar suklijuoti, kiekvienas skyrius pasidarė kaip upės tėkmė, kuria tu pasyviai plūduriuoji. Šiaip vertinga patirtis, bet supratau, kad aš nieko nesuprantu.
Tiesiog taip yra.
Skaitant pajutau, kad ties gal knygos viduriu nustojau stengtis kažką suprasti ar suklijuoti, kiekvienas skyrius pasidarė kaip upės tėkmė, kuria tu pasyviai plūduriuoji. Šiaip vertinga patirtis, bet supratau, kad aš nieko nesuprantu.
Tiesiog taip yra.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
highestiqinfresno's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
tomleetang's review against another edition
1.0
So, you've been struggling through this book for a good while, and you get to Chapter 72, which is sort of an explanation for the meandering pontificating that has gone before. Now, any literature student could tell you from just a few chapters in that the author is making a point about what constitutes a novel. This chapter just confirms it - but frankly, I got the message less than 100 pages in, I didn't need another 400 to reach the realisation. And for all the analytical appreciation I can give Soul Mountain, I was still bored out of my mind for 70 percent of the time. The only thing that kept me going was daydreaming about how amazing it would be to go completely rural in the Chinese countryside.
In short, a painful experience that is not at all worth it.
In short, a painful experience that is not at all worth it.
dukegregory's review against another edition
2.0
This book is a five-hundred page representation of the grand platitude, "The journey is greater than the destination," a claim that any novel explores on a certain level. But wow wow wow the journey here is made up of eighty-two faux-destinations. Every chapter is its own concept, its own town, its own legend, its own country gazette, its own folk song, its own dream, its own memory, everything being amorphous in a manner that seems implausible due to the clarity that the minimalist prose affords. The first two-hundred pages were interesting to me because of the unorthodox structure, if a complete lack of structure can even be referred to as "unorthodox." There are three major characters: I, you, and she, three characters that are refractions of I's self. This is outlined explicitly for the reader around chapter fifty-two (which is not really a shocking tactic: explicit explanation, for Xingjian when he begins to make comments about the form of the novel within the novel, the hodgepodge nature becoming acknowledged diegetically), and reading it felt like pseudo-psychological games, like Xingjian has outed himself as penning a novel that is utter navel-gazing for so many pages, but he, instead of playing into the pretension, calls it out to show that he is in on the pretension. He almost makes it ridiculous. The dilemma here is that the book is lengthy, yet a throughline of any kind is nonexistent. This is beyond not knowing how to get from Point A to Point B. This is a situation during which you move from chapter to chapter having no concept of where the narrators will be or what they are doing there except for the vague expedition. Sometimes Xingjian offers specific monuments, relics, historical references, ethnic group names, etc. which allowed me to look at a map and restore some semblance of mental order, but many times he simply places you into a recollection of a folk tale, or the narrator argues with she, or whatever the hell we go through. Which, what the hell DID I go through? I enjoyed quite a bit: discussions of the traditions of China's ethnic minorities to the South, a subtle portrayal of the Cultural Revolution's echoes in the late twentieth-century in major metropolises and the farthest reaches of rural communities, and a dreamlike representation of loneliness and a search for one man's self within his own being as well as in the context of a grander culture that is constantly shifting around him. He seeks an authentic form of living through an introspective sense of self while realizing the beautiful necessity of community. But it's all so messy and incomprehensible. I was able to read this so quickly because of the diction, a style that finds its beauty in clarity, in its own unique notion of transcendentalist modernism. I also just cannot excuse Xingjian's use of women. I say use, because so many women in the tales told are raped or attacked in some way, and the only major female character, she, is a sexual object, a woman tethered to you through Xingjian's narrative trick. She is tortured by a vague past and can't really find reprieve in the version of the narrator with whom she is associated. It's all just so banal and yet beautiful and yet so insightful into certain cultural traits that only the outskirts of China beholds and yet it is so utterly begging for an edit and yet it had moments of spiritual heft and yet it feels supremely nihilistic at times and yet I can't stop thinking about this dumpster fire and yet. And yet it's only worth two-stars and a healthy bout of introspection no matter how performative.
kinosthesia's review against another edition
3.0
It took me long enough to read this, but I finally finished it. Its a very interesting book about his travels, a way of avoiding the authorities as well as dealing with the personal journey and 'new life' that he was given are a misdiagnosis. The sights of China, its customs, hospitality and the sense of its vastness are beautifully done and the unusual use of 2nd person perspective is well done.
I enjoyed reading it one chapeter a day as the chapters seemed able to stand up alone as small snap shots of story.
I enjoyed reading it one chapeter a day as the chapters seemed able to stand up alone as small snap shots of story.
mjhorn's review against another edition
4.0
An unusual book, one I found quite difficult to read, largely because of its complete lack of forward momentum. There is no strong narrative running throughout, and the characters are similarly muddled. I felt like the book could be equally well enjoyed reading the chapters in random order.
But this muddling is clearly all deliberate, and in small doses it can be wonderfully enjoyable.
The writing is always very good and often really quite beautiful.
In the end, I was left mainly with the feeling that something had probably been lost in translation, and that the story in the original Chinese was likely much richer.
But this muddling is clearly all deliberate, and in small doses it can be wonderfully enjoyable.
The writing is always very good and often really quite beautiful.
In the end, I was left mainly with the feeling that something had probably been lost in translation, and that the story in the original Chinese was likely much richer.
charsiew21's review against another edition
This was a clash of expectations as I was in the mood for travel journalism and Soul Mountain is decidedly more literary and slow moving.