A review by ferna
Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
4.0
Heavy, heavy reading. Not sure if I understood it completely. No, I definitely didn't. Otherwise, it would have taken me less to finish it.
Even though there is an introduction explaining what the use of pronouns means in the narrative, I still interpreted them as different characters. At least in the first part of the book. There are some metanarrative chapters in the second part of the book where the narrator explains how he tried to write the book. I marked them, but I don't have the book now u.u
So, it is a journey book, physical and psychological, but it is more about the conversations the narrator has along his trip. I concluded that, ultimately, the narrator talks to the reader and the readers must talk to themselves.
SPOILER ALERT
More concretely, the narrator starts this trip looking for a specific place in China. He goes asking about this place but when he seems to have reached it, the wise old man he asks tells him it is at the other side of the river, that is to say, where the traveller has just come from. I cannot help but compare the ending to the Alquemist's. Nevertheless, I get, it's not the end that matters, but the process.
Or something like that.
Even though there is an introduction explaining what the use of pronouns means in the narrative, I still interpreted them as different characters. At least in the first part of the book. There are some metanarrative chapters in the second part of the book where the narrator explains how he tried to write the book. I marked them, but I don't have the book now u.u
So, it is a journey book, physical and psychological, but it is more about the conversations the narrator has along his trip. I concluded that, ultimately, the narrator talks to the reader and the readers must talk to themselves.
SPOILER ALERT
More concretely, the narrator starts this trip looking for a specific place in China. He goes asking about this place but when he seems to have reached it, the wise old man he asks tells him it is at the other side of the river, that is to say, where the traveller has just come from. I cannot help but compare the ending to the Alquemist's. Nevertheless, I get, it's not the end that matters, but the process.
Or something like that.