Soul Mountain

Soul Mountain

Cover of first Chinese edition, 1990
Author	Gao Xingjian
Translator	Mabel Lee
Language	Chinese
Genre	Literary modernism Semiautobiographical novel
Set in	rural China, 1980s
Publisher	Lianjing Chubanshe, HarperCollins
Publication date	December 1990
Published in English	December 5, 2000
Media type	Print: paperback
Pages	616
ISBN
OCLC	24498893
Dewey Decimal	895.1352

Soul Mountain is a novel by Gao Xingjian. The novel is loosely based on the author's own journey into rural China, which was inspired by a false diagnosis of lung cancer. The novel is a part autobiographical, part fictional account of a man's journey to find the fabled mountain Lingshan. It is a combination of story fragments, travel accounts, unnamed characters (referred to by the pronouns "I", "you", "she", etc.), and folk poetry/legends. An English version translated by Mabel Lee was published in the United States on December 5, 2000.

The first of the two characters to be introduced is "You". He is described as a local tourist – "not that sort of tourist" but a backpacking one "wearing strong sensible sports shoes and a backpack with shoulder straps". He seeks out the elusive Lingshan, a sacred mountain.

"You" has long lived in the city, but yearns for a rural existence from the past He shuns the idea of settling for "a peaceful and stable existence" where one wants to "find a not-too-demanding sort of a job, stay in a mediocre position, become a husband and a father, set up a comfortable home, put money in the bank and add to it every month so there'll be something for old age and a little left over for the next generation".

"You" meets up with another wanderer, a troubled and emotional "She". And so "You"'s journey also becomes a journey into an erotic relationship. "You" also travels inwards as he explores his powers as a storyteller. Later in "You"'s story, "She" departs "as if in a story, as if in a dream".

Meanwhile, "I" is a writer and academic who travels to Sichuan after having been misdiagnosed of a terminal lung cancer. He wants to take a break and start looking for an "authentic life"—meaning the opposite of that of the state's concept of real life.

The characters' sense of humanity is revealed during their quest. "I" realizes that he still craves the warmth of human society, despite its anxieties.

Soul Mountain is essentially a two-part novel featuring two main characters—known only as "You" and "I". The "You" character occupies the odd-numbered chapters 1–31 and the even-numbered chapters from 32–80, while the "I" character's includes even-numbered chapters 2–30 and odd-numbered chapters 33–81.

In the early 1980s, Gao Xingjian faced a great deal of criticism in the wake of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It was during this time, in 1983, that the author was diagnosed with lung cancer during a regular health screening. With the memory of his father's death by the same cause just two years earlier still fresh in his memory, Xingjian resigned himself to death, which brought about a "transcendent tranquillity". However, soon after this diagnosis, an x-ray revealed that his lung cancer was non-existent. At this time Xingjian heard rumors of plans to have him sent to the hellish prison farms of Qinghai province, and thus quickly made the decision to flee Beijing. This decision led him to begin the journey that forms much of the autobiographical portion of the novel. The journey commences in the forests of Sichuan province and continues along the Yangtze River to the coast. The protagonist ostensively searches for Lingshan (Soul Mountain), but in fact the novel describes "one man's quest for inner peace and freedom" The journey, both in the author's life and in the narrative, include visits to the districts of Qiang, Miao and Yi, located on the fringes of Han Chinese civilization; excursions into several nature reserves; and stops at Buddhist and Daoist institutions.