Continuing SNet's series of Prized Fiction, our September selection is the 2000 Nobel Prize winner, Soul Mountain. This is an elusive book, which takes the reader on a journey with no "destination" as some reviewers have said. And yet, it's an ideal book for a group discussion, as it will take traveling companions to find the way. There is much here to discover and savor. Please come along on the journey with us. Before we start on September 1st, please let us know if you'll be joining the discussion - and let us know your preferences, if you have any. Thanks.


Charlie

I've had this book for months and at one point, after having begun to read it and like it, made myself stop because this is the sort of book I want to finish reading just before the discussion begins September 1.

The type of soul searching journey the author takes as he walks/rides across China has a fundamental appeal to me. Almost every road trip I've taken has included a kind of stock taking. Travel journals show lists of "truths, goals, needs, barriers to growth," etc. Today, I never go back to read those journals....after reading some that were 10 years old, not too long ago, I was alarmed to see how little had changed. Same old, same old, very depressing.

From Gao, the author, I want profound thoughts, answers to riddles of life. I'd even be satisfied if Gao offered profound questions...with or without answers. (Over the last several months, I've run into really interesting thoughts on asking the right questions.)

From our short discussion a few months ago, I remember how unusual and fascinating the author's life has been and that this book is nakedly autobiographical...he took the same trip across China, escaping arrest and imprisonment. (But he was in prison another time, is that right?)

The team of Sarah and Charlie is a really good match with this book (though either one would equally fit)....I've really, really been looking forward to this discussion. Thanks, Charlie, for bringing the book to our attention.

betty

Betty: During the Cultural Revolution, Gao was sent to a "re-education camp". Years later, after his works began to be banned, he went on long journey. Shortly thereafter, he left the country as a political refugee.

It'll be interesting to see if he does ask "the right questions" as you see it.


Charlie

I'm not sure I want to put in the time reading this wonderful but not particularly simple book if I'm the only one who has an interest. (At least not in the way I read for a discussion, not just for my own pleasure.) What about shelving the discussion for another time.

betty

Charlie and Betty, I'm hoping more will join the discussions of Soul Mountain. Let there be many 'travel companions on this journey', as Charlie called it so neatly in his first post. I've read the book through once, and am fascinated by it. It definitely needs a second reading. Like Betty said: there are many questions asked - and it will be a challenge to try to find answers, and to listen to others about their particular viewpoint. ine

Well, that’s at least three, ine. I and You and She!!!!!

Here’s hoping Sarah can work her ISP problems out and make a fourth, Betty. If you’ve read (or are reading) the book and usually don’t actively participate – please do join us. This is a book that sometimes takes the form of varying perspectives and viewpoints and we sure could use some in the discussion.

Charlie

That first sentence of your last post, Charlie....I got it!! Not instantly, of course. Extentions of the narrator? (Or, are they transformations or metamorphoses or is Gao escaping into a different voice? Oh, noooo. Eeeeek!!)

Even though I was just being silly about the camping stuff (my post in the welcome folder, yesterday), I'm serious about a map. Have you run across a map of Gao's journey?

I think I've ventured into the twilight zone and it is not a good place. Lorrie just sent me an email saying how glad she and Ginny are whenever they see I've joined a discussion. If nothing else, she wrote, the discussion won't be placid. Your post above reads, in part, "and usually don't actively participate." Please translate. I'm close to running out of Kleenex.

betty Was it something I said?

Betty- I looked awhile ago for a good map, because I really wanted one too – found some – but not a real good one. I’ll look again. Bad syntax, Betty. The “you” following Betty was meant to refer to others who don’t always actively participate (not you!).

" that’s at least three.I and You and She!!!!! Charlie, that was aiming at the heart of the book. How about the He? May he not be placid.... ine

Count me in! I have read "Soul Mountain" and didn't understand squat. Maybe an erudite discussion will help me understand what he was writing. I never knew whether he was actually writing about a factual trip or an imaginary one of his mind.

A book reviewer wrote, "Soul Mountain combines a picaresque series of adventures on the road in the company of a somewhat disreputable companion with mental travel, the prolonged introspection that issues from the essential loneliness of his crowded days."

Maybe a lively discussion will help me understand why Xingjiian deserved the Nobel Prize for literature.

I didn't like "The Sound and the Fury" the first time I read it either.

Billy Frank Brown

Hooray, Billy Frank Brown!! The more readers, the better. Welcome!

Well, apropos of nothing, I am reminded of my all-time favorite Anita O'Day tune…..

Who do ya think
Is comin' to town
Never guess who
……………….
Miss Brown to you
Anyhow. Welcome Billy Frank Brown


Charlie

Would the two of you like to know more about the writer who won the first Nobel Prize for Literature? Go to this site: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/prudhomme.htm

This is apropos of nothing, also.

That one didn't work for me but try this one.
http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1901/index.html You know this author Billy Frank?

Not really. Years ago, I was studying French literature and my professor said we should read Sully Prudhomme's works because he was the first Nobel Laureate in Literature, and someday no one would even recognize his name.

The same may occur with Xingjiian

Billy Frank Brown - I'll have to find a book of Sully Prudhomme in the library and leaf through it, just to see what he is all about. In his days 'lofty idealism, artistic perfection etc.' was admired. Skimming the list of noblelists - (did you create that word? Never mind, I just found it in the dictionary; just my ignorance) - one wonders if all these nobelists were 'trailblazers' in their time. Take Hemingway, at the time he was quite challenging, however, how many people read him now? I like a remark in 'Le Monde' about Gao's book: 'Chinese literature [of the future] will have to contend with the creative energy and the daring of Gao Xingjian'. Somewhere Gao wrote that he was an agnostic, so it's probably wise to live in France instead of in China. ine

Billy Frank- I tried to find something in translation on the 'net but was unable to. Found a number of his poetry in French, though. I suspect that if you mentioned Sully (funny - Sully is the vernacular for Sullivan, a ubiquitous name in South Boston) Prudhomme to most people, the most likely recognition would be…"oh yeah, the Cajun chef." (I include myself in this).

Ine- It's interesting to read critiques of the Prizes and their selections. I read something on the Nobel awhile back and there has always been a certain amount of predictability to it. The politics involved has been loosened somewhat in recent years, though. Even so, the Gao selection did have a certain amount of 20-20 hindsight tsk-tsk about it.

Hey! Let's do this. Might be fun. I'll go grab a link of the Nobel fiction winners and let's see (starting with 1901) who the very FIRST one you even recognize is. Then let's see who the very FIRST one you've READ anything by is. OK? Billy Frank has a leg up already, though!!!


Charlie

Ok. Here's The Link. Remember. Start from the bottom (1901) and see who the first one you recognize is and who the first one you've read anything by is.

Ok. For me - Recognition: Kipling (1907). I'd be surprised if anyone gets anyone before that one (and if anyone misses that one!). I'm not going to count Kipling as "read". I MAY have read something by him at one time, but I'm sure it was only something in excerpt, perhaps. I'll go with Tagore (1913). I read quite a bit of Tagore as a star-struck college studenten-heimer. How'd you do?
Charlie
There is no one to stop me from getting lost,
Anywhere at all, as long as I make a wish in my mind.
I spread my wings to the rhythm of my song, in my imagination.
Tagore

but I picked the same authors for recognition. Richard Kipling (but I only read 'Kim") and Rabindranth Tagore. The next ones were Kunt Hamsun, and Sigrid Undset, mostly because they were on the shelves on my parents library and I might have tried to read them (in dutch translation). But Tagore also left a dent in my awakening process:

It is the jewel at my own breast that shines and gives light.

I do not know how to hide it."

Oh, how I wished I could also make coloured fonts, but at this point it's beyond me. off for the weekend, ine

Scanning up the list…Books & Literature has had discussions of:

• Mann's Magic Mountain (1929)
• Lewis' Elmer Gantry (1930)
• Buck's Good Earth (1938)
• Faulkner's Absalom! Absalom! (1949)
• Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago (1958)
• Steinbeck….I don't think we've done Steinbeck here…
• Mahfouz (1988) we did (I didn't) - maybe Ginny can help out here…Palace something??
• Saramgo of course, Blindness (1998)

I'm sure that Great Books will do Beckett or TS Eliot or Shaw someday. They're always nominated.

Props to SarahT who has spearheaded the reading of Prized Fiction books here, so I'm sure that with time, we'll read even more in this particular list.
Charlie

AND.....
we have a bit of a background with us here for literature concerning China. Besides the Pearl Buck mentioned above, which I think is good background reading for Soul Mountain, we also read Becoming Madame Mao awhile back, for some insight into the politics of the Cultural Revolution.
Charlie

Charlie, don't forget Waiting, by Ha Jin, another in our recent Chinese repertoire. It won the 1999 National Book Award.

What a terrific suggestion, to see who we (first) recognize and who we've read on the Nobel list. The name Sully Prudhomme was news to me, Billy Frank, although you inspired memories of my fourth grade, the only grade in elementary school that I spent being an obnoxious jokster/smart-aleck. To the question, what was the first name you recognized, I would have said Prudhomme, that I read it in a post minutes ago. Actually, that particular teacher encouraged (and obviously tolerated) all kinds of new behavior, maybe from girls for the first time. I had asked for an extra brown paper book cover to wrap around a library book. She thought that was a good idea and encouraged me to present the idea in writing to the school principal. It was a frightening task, but after I'd done it, I was on top of the world for a while.

--------------------------------------------------------

Thank goodness you suggested we look at this list, Charlie. Recently, at least 2 or 3 times, I've written that there were only two women who had won the Nobel for Literature. I was repeating what I had read in several places. In fact, there are FIVE women on the list, two American women, Pearl S. Buck (1938) and Toni Morrison (1993), plus South Africa's Nadine Gordimer (1991), Chile's Gabriela Mistral (1945) and Sweden's Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlof (1909)!! Lagerlof is known primarily for her children's stories (boy flies across Sweden on a goose). In an autobiography, she wrote that she was "crippled" in childhood and decided early to become a writer. With the Nobel winnings, she was able to buy back Marbacks, the family farm estate lost in difficult economic times.

Of interest is a new biography of Chilean Gabriela Mistral, due for publication February 2002. The title is A Queer Mother for the Nation: The State and Gabriela Mistral. A poet, an unfeminine woman, she was deeply loved and seen as mother/school teacher to the nation. The publisher writes that the book will cover her keen political savvy as well as her image as mother, something she did not seek and in her personal life, was not. She had no children. I wonder if the title of the book intends the word "queer" in both the traditional meaning and the more recent pejorative slang.

I notice that there were 3 women who won the Nobel up to the end of WWII (1945), then none until the 1990s. That almost parallels what was happening to women culturally. At the end of WWII and into the 1950s came the first modern push for women to be in charge of maintaining the house/home. There were more young women entering college in the 30s than between 1945 and 1955.

betty

Isn't Sienkiewicz the man who wrote "Quo Vadis"? It's one of those Christians vs. the Lions classics. In school you read this or Ben Hur. After that it's Kipling and Tagore; then a big jump to Knut Hamsen and Anatole France. France is terrific and shouldn't have suffered the eclipse he has - Penguin Island, Lafcadio are great; Red Lily, Thais good and okay. The Red Lily was recommended in my soc. class in college in the 50s as a great study of jealousy.

Jack

I hate to brag, but as you surmised, Charley, I have read some of the poems of Rene-Francois-Armand (Sully) Prudhomme. It was a long time ago when I was in college, so don't ask me to translate them. But I did look back at my notes from class--yes, I did keep them--and recorded that my professor came to class one day wearing a t-shirt with the words "Sully Prudhomme Lives!" printed on the front.

Prudhomme was a member of the honored Academie Francaise; thus, its nomination of him helped the Nobel Foundation make its decision.

Sully was a family pet name, and he served in the Franco-Prussian War.

"Vase brise" (the broken vase) compares a vase which seems whole, but is flawed with an almost invisible crack,to a heart broken by the unkindness of a lover.

My professor noted that Prudhomme did write prose works in metaphysics and aesthetics, but he was primarily known as a poet.

Because of paralysis and insomnia, he did not attend the Nobel Prize ceremony. I think I remember that no formal acceptance speech was read.

I know this long discussion on the Nobel Prize winners may be off the subject of Soul Mountain, but I like it anyway.

It gives me something to do before September 1, when the real Soul Mountain discussion starts.

At first it didn't look like I could find the book in time - I live in Cyprus and if the books aren't already in stock they take three weeks to get. However, after telling me no the guy emailed me later and said he'd found one.

I'll have to do some reading on web sites, but I'm curious if the author refers to or parallels the famous Chinese classic "Monkey", which is about a journey across China in search of certain Buddhist sutras and the trials and tribulations of the Monkey King and the Buddhist monk he accompanies. Jack

Ah. Betty, yes I did forget Waiting. Interesting reading, Betty. Thanks for your post about the women Nobel winners. I'd bet there are other parallels to be found if one closely studied the Nobel awards throughout the years. For instance, the award in 1933 to an expatriate Russian (Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin) seems to parallel Gao Xingjian's in some ways.

Kexvu- Glad you were able to get hold of a copy of the book. Quo Vadis! (Or, as Ginny sometimes says: "Quo Vadis?). Yep. You're right. Although I never read it, one certainly recognizes the title. I'll bet, Jack, that your guess that Gao refers to the Monkey King in some way is correct. Although I did read the book a few months back, I don't remember if that is the case. Certainly though, he refers to many other traditional beliefs and myths of his culture.

Sully Prudhomme lives. That's funny, Billy Frank. And not off the subject at all. In these pre-discussion days, let the subject meander where it may, I say!


Charlie

Charlie, I sure do like that further discussion link - keeps the page heading shorter. Have not been looking in the book discussions the last couple months. Heigh Ho - off to Sept. we go. Maybe I can get a copy of Soul Mountain.

~Marj

Please do, Marj. It would be nice if you could join us.

Charlie

I see the first chapter is in the links. Great!

And GX's art work is most interesting - wish there were more samples on that site.

~Marj

I have ordered my book. I might have to put my thinking cap on, but as usual, the whole gang will be here to help.

HATS

She throws her Hat into the Ring.....

I'm reading Gao's speech during the award ceremonies. 'Case for Literature' is deceivingly simple, but it needs careful reading, I feel. I'm enjoying it, because much of it is applicable to Soul Mountain. ine

Thanks for reminding us of that, ine. You can reach that link through the clickable at the top.

Charlie

I'm going out to find the book tonight! (Knock, knock, may I come in???)

Betty, there are six women Nobel Laureates, I believe: 1928, Sigrid Undset!

But of course, Jo. We'll be traveling to an ancient forest in the first week, so have good hiking boots on.


Charlie

Sounds good, Charlie! I'd better do some warm-up exercises!

the surrender of the self to the collective eventually becomes habit, norm convention and tradition, and this phenomenon is not unique to any one culture.

              .....From Mabel Lee's introduction

---

Having just finished Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, I am pleased with that segue to this book. More grimly cerebral to be sure, and with less of a "story" to tell, Soul Mountain nevertheless mines some of the same themes as Chabon's book.

I propose that we take a look at the first 12 Chapters during the first week. This takes us up to the point of the "miracle", the "reprieve." - setting the stage for the 'soul' of the novel. Let's also figure out what we're to make of the alternating protagonists: "You" then "I", then "You" then "I" again. Until "You" encounters "She". Please let me know your preferences for the balance of the month after that.

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.
See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly.
I'm crying.

Yeah!!


Charlie

First, I said, 12 chapters??? Then I looked to see that means about 75 pages. Sounds fine.

betty

Oh boy, I am only on chapter two. I better run and get my book and a mug of coffee. I will be back later.

At first, when I saw the words I, you and then, she I didn't know what to think, but from what I understand this was a strategy developed by Xingjian. He used it to help him deal with aloneness. Is this right?

Hats- I really wonder if I would have been able to make sense out of this without Mabel Lee's introduction. Let me quote here:

A rigorous and critical analysis of the self of one man is achieved by dissecting the authorial self into the singular pronouns, "I", "you", "she" and "he", who together constitute the composite protagonist. On his solitary journey, the protagonist seeks to alleviate his acute loneliness and creates "you" so that he will have someone to talk to.

This makes sense to me, and seems a reasonable explanation for Gao's usage. As Gao says elsewhere, he is not a political writer in the sense that we might understand it. His novel which is autobiographical in nature does however, as Lee goes on to say, "reconstruct[s] his personal past as well the impact of the Cultural Revolution on both the human and physical ecology of China. [emphasis mine] Through the characters who are projections of his self, the author engages in intimate conversations with anonymous others to tell the stories of many different types of people who populate China." But first he deconstructs the self (as has the Cultural Revolution) into these singular pronouns in order to reconstruct the individual self. Part of that process is dealing with loneliness, as you say. Does anyone else have any other insight into this to help us better understand it?


Charlie

Charlie, I noted that part, too, in the intro, and then I notice in chapter 2 when the narrator is visiting with the old man in the mountain, he says, "While you search for the route to Lingshan, I wander along the Yangtze River looking for this sort or reality. I had just gone through a crisis...."(the discovery of lung cancer and then no lung cancer). Is it too soon to say that the double task reflects his need to deconstruct and reconstruct with as much new-old information and experience as he can have? The route to Lingshan being the route to authentic reality and his own soul, the wandering away from the straightest path providing opportunities to find that reality and his whole soul? (Is this gobbledegook???!)

While I can accept the translator's observations, surely Gao has to be aware that a reader will never be able to disassociate himself from reacting personally to "you." Therefore, despite all the observations about the deconstruction of the "I" into parts, I question whether the reader can ever not be part of "you." After all this is sometimes such a problem that we resort to using "one" in an effort not to have readers/listeners take our comments as personally directed. As a writer is Gao ignoring this problem, or using it to include us?

And what about the use of pronouns in Chinese? In Japanese it is often wretchedly difficult to know who is being referred to because of their lack as I understand it. The Japanese play on this ambiguity a great deal in their fiction.

Then there is the role of Mabel Lee - she after all is the one who has put the English on it. I wonder has she written about translating this book, or the problems of translating from Chinese? Jack

Jo said that the route to Lingshan is the "route to authentic reality and his own soul". The seat of the Soul (Soul Mountain) is at the source of the River You, in fact [pg 3]. Winding paths seem to be the paths to be traveled here. Certainly, as Jo said, the "I" narrator is intent on recapturing some childhood memories as a way to understanding. That's some of the 'old' information which he wants to process isn't it? He's got his new lease on life and wants to make the most of it. What is the purpose of You's trek, though?

Jack, I agree that in translation we cannot read about a "You" protagonist without identifying. At least I can't. Let's assume that Gao understands this as a given. Let's assume that this is the point. What would be his purpose in including us in this way? Is this his way to approach us with universal truths here?

Jack brings up a good point about the "language problem" - the use of personal pronouns in the Chinese language. I was intrigued by Gao bringing up a language issue right at the beginning [pg 2]. He explains that the word xifu (at least in the southern mountain town where the protagonist "you" is at that moment) means only one's own daughter-in-law, as opposed to any young married woman. Conversely, married women call their husbands laogong: "yet your laogong and my laogong are both used." The same word is used to refer to both "My" husband and "Your" husband. There is something very specific then about the use of the feminine identifier, and something more general, more universal about the use of the male identifier. I find that interesting, but I have no idea if it's significant!!


Charlie

As for Jack's other point, the role of Mabel Lee in the translation. I'm sure I read somewhere about her approach, but for the life of me, I can't remember where - or find it again. I am sure that I remember, for one thing, that Gao explicitly wanted to insure that the pronoun "we" not be used anywhere in the translation. Now that's a political statement, to be sure.
Charlie

In his Nobel prize acceptance speech Gao mentions: "In my fiction I use the pronouns I, You, and He to tell about or to focus on the protagonist. ... The portrayal of the one character by using different pronouns creates a sense of distance...." He also calls this ‘cold literature' or the ‘third eye', a sort of detaching oneself of one's emotions, to have a ‘distance gaze'.

Charlie you asked what would be Gao's purpose of using the You as protectionist. To approach us with universal truths here? I would think he did, in a sort of "Third Eye" way?

The I is lonely, he creates the You, and the You, being lonely too, creates the She....I'm somewhat puzzled with this She - she must be an imaginary character if I read the explanations right. On the second page of the book, his first day of travel, it seems, he sees two women who hold hands as they chat. He describes one of these women, is impressed by her beauty and nothing else is said. In chapter 5 he encounters a woman, and in the seventh chapter again. Did he really meet them then, or is she already the She? And was she created with the woman he saw on the first day in mind?

Also: I haven't found a real good map of China yet, but wonder of the You river is symbolic, or does it really exist? ine

Charlie, does Gao use the personal pronoun 'you' to involve the reader in the story? With the use of 'you,' I feel that Gao is making me a part of his personal experience. Therefore, in some general way, his story becomes my story too.

Like Ine, as far as 'She,' I can not even take a stab at the why of her presence.

Ine, that "third eye" explanation is helpful to me. On this my second reading, I want to see if he keeps this "distance" throughout the whole novel. I've looked at literally dozens of maps, by the way, but haven't found one worth posting for reference - they're all just ok for our purposes. So until proven otherwise, I'm assuming that the You River is symbolic.

Ine has raised the issue of the "she" - is 'she' imaginary? Is that the way you read her? (you meaning 'you' the reader, not "You" the protagonist - this can be confusing can't it!!)? In chapter 5, the narrator (you) tells us that:

It is by the pavilion that you encounter she. It is an undefinable longing, a vague hope, it is a chance meeting, a wonderful meeting.

To me this is the genesis of she - this third protagonist has been produced out of the longing and hope of 'you.'

Listening to a storyteller in a teahouse [pg 33], 'She' seems to finish one of 'you's' thoughts: "She seems to be your echo."[emphasis mine] At the end of the chapter she disappears for the second time: "vanishing at the end of the street, as if in a story, as if in a dream."[emphasis mine] Echo...dream...and this is a story isn't it!?

Regret, regret, regret. Three times regret and (Chapter 7) finds 'you' mulling over his lost opportunity "with a woman who came and vanished, just as if you're daydreaming." You seems to have conjured her up, just as he conjures up any number of stories to tell her along their journey. I think there are enough clues for us to read this protagonist 'she' as something out of the imagination of 'you.' This is so fascinating, really. Gao, the author, creates this fictional other: I, once removed from himself - it's his creation after all, even though I's story mirrors the real life story of Gao in many respects. This fictional "I" then creates this "you" who in turn creates this "she". Three regrets and thrice removed? The third eye that ine points out...

---

Hats seems to be saying that Gao's story as told through "I" (and more distantly 'you') has the effect of making his story ours. I see this as a possibility, and want to hold onto that observation. Look for more evidence, so to speak.
Charlie

Amazing - I can't get into Books and Lit by logging on but here is this possibility to post whithout logging into seniornet - used my email address rather than my name and voilà - amazing.

My thoughts on the "you - I - me - he" - to me it is like the ego "I " as in I want, I need, I like, versus the spiritulity of mankind expressed as "you- me - he"

An-Atta: Literally, “not self.” A concept in Theravada Buddhism denying the permanent existence of self as confined by physical and mental attributes.

In Hinduism it is called Atman: The real self, the eternal and sometimes universal life principle.

I've come to this thought especailly after reading and researching the first chapter - I think Gao is going to write this as the story of the universal or spiritual man/God. As in the parable that all the universe is in a speack of sand.

Add to this there is a painting of a Daoist sailing in a cloud and holding a bottle-gourd containing an elixir of immortality. Daoism questiones Confucian values and concernes itself with matters ignored by Confucians, such as the quest for personal immortality.



Daoism has an enormous impact upon the Chinese mentality, especially in artistic fields, although it has been suppressed and distorted in the Confucian-controlled historical record. Remember we learned during one of our earlier reads that in order to be hired in government you had to study and take yearly tests on Confuianism up till the early 1900. So that China has a basic philosophy that is Confusian and Dao.

Having worked with two women caught in the Cultural Revolution as the children of one a professor and the other a daughter of a physician the evidence of that impact on Gao I see is his lack of trust as he questions if his scrape of information is accurate. My experience with these two women was they appear to have no trust in anyone, even the inspectors that they hire for their information.

Central to Daoism is the concept of the Dao, or Way, which refers to the unseen reality lying behind appearances. The Daoist tradition downgraded cultural achievements and stressed instead the desirability of wuwei, "action without contrivance" or "doing nothing;" the natural processes and balance of the universe would remain harmonious if not tampered with by man.

OK I found these sites that explain the history and geography of the area of the The Youngning River, a tributary of the Xijiang River, which is the main stream of the Pearl River; the Kaiyuan reign, which is immediatly before the Song Dynasty in the Tank Dynasty.

Learned all about "bitumen" and evidently this this bridge at Lingahan or sometimes called Lingyan on the sits I found, is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. Ancient bridges

The Heyday of Kaiyuan

But most telling to me was this article that explains this area as one of the newly discovered areas with digs bringing up evidence that it was inhabited by Stone age people. Pre-Historic Culture Found in South China that has lain hidden in the valley of the Pearl River Delta for 5,000 years...this site provides new information for researchers to better understand the way of life and activity of mankind during the early New Stone Age...has filled in the blank in research on pre-historic humans in the Pearl River valley, and will change the emphasis of research on pre-historic archeology that was formerly given to the Yellow and Yangtze river valleys.

I'm thinking although Gao was trying to hide in the wilderness his journey as the connection to the growth or flowering of "his/man's" soul and he starts out in the area that has the oldest pre-history.

Charlie wrote: To me this is the genesis of she - this third protagonist has been produced out of the longing and hope of 'you.'.... Regret, regret, regret. Three times regret and (Chapter 7) finds 'you' mulling over his lost opportunity "with a woman who came and vanished, just as if you're daydreaming." You seems to have conjured her up, just as he conjures up any number of stories to tell her along their journey. I think there are enough clues for us to read this protagonist 'she' as something out of the imagination of 'you.'

All of this reminds me of Leon Bloy's aphorism, which I believe that Graham Green used for "The End of the Affair," -

"The heart has places that do not yet exist, and suffering enters into them so that they may have existence."

Jack

One of the issues that some reviewers have mentioned is that of a perceived misogynistic tendency of Gao's. I admit to some uncomfortable squirming on my part now and then regarding some of these same feelings. I'll point some of them out as we go along, if I may - they are troubling to me. Like in Chapter 7 [pg 44]: talking about the tale of Second Master, "you" says "men are no match for women when it comes to being cruel." Well, excuse me, if I'm supposed to identify with this - I don't!

Jack brings up suffering. In Chapter 11, 'she' talks about her "superfluous" life, and her desire for suicide (beautiful deaths only, please). 'You's' assessment seems to be that: "As she cannot eliminate her suffering, there is no choice but to let death resolve it." She speaks of her 'nausea.' Forever more when I see the word 'nausea', I think of Sartre. But while Sartre wrote of the 'nausea' of existence, here 'she' speaks of the nausea of death.

She tells her story and 'you' seems to dismiss it as the whining of a "spoilt child." Is this fair? Or is it a ploy of some sort? He invites her to the "other shore…where suffering and pain can be forgotten, and where one can find freedom." What is 'you' asking her to leave behind exactly? Her heart in order to find her soul?
Charlie

I am probably simplifying the you too much, but I relate the "you" to Eliot's Prufrock, "Let us go then, you and I..."

It was just a part of him, his Jiminey Cricket, his conscience.

Prufrock went on a mental odyssey, so is Xingjiian--with his alter ego.

Billy Frank - No, I wouldn't call it simplifying at all. Whatever helps us understand and relate. It works. With some books, of course, you have to do that with more than others. In fact, I think that's a great comparison (one of my favorite poems, too)
Charlie

Does no one else here ever address themselves in interior monologues as "you." I find that shaving is a great place for talking about "you's" activities and giving "my" comments on them. Is this something other people share, or just a decades-old sign of incipient mental illness Jack

I can't cite by pages as I'm using an edition printed in Europe,which I'm sure is paged differently. But in chap. 3 Gao recalls being dressed up for winter and stamping around reciting a familiar type of linked verse children's ditty. While on the surface if seems a bit "naughty" as it speaks of pissing on someone, it is actually quite sacreligous (sp).

The lines:

The monk said a prayer So Guanyin pissed The piss hit my son His belly hurt So I got an exorcist...etc.

Guanyin (aka Kwan Yin)is the premier bodhisattva figure in Mahayana Buddhism (the Buddhism of China, Japan, Korea, VietNam). She occupies a position of veneration equal to that of the Virgin Mary in Catholicism or Orthodoxy. To say she pissed on someone as the result of a prayer...well. Further, Guanyin is depicted as carrying the "vase of compassion," from which she pours forth a never-ending stream of compassion - which the piss in the ditty must be parodying. In the end the exorcism against the stomach ache this causes doesn't work and costs a bundle.

I wonder if Gao had a serious reason for bringing in this ditty. It certainly - despite being a children's poem - reflects a rather dismal, if comic, view of life.

Jack

This paragraph is typical of the observations one finds in the teachings of Ch'an (Zen) masters. As this school of Mahayana Buddhism developed in China it borrowed a great deal from Taoism with whom it had much in common. It will be interesting to see if in his perigrinations more direct references/involvements with Ch'an occur.

Jack

Does anyone know who is this Mr. Ma? The sentence reads to me like it is being said with some disdain. These are the names I found, one being a high offical out of Hong Kong. I am wondering now if it is this representative out of Hong Kong that visited the West Lake. If so, should we be reading this as Gao Xingjian attached in loyalty and pride to China.

• Mr. Ma Zhengang. Ambassador of People's Republic of China to United Kingdom.
• Mr. YoYo Ma
• Mr. Ma Chi Man of Florida Splendid China
• Mr. Ma Qing-qi, Chief, Trade HONG KONG

West Lake, appears to be a major tourist attraction of great beauty and has been so since the Tang Dynasty (618-907). I've read that legend has it that West Lake was originally a jewel fallen from heaven. It is a lagoon formed as a result of changes both nautural and human.

In 210 B.C., the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty (Qinshihuang) ordered the construction of the Qiantang County seat - predecessor of today's Hangzhou. During Han times (206 B.C. - 220 A.D.), dikes were put up to check the sea water and turn the shallows into land.

Sights at West Lake named the most beautiful, include:

• Melting Snow at Broken Bridge,
• Spring Dawn at Sudi Causeway, (Built with silt in 1089 when Su Dongpo supervised the dredging of the lake)
• Sunset Glow over Leifeng Hill,
• Lotus in the Breeze at Crooked Courtyard,
• Autumn Moon on Calm Lake,
• Listening to Orioles Singing in the Willows,
• Viewing Fish at Flowers Harbour, (Buildings erected in Song times surround a pond in which golden carp are raised)
• Evening Bell at Nanping Hill (A bell rings at dawn as the moon is sinking in the west).

Such poetry in their naming. West lake photos includes a photo of the Lingyin Temple

Oh my this is a wonderous animated photo of the West Lake

Hangzhou, in the West Lake area is a long-standing tea growing area. The first writen work in the world on tea production is by Lu Yu of the Tang Dynasty. He gives a detailed description of Longjing Tea cultivation in Hangzhou.

Hangzhou is also known for its silk, which comes in several thousand varieties of more than a dozen kinds, including satin, damask, gauze, and spun silk.

Have any of you visited China?

Yuanxiao Festival or the Lantern Festival is a traditional Chinese holiday on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, fourteen days after Chinese New Year's Day.

"Yuan" means Round and "Xiao" means Overnight, One story is that it is believed that Yuanxiao is named after the palace maid of Emperor Wu Di of the Han Dynasty. Scroll down on this link and learn the story of Yuanxiao and the Lantern Festivsal

Called my good friend Lily Widodo who is Indonesian/Chinese. Her family came to Idonesia in the early part of the 1900s. Lily tries to estimate using our measurments but is more comfortable using grams - meters etc. We had fun together doing the math for this recipe for yuanxiao a sweet dumpling similar to the dumpling Gao says is available at the food stall at the end of the bridge.

4 1/2 cups (500 g) sticky rice flour (can be purchased in an Asian food market)
butter 7oz. (200 g)
black sesame powder 7 oz (200 g)
sugar 8 oz (250 g)
1 tsp wine

1. Mix the butter with sesame powder, sugar, and wine together. You need to heat a little bit. Make small balls about 0.3 - 0.4 oz (10 g) each.
   
   
2. Take 1/2 cup of sticky rice flour. Add water into the flour and make a flattened dough. Cook it in boiled water and take out until done. Let it cool down. Then put it in the rest of the sticky rice flour. Add water and knead until the dough is smooth.
   
   
3. Make the dough into small pieces about 0.3 - 0.4 oz (10 g) each. Make it like a ball using hands first and then make a hole in the ball like a snail. Put the sesame ball into it and close it up.
   
   
4. Cook them in boiled water. Make sure to keep stirring in one direction while cooking. When they float on the water, continue to boil for about one minute using less heat.

Within this account of Ch'an Buddhism is the beautiful story of the transmission of the Dharma to Mahakashyapa, one of the Buddha's chief disciples, who became the First Patriarch in the Ch'an lineage.

Here is the story of Chang'er and her flight to Ýhe moon written in the Han dynasty ( 206 B. C. -A. D. 24) and refered to in Shanhaijing which is the chinese word for Classic of the Mountains and Seas, a book of travels and tales. Sounds like a creation story to me - what do y'all think?

Majestic photo of Qionglai Mountains in central Sichuan. Their forests are home to the last 1,200 or fewer wild pandas.

All about The Qiang ethnic minority "Qiang" (pronounced "Chi-ung") their provincial capital is Chengdu. Evidently in these ethnically deiverse mountains of western Sichuan, grouped together is a number of small, independent tribes under the banner "Qiang" and still more groups were bunched together in recent years by China under the official "Tibetan" nationality. mode and customs in the Tibetan-Qiang district

Map of the Major Chinese Rivers with two awsome photos of the Yangtze

Yes, Jack, interior monologues 'R us - none too kindly, usually. That guy is my own worst critic! And thanks for your take on the "ditty". It was lost on me. I know he was "lost in memories" at this point (one of the many times) and was reminded of his childhood home. The recurring image that takes him there is of bare feet on black cobblestones. Anyone care to take a stab at that?
Charlie

The second chapter seems to end without a finish - or to me the curiosity satisfied of determining if the stone hut and gun are still up the Silver Mine Gully - Than it occured to me I bet this is a shadow story to his experience learning he did then did not have Cancer.

His father deceased would be venerated so as not to disturb today, almost as a god.

The old man is looking into the fire. Fire in Buddhist symbolism represents - Wisdom, which burns all ignorance, is consuming, the flame signifies the presenece of divinity. Chinese tradition has fire as; danger, anger, ferocity, speed, and as a spiritual power it is solar, yang. Daoists say, "worry is the fire that consumes." That we silence these inferiors by refusing to listen further. Fire is also a wanderer in that fire requires new fuel to burn.

In today's scientific world it seems to me Gao is saying the x-ray and the doctor are the wisdom that was coupled with his father's experience (like the old man and the fire) This analagy along with his question/thoughts on myth making; had Gao creating the myth that since his father died of Cancer so, he would also die of Cancer at a young age? Gao questions the old man's myth and does not seek to prove if the ridgepole stands or the stones have collapsed or if the rifle is rusted.

Studying the I Ching, a book of wisdom, one of the five clasics of Confucianism and the common source for both Confucianists and Taoists, Ta Kuo/Preponderance of the Great - it says: there are powerful moments in life which present opportunities to make progress. This oracle or pronouncement speaks of the ridgepole.

An example of a powerful moment in life would be Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea when the old man finally hooked the big fish of his life. Landing it required great attention, discipline, courage and the experience of a lifetime.

The difficulty with Ta Kuo is the sagging ridgepole, allowing ourself to be influenced by these pressures we may lose our inner equilibrium, fill ourself with doubt, fear, mistrust, continue intrenched habits, experience inner burnout. A ridgepole saging is misfortune. Because of this, the burden grows, until the structure of things bend or break. Plunging willfully ahead in times of danger only hastens the catastrophe. A straight and firm ridgepole symbolizes our will to go on in a balanced and independent way.

Gao does not willfully go ahead to prove the ridgepole is standing. Even the animals know to stay away from a callapsed ridgepole.

The Qiang worship with or to white stones - the stone hut - The Buddhist symbolize black stones as evil deeds and white stones as good deeds and are weighed in the judgement balance. I Ching says, the stone or mountain is "Keeping Still" where the beginning and the end of all creatures are completed, death and life.

With the ridgepole, rusted gun and stone hut we have the elements of wood, metal, water (rust), stone or mountain. The old man is singing and worshiping around the fire, light-giving - the Clinging. All five elements are represented.

Interesting that the gun both metal/earth and water/rust is the image for The Army which needs organization in order to become a fighting force and strict discipline - invisible in times of peace but always ready for use as a source of power according to the I Ching.

Although Gao speaks of his grandfather my thought is he is emphasizing the case for ancestor worship which is again the prayers that ancestors do not disturb or bring bad luck into the present.

Barbara St. Aubrey writes:

The difficulty with Ta Kuo is the sagging ridgepole, allowing ourself to be influenced by these pressures we may lose our inner equilibrium, fill ourself with doubt, fear, mistrust, continue intrenched habits, experience inner burnout. A ridgepole saging is misfortune.

Yes, but...if we can assume any particular cultural references in the story there is quite another interpretation. In the Dhamapada, which is one of the oldest and most revered - and popular of the Buddhist canon, one of the chapters speaks specifically of destroying the house. The house being the analogy for the person's idea of an unchanging personal self. The destruction of this "house" is good, and special mention is made of the ridgepole being pulled down.

Maybe yes, maybe no.

Jack

Hmmmm interesting the differences Jack - now I am back to wondering, if the sagging ridgepole means the dystruction of the house as a benefit toward Narvana, why does Gao not make an effort to attain entry to the stone shelter with sagging ridgepole and the rusty gun on the wall?

Somehow this short chapter doesn't go anywhere and the only thing I can imagine is that there is symbolism in it that is basic to Gao's journey.

My study has been in Daoism and the I Ching rather than Buddhism. I understand there are several versions of Buddhism that I liken to the concept that there are several versions of Christianity. The Buddhist symbolism that I tap is as a result of my reading companion An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols By J.C.Cooper. I also have a copy of Hans Biedermann's Dictionary of Symbolism but I prefer the Cooper. In the Cooper "...Encyclopaedia..." listed is not only the general Western Lit. symbolic meanings but, the specific symbolic meaning for various cultures the likes of; Amerindian, Christian, Egyption, Hindu, Islamic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Sassanian, African, Buddhist, Celtic, Minoan, Oceanic, Sumero-Semitic, Alchemic, European, Roman, Teutonic, Scandinavian, Shamanistic, Graeco-Roman, Mithraic, Iranian, Heraldic, Druidic, Mycenaean, Siberian, on and on. Whew!

I love it - all the differences make me smile - it is such and eye opener and yet, I find for everything I look up I usually have several questions. The internet has been a great boon in researching and cross-referencing.

But back to our story - Gao does mention the Venerable Mahakashyapa therefore I would think we can assume there is, on Gao's part, the philosophy or thinking that is in common with Ch'an Buddhism. His mentioning Classic of the Mountains and Seas I would gather he is also adept in the many myths and tales of Old China. As a culture the Chinese have a philosophy steeped in Confusianism and Daoism.

WHat do you think - my bent, while reading, is to see if any of the symbolism of all that can be found and illuminate a deeper understanding as a way of uncovering what this is all about other than a good yarn about a journey in the wilderness.

And so Jack please, really, would you share how you see the understanding of the house collapsing as a good thing, would add to what is going on in this chapter and ultimatly what Gao is trying to tell us or get at.

For me looking at the symbolic meanings help me get deeper into Gao's thoughts and journey so that I can ask the question 'So what is the point here,' and 'So what anyway,' and finally 'What is the significance or consequences of this journey in light of the everyday world?'

Thinking aloud here, would the collapse of his house being a good thing have something to do with his rejecting the myth, changing a basic belief, that I suspect he was developing that since his father died young of Cancer he would follow in his father's footsteps?

He ends this chapter speaking of reality and the final sentence, which I think is so beautiful, speaks of water: haze, mist, rushing water, swift-flowing stream.

My trusty companion Cooper says; "the stream is a symbol of self-nature in Buddhism." And water is for the Buddhist, "the perpetual flux of the manifest world." Mist is the condition of error and confusion.

In the I Ching water is, "The Abysmal, the trigram of toil, to which all creatures are subject. It is said; 'He toils in the sign of the Abysmal.' Water flows on and on, and merely fills up all the places through which it flows; it does not shrink from any dangerous spot nor from any plunge, and nothing can make it lose its own essential nature. Water reaches its goal by flowing continually. An abysmal situation, water counsels us, for now, to 'keep still,' for any effort to change the situation only makes it worse."

Has anyone read the September 2001 issue of Smithsonian? There is an excellent article on Bhutan, a small country which borders China, about the search for Migoi, wild man, in the Himalayas.

Maybe, Xingjiian is relating the same type of being with his wild men. Anyway, the photographs of the countryside are picturesque.

Sometimes in a book like this, it's difficult to see the forest for the trees. Well, a cliché, perhaps - but appropriate here, I think, in that much of these first 12 chapters is concerned with a journey deeper and deeper into nature. Really, we've probably all at one time or another, read of similar journeys. Many of us may have even made similar journeys ourselves. This is all familiar territory, told in a not particularly lyrical manner. I will say it's only one facet of the journey though….

I am becoming obsessed with getting to the primeval forest at the back of the mountain and find myself drawn to it by some inexplicable force. [pg 28]

This world belongs to wild animals but human beings persist in interfering with it. You can't get the spiritual tranquility you crave…[pg 40]

Young man, nature s not frightening, it's people who are frightening! You just need to get to know nature and it will become friendly. [pg 49]

But why have I come to this mountain? …maybe it's to find another sort of life. To leave far behind the unbearably perplexing world of human beings. [pg 50]

The unadorned splendour and beauty in nature fills me with another sort of indescribable sadness. It is a sadness which is purely mine and not something inherent in nature. [pg59]

My passing through here at this moment, even my very existence, is ephemeral to the point of meaninglessness. [pg 60]

And finally [emphasis added]:

This is pristine natural beauty. It is irrepressible, seeks no reward, and is without goal, a beauty derived neither from symbolism nor metaphor, and needing neither analogies nor associations….I feel the very depths of my soul being cleansed. [pg 61]

Charlie

What CharlieW has posted, the excerpts re nature, I think emphasizes/restates the closing paragraph of Chap. 2, which comes right after the story of the dead hunter told to him by the old man.

I still find the juxtraposition of the story of the hunter, which confused Gao so much, and the closing paragraph seemingly so full of the insight associated with Ch'an and Daoism to be perplexing. I ended up feeling that his inability to accept the old man's story "as-is" made his closing little rhapsody on nature ring hollow.

Looked at in that light I saw his getting lost in the forest as a bit of a comeuppance/corrective to what was really an intellectual and not intuitive understanding of nature that ended Chap. 2. Jack

Jack- I very much agree with your thoughts re Gao’s “comeuppance” on getting lost in the wilderness. That makes a lot of sense to me. This reminded me very much also, of Mann’s Magic Mountain, when Hans got lost in the snowstorm. Two very similar views of nature, I think. There were an awful lot of references regarding clawing Panda’s and tigers and deadly vipers. Be careful out there. Nature is not to be controlled it seems – especially by man. Underlying this all is a subtext of an ecological bent it seems to me.

Ok I hear what you are saying Charlie - Please consider my contribution and thoughts as and not as but! Yes, there is much nature refered and the lines you've extracted are wonderful. And for me this is the observable code if you would for the spiritual part of the journey.

We know that most early religions/philosophies worshiped or explained itself using nature. Example, Native American Indian and the Daoism that is steeped in Chinese culture. As I read, I understand and have had authors agree, they do not write particularly looking for a certain symbolic reference. The few authors I have talked with agree, built into their psychie is the symolistic references that spill on to their writing page by virtue of their association with a culture.

I still see symbolic signposts all around us today and remember many more from my childhood that would still resonate - the striped red and white pole - the flying white horse on a red background - walking in a garden of herbs knowing the hidden language that each herb refers enlarges upon the beauty of the garden, in addition to appreciating the design, and lush growth of the garden - understanding the idioms of an area, as in an expression often heard in this part of the country, at times used during a companionable, or not, group sharing. One of the group may caution everyone to 'roll up your pant legs' which brings a smile but certainly no one bends down and literaly rolls up our pant legs.

Basic for me is looking at the symbolic nature (aha yes, heehe, nature) of an authors chosen words, especially, if they are repeated, in addition to the other usual elements; Time, Plot, Theme, Conflict, Setting and Characterization. This practice helps me get more depth from the author and is in my knapsack of tools for discovering the richness beneath the surface appearance of things, rather than seeing the material as a fragmented and literal story.

The process of considering the significance of the symbolic patterns, the reflections of this group and reasearching the bits and pieces the author includes, I can get to the heart of and consider the significance of the material. This process leads to achieving my reading goal which is to integrate my thoughts with my feelings and add to my knowledge and understanding of the material being read. Discussing a book here in seniornet, looking for the symbols and researching has offered many additional insights that on my own I would have missed. I hope you can suffer my posted thoughts and reasearch as an and.

I still have remaining three chapters to read - while reading chapter four something reached out in that last sentence. It seemed to be summing up the violence in nature almost summing up the violence especially among humans, in the chapter. I recently came across this quote that reinforced how cruel nature can be.

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony.

Now I want to look at the other chapters and see if the last sentences are a round-up of the chapter. If this is so, chapter five is interesting in that it is like the drifiting mind of anyone in contemplation making up a fantasy story.

The thing that is hitting me is, that every chapter is not just using references to nature, but specifically, there seems to be something said about stones -- cobblestones, stone huts etc. As I've shared stone and mountain is interchangable as a symbol in Tao. Being aware of mountain or stone is a call to become meditative, quiet the thoughts of our "inferiors." Becoming quiet "keeping still" we hear our inferiors concerns and complaints and notice they are like children, wanting, wondering, worrying, fearing. The book named Soul Mountain in the States it seems then that each chapter is a mantra to this journey of a man's soul.

Ok what follows is lots of research:

- That poem must have some hidden meaning! -

I couldn't find anything about some of the names. In light of learning that Gyanin is the most revered goddess the poem takes on a different reference. I wonder if they were early monks. The pissing on the belly must have some other meaning. I've read often about the most vererable monk seemingly so irreverent as compared to our western behavoral expectations. Could pissing simply be a 'back to nature' more primitive way of expressing the marking of someone or calling someone's attention?

China's mythical stories, either those created by the primitive people or those written by later scholars, are full of human feelings. Gods, ghosts, foxes and spirits are commonly described as living things with human qualities and human feelings.

Ancient Chinese myths were not recorded in a systematic way in any work, and , as a result, only fragments of them are extant today. Fortunately, many classical works of the pre-Qin period and the Han Dynasties, such as the Zhuangzi, the Liezi, the Huainanzi, the Chronicles by Zuo Qiuming, Conversations from the States, and above all, the Book of Mountains and Seas, contain fragments and excerpts of ancient mythical stories, which make up a beautiful and fascinating part of our classical literature.

Creature of Chinese legend, Foxes that could kindle fires by striking its tail on the ground and can see into the future. Chinese foxes often takes the form of old men, young ladies, and scholars, and it causes mischief. They are found in graveyards and help the souls of the dead transmigrate.

Tompert, Ann. Grandfather Tang’s Story: A Tale Told with Tangrams. Illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker. Crown Publishers, Inc., 1990. 28 pages. Age 4-8. Grandfather Tang tells his granddaughter a story about fox fairies using tangrams. Fox fairies were frequently used in Chinese folklore. The two fox fairies of Grandfather Tang’s story play a game of "I can do anything you can do better" by turning themselves into different animals. When the game becomes dangerous, the fox fairies decide to become foxes once more...

Guanyin (Kuan Yin) is the most universally beloved of Chinese deities. As the Bodhisattva of Compassion, she hears and answers the cries of all beings. In popular conception, Guanyin went through a long and interesting transformation from male to female . In this beautifully powerful, androgynous statue of painted wood from early 12th Century she is in the "royal ease" posture: seated, but about to rise to help those in need. She is a Virgin Goddess who protects women. She is a deity of the wild places, often appearing under a full moon, by ponds and willow trees.

Guanyin possesses a vial inevitably contains holy water (often described as tears). She dispenses the liquid as compassion to the believers.

Another image of Guanyin is with a bowl of lotus leaves. The container of lotus leaves symbolizes Guanyin's ability to provide male children for the believers. The story of the multi-armed Guanyin

Daoism's acceptance of Guanyin is also the result of the concept of the Oneness of the Three Teachings. Tao Hongjin, the Daoist master of the Southern Dynasty, absorbed elements of Buddhism and shared a good relationship with Confucianism. Buddhism and Daoism have influenced each other since the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing periods...they have borrowed from each other.

Flying foxes, are S Asian fruit bats whose short jaws and powerful teeth are specially adapted for piercing the rinds of tough fruit. They include the largest of all bats.

Now what do bats, large fruit eating bats, have to do with this story??

Wan Fo (Ten Thousand Buddha)Stone pagoda. built in the reign years of Shaoxing of Southern Song Dynasty and was renovated in the 10th reign year of Dade of Yuan Dynasty.

In 960, Zhao Kuangyin, a high-ranking military leader of the Later Zhou, staged a mutiny and founded the Song Dynasty. In 1141, the Song and Jin signed the Shaoxing Peace Agreement, ending their military conflicts but ushering in a long period of political confrontation.

Balang Mountain arrogantly stands in the gateway to Xiaojin. Balang is covered with snow all year round. When we climb all the way to the mountain's top and cast our gaze as far as we can, we come to the true feeling that all other mountains are mere miniatures... The mountain is not well known in China...

The Min river really exists - Fuzhou on the Min River delta

Xining the capital of Qinghai Province, is an ancient city with a history of 2000 years, I wonder if Gao created the Palace of Blue Vastness from the discription of the lake, ("a blue sea" situated in Northeast Qinghai, covers an area of 4583 sq km, it is the largest saline lake in China) and Palace (Labrang Mon. means Palace, located 450 kilometers from Xining and home to 6000 monks).

In the southern part of the Mountain Resort are the palace buildings where the Qing emperors lived and conducted state affairs, including - Donggong (Eastern Palace) The garden area includes the lake, plains and mountain areas where most of the 72 scenic wonders named by emperors Kangxi and Qianlong are scattered.

There don't seem to be many people contributing. Have other people lost interest in the book? Jack

Youuuuuu whooooo Jack are you still around? I am just going to pile up a few more links in the corner here, all about Emperor Wu and the Han Dynasty - facinating stuff - Gao is really taking us back in time with his references.

In Chinese history it is the Han, the longest dynasty in Chinese history, that defines Chinese culture. The Emperor Wu-ti 140-87 BC was the sixth emperor of Han and only sixteen when he came to the throne. His reign of more than fifty years was one of the most famous in Chinese history, the most important emperor of the Han dynasty, the second dynasty of The Imperial Period ( site includes maps) The dynasty was founded by a commoner, a fact that would be vitally important in twentieth century Chinese politics.

Liu Pang, a commoner, was one of the rebel generals who fought the Ch'in; in the process of his rebellion, he gained control over the area around the Wei River, the traditional homeland of the Ch'in. In four short years, Liu Pang emerged supreme over all the territories. Taking the name, Han Kao Tsu, or "Exalted Emperor of Han," he built his capital at Chang'an and began the long process of reunifying China.

The Han "Confucianized" the Legalist government of the Ch'in, eventually adopting Confucianism as the state philosophy. For more than four centuries, the Han dynasty ruled a state larger than one contemporary, Kushan India, and wealthier than another contemporary, Imperial Rome. For more than four centuries, the Han dynasty ruled a state larger than one contemporary, Kushan India, and wealthier than another contemporary, Imperial Rome.

In 105 bc, a Chinese ambassador, following the trail Chang had blazed decades before,reached the borders of Iran, where he was presented to the Parthian king, Mithridates II. The envoy laid luxurious silks at the ruler's feet. Mithridates reciprocated by sending an ostrich egg and a troupe of conjurors back to Emperor Wu Ti. Thus, the Silk Route, which transformed the history of China in the East and Rome in the West, was born. And Chang Ch'ien's name continued to elicit great respect in Central Asia and pride in China for many centuries to come. *

Jack: It appears that most of the participants have droppped out. Curious, but this sometimes happens. I think this discussion had a DNR attached to it! The DL Forum is fine where it is to me. CTRL+End gets you to the bottom of any screen in a flash. I won't post any more of a 'schedule' - that appears superfluous at this point. If anyone has anything of import to add - regarding the book - have at it.
Charlie

Charlie what is a DNR?

After the discussion on "You, I, Me, She, He" it appears that all three chapters that are about the girl are fantasy plays in his head that gives Gao an opportunity to tell stories and refer to cultural myths. But the thought occurs if "I" and "She" are the same does that mean the girl is the feminine side of Gao? What do you think??? My impression is that the girl in his head is someone, or the side of himself, that he prefers to nurture, and flirt with.

The last lines of chapter nine says he has a masochistic streak that is not only teasing this feminine side but, from the story he told he seems to be killing off that side of himself. It appears that the process is taking him kicking and screaming into this good night as the saying goes, "You then hear her screaming again."

Did you get something else out of this Charlie?

I've done a search on every town and name mentioned and several come up with no references - I can only imagine Gao has created some names and names of places for the Novel.

Looking into as many references as I can detect although on the surface there is so much about nature the references are steeped in History with some myth and some poetry. I have been absolutly facinated learning this history - We've read, here on seniornet, several books with the story taking place in China but those books, where they encouraged inquary into culture, didn't seem to touch the history that I find this book is encouraging.

Ok here is the last of the research through chapter nine - I am imagining, or maybe hoping, that Gao has completed his placing his spiritual journey in the past and therefore, the lions share of China's Ancient History has been delt with. The Qing Dynasty brings us up to the 20th century.

The reference to The Qing Dynasty and Guangxu is opening up a powder keg!

The Chinese links say one thing and the Tibetan links say another - this site blames the events surrounding a war led by the new 13th Dealai Lama in 1887, on Britian. and here we have Japan in on the Threat of the Royalists. during the last of the nineteenth century, that some refer to as the 100-day Reform Movement of October 26, 1898. This site is more about Sun Yat Sen who established a secret society in Hawaii, towards the overthrow of the Qing dynasty.

This gives the Tibetan concept some validity - a site offering a map of the summer palace area for the Qing dynasty. - "Although the palace complex proper contained mostly Chinese-style buildings and gardens, the preferred architectural language for the monumental structures was Tibetan. Between 1713 and 1780, 11 Lamaist temples were built on the hills east and west of the retreat complex; the surviving ones are known as the Eight Outlying Temples."Photos of the area including temples etc. built during the reign of Guangxu

During The Taiping rebellion, which lasted for twenty years, twenty to thirty million died as a direct result of the conflict. The revolt was led by Hung Hsiu-ch'üan, a visionary from Guangdong who evolved a political creed influenced by elements of Christianity. His object was to found a new dynasty,The period from 1850 to 1873 saw, as a result of rebellion, drought, and famine, the population of China drop by over sixty million. Along with humiliating defeats at the hands of European powers, the mid-nineteenth century in China was truly tragic.

Dragon Gate Temple but no Dragon King Temple. How about a White Dragon King

Metasequoia. || PRONUNCIATION:met-a-se-KWOY-a || Arrow Bamboo

Of the four types of Cyrtomium I found this is closest to the discription in the story. Cyrtomium falcatum: Japanese Holly Fern. Japan, Korea, China. 12-30 inches tall. An exceedingly popular fern prized for its decorative, dark green, leathery fronds.

"Kalpa" means transformation. KAYA KALPA || The Kalpa of Decrease

I've heard of Beriberi but didn't really know what the disease is all about.

The Three Gorges of the Yangtze River || Hunan Province rivers include the Zheng River

Despite the beauty and grandeur of their surroundings, life is not easy for the hillside villagers of Xiashapu and Shangshapu. Known as the Hani people, one of China's ethnic minorities says New Zealand consultants developing a hi-tech tool that is helping villagers in southern China plan for their future.

The Queen Mother of the West lives in the Ku'n Lu'n Mountains and grants immortality. At its conclusion two lovers are still separated by a heavenly stream, the Han River. A single great bird, whose name is Seldom Seen, bridges the distance between them, extending one wing over The Queen Mother of the West and one over the Prince of the East. On the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, The Queen Mother of the West crosses over the Han River on the bird's body to meet her mate, and thus the essential Taoist qualities of Yin and Yang unite.

The palace of Hsi Wang Mu -- the Queen Mother of the west -- was thought to lie far to the west of China. Emperor Mu of Chou Dynasty was supposed to have reached it with his eight magnificent horses, but he never returned. The "Yellow Bamboos" song was a song of mourning for him.

Li Shang-yin Ninth Century Baroque Chinese Poet, which focuses on the works of the late T'ang period.

Time was long before I met her, but is longer since we parted,
And the east wind has arisen and a hundred flowers are gone,
And the silk-worms of spring will weave until they die
And every night the candles will weep their wicks away.
Mornings in her mirror she sees her hair-cloud changing,
Yet she dares the chill of moonlight with her evening song.
...It is not so very far to her Enchanted Mountain
O blue-birds, be listening!-Bring me what she says!

another translation --

It is hard for us to meet and also hard to part;
The east wind is powerless as all the flowers wither.
The spring silkworm's thread will only end when death comes;
The candle will not dry its tears until it turns to ashes.
Before the morning mirror, she only grieves that her dark hair may change;
Reciting poems by night, would she not feel the moonlight's chill?
The P'eng-lai Mountain lies not far away;
O Blue Bird*, visit her for me with diligence!

* Blue Bird: a messenger of the goddess Queen Mother of the West

(Hope this does not appear twice. First time I got the message "no access" after I hit post.)

The usage of the word "kalpa" that I am most familiar with would be in the sense of "era," but one that is imagined as being too long to quantify in years. The idea that kalpas occur in vast cycles comes from the Indian civilizations. It is a term that Buddhism adopted.

Buddhism says that the historical buddha, Gotama, is only one of many such men who have observed the workings of the world and the mind of mankind, and then been able to give an explanation of these things in terms that allow those who grasp the teachings to lead lives of less suffering, etc. The term Dharma is used to describe both the way things really work (as opposed to what we would like and the teachings of the Buddhas.)

In the Buddhism of the Far East (China, Korea, Japan) it is believed that the Dharma (in the sense of the teachings only)deteriorate over time, that mankind becames less capable of grasping them and that finally knowledge and practice of the Dharma dies out altogether until such time as another Buddha becomes becomes enlightened and decides to teach. In Japanese this era of the decay/degeneration of the teachings about Dharma is called Mappo. (I know the same concept exists in Chinese Buddhism, but don't know the term.) Those Buddhists especially who study the Pure Land scriptures believe that the world has been in the Kalpa of Decay (Mappo) for many, many centuries. In Japan this belief that we have been living in the era of Mappo became so strong that in the 1400's it gave rise to a religious revolution of similar proportions to that of Protestantism in the West. The Pure Land sects arose (they are now the dominant for of Buddhism in Japan)preaching that man was so debased that trying consciously to lead a life of good works was impossible, therefore it was faith that saved one and from this would spring meritorious conduct. These sects derived their impetus from the writings of the Chinese Buddhist teacher Shan Tao.

When Gao speaks of chanting "Namu Amitofu Buddha" constantly when he learned he was dying he was quite literally turning to the basic root of Pure Land Buddhism in which faith is reduced to the constant repetition of this ejaculation. (It would be analogous to an American gentile repeating, "Praise the Lord.") At the most primitive level the hope/belief is that after death one will be born into the Pure Land created by the compassionate Buddha Amitofu for the express purpose of being a place where humans can (in circumstances better than those of the degenerate Mappo era) begin to understand the teachings of the Dharma.

So what does it mean that Gao slid into this constant chanting, only to end up being "born" right back into this world. He chanted and chanted and then found that his cancer had "disappeared," he was in effect reborn. Given his cultural background, does he now take this reprieve as his personal "Pure Land" in this life, and is this journey his working out his salvation as one would do after death in the true Pure Land of Amitofu? I'm inclined to think so - all this despite the fact that there seems to be precious little reference to these ideas in any articles I've read. I think that all the razzamatazz about the fragmentation of the author into You, she, etc. has led to ignoring the background - both cultural and that of personal experience - against which this so-called deconstruction is being played out. I'm not sure how one can make sense of it (the deconstruction) in isolation.

Buddhist teachings (as well as others) form a vast strata of cultural subconciousness in China. And much as a Western writer of totally secular bent often routinely employs images and even concepts from Christianity and Judaism, Chinese writers almost cannot help themselves from drawing on similar Buddhist undercurrents (and others.)

The first dozen or so chapters seem to me, to reflect Buddhist teachings very much. Images of physical, social and cultural decay abound, contrasted with an injured yet nevertheless enduring Nature, and a Nature that is not necessarily benign - despite Gao's tendencies thus far to try to sentimentalize it. And of course his very direct fall-back onto religion at a time of crisis.

The role of She I am not sure of. Obviously she represents the attempt to form a much deeper human relationship than the others he has touched on so far. As to how much this "exercise" is a projection of himself, I have no idea yet.

My thoughts are that the Gao character's journey is going to show him the fruitlessness of expecting to arrive in Lingshan. I am wondering if in the end he won't come to find his own somewhat idealist search doesn't share some of the arrogance and aggression of the cultural forces he is seeking to escape. If those cultural forces (the Cultural Revolution, for example) are the "bad guys" that does not mean that being their opponent and victim makes him an unadulterated "good guy." And if he is "saved" (in some non-specific meaning of that term) will part of that be his recognition that his making friends with Nature has been to some degree a conceit.

Jack

Jack help me understand - is chanting like the white azalea and cuckoo in chapter 10 - "seeking no reward and without goal, a beauty devived neither from symbolism nor metaphor and needing neither analogies nor associations." but like the cuckoo "hidden...which captivates one's soul and keeps leading one towards it." (both thoughts remind me of St. Augustine who said something to the affect that the soul naturally seeks God regardless man's behavior)

Although, having researched Shan Tao, I am getting the impression that just by virtue of chanting this montra brings one closer to "God," if you will, upon death. Is chanting like saying the rosary or any number of prayers that are supposed to pile up points toward a good death with a goal toward heaven OR is it more like a meditation or comtemplation that opens our hearts and mind to what is good virtue on earth or is it more like saying the rosary which is focusing our mind on the events and celebrating the events in a holy one's life?

And one more, does saying a certain montra bring one closer only to that particlular virtue or "saint"/bodhisativa?

I read in one of ths Shan Tao sites that saying this montra is in place of the usual work the practicing Buddhist undertakes to gain Nervana. Maybe I am being too analytical but can chanting replace "right" behavior or the attempt toward practicing "right" behavior?

I have two good friends who practices Buddhism but cannot explain or compare what they believe to Christianity. The one conversation, some years ago, centered on how Buddhism accepts that humans have wants and Buddhism does not try to suppress wanting as Daoism does. The montra that was given to me is "Nam-Myoho-Remge-Kyo" and I should chant this when I have a want. Is this chant creating a different energy and outcome than Gao's "Namu Amitofu Buddha?"

Is part of your thinking or the thinking of "Pure Land Buddhism" that we are reborn whenever we have been given a second chance at life?

Lots of questions, I know but as I said way back there I am least knowledgable of Buddhism and more familiar with Daoism. My spiritual association for many years was Roman Catholic. I attended schools with the Benedictines and the Carmalites. The Carmalites in particular are a comtemplative order therefore, Daoism is an easy extention.

This sentence in Chapter 10 caught my attention, "my passing through here at this moment, even my very existence, is ephemeral to the point of meaninglessness " along with his awarness that he was going around in a circle and then, the moss was another world of mountains, forests and shrubs. The earlier chapters the historical reference seemed to conjure up a story or happening that mirrored the story in that chapter. I am beginning to see his making a connection with a timeless universe. Giving credence to the OM.

I love reading the concept of his being alone in the universe and until he recongnizes something from his memory he feels terror. (or maybe it is because it matches my memory of the writings of St. John of the Cross who explains Hope as the unknown rather than memory which is things known and wanted) He seems to sum this glue we have to memory by saying "Futlile to struggle while impaled upon the fish-spear: it will take a miracle to change my fate. But haven't I been waiting for this or that sort of miracle all of my life?" Hmmm maybe all we really have is chanting??

Isn't there something in the Asian culture that says to be worthy of learning from a teacher you must prove your devotion? That some will arrive at some very early hour to just be present for up to a year before a teacher will accept your sincerity to learn and take you on as a pupil. That is what his struggle to keep up while climbing the mountain reminded me of and then, after the "teacher" shared his gift of showing him the Snow Cocks he is more forgiving and accepting of Gao's lesser ability at mountain climbing.

OH yes, isn't the 'Blue Bird" story similar to the story on Blue Willow China pattern. I beleive in that story the boy of lesser station and girl run away, die in the at sea and turn into the Blue Birds.

Dear members of this great website, I hope this is a good medium to reach all of you, but I want so badly to be in touch for a moment. Just now I received a letter from the Prayer for Peace movement all throught the world. It was initiated after the book THE EMISSARY OF LIGHT by James Twyman was published. We read the book and contacted this movement. Since then we've sent up a prayer for peace during the times of solstice (I must confess that the last few years we forgot some of these moments) but this time we certainly will help with this effort to pray for seven days for peace. We just light a candle, and go within in our own way. We don't use many words, but let our thoughts move toward this tremendous energy which is released at those moments. We'll think of you when we sit in our house. We're with you in this tragic, horrendous moment in your history, ine

Thank you, ine, for your warm thoughts for us today

Charlie

ine

Hello and what a pleasure it is to see you here ! ----- in a place where I am, alas, an interloper. I don't have the book yet, and I may not have the time to carefully read it when it comes, for I am very much engaged in Corelli's Mandolin ; and grateful that, in view of the terrible happenings in NY and suburban Virginia, further discussion has been suspended until the middle of next week.

As suggested by messages on the internet, I lit a candle at 7 p.m. my time and stayed right with it - for fear it might be extinguished by the intermittent dribble.

We are grateful for the Canadian support ---- after all, we do share the North American continent.

Charlie, I guess this would be the time to admit my impure thoughts. After many days of pure and LOYAL thoughts after the attack and such unthinkable losses in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, I did once, just once, think "saved by the terrorists" when I thought of my AWOL in the Soul Mountain discussion.

I feel awful about letting you down. I fully intended to read that damned book (multiplied guilt) before the discussion started. Then I was sick, sick, sick for about a week and a half around the 1st and all the while, kept meaning to get started on it and catch up. (The few chapters I read last spring, I think it was, were foggy at best.) Among the excuses were....I'll start tomorrow; it's a slow read; it's a big group so nobody will notice my absence; and I hate starting late and feeling behind.

There is a lesson here for me, I'm sure. I'd just been through 2 successive months when I felt indignant that a person here or there had not shown up, as promised.

I do remember pushing/supporting the decision to discuss this book, so I feel twice as bad. I guess I should let myself off the hook because I was sick for a while, but the "no excuse" edict from childhood is still with me.

I do apologize and won't let you down in the future.

betty

Hope you are feeling better, Betty. I've been thinking that maybe these spiritual jouney's are best taken alone, anyway.

Betty, I hope you are feeling better day by day. I too feel guily for not being here, Charlie. I admit that this book was just over my head! I could not comment. I could only read the posts and hope for understanding.

My lack of understanding is not your fault, Charlie. At times, I can just be so dense. This is one of those times.

No one should feel bad about not getting through this one. Some books are for reading, and some books are for the bookshelf!! There are also some books that must be read 'in their time' - and that time comes to each of us individually.

I have been reading the book, but not very quickly! I fully intended to participate in the discussion, but I don’t seem to be able to progress very much with the reading. Every once in a while the author gets to me, sometimes with his descriptions of the mountainous landscape, an exposition containing interesting historical detail, an episode that allows us to see the ecological ignorance and waste in earlier days, or a story illustrating the lives of women in China over the centuries -- hopefully, past practices! The latter in particular I think is important, because we see how women had to adapt to being treated as utilitarian objects. The woman who at times accompanies the narrator seems to be escaping from things in her life as she seeks for a situation where her humanity is honored and she is loved and appreciated as a person, rather that being used as an object. I know some of the discussion participants have suggested that she is the author’s feminine side, that he is struggling with personal issues, and that may well be the case, especially as she seems to appear and disappear, depending upon the focus of the chapter.
The appear-and –disappear stuff and his tendency to leave crises unresolved as he moves to another topic or location are both turnoffs for this reader. (What happened when he was lost in the mountain? When he was stuck in the muck a step from the boat? Did I miss the denoument?) I guess I’m a spoiled fiction reader, because I depend upon a clear narrative line to illuminate the author’s themes and to keep me reading! As soon as I develop a bit of interest in an episode or idea he wanders away, and not always to an equally interesting point or story.
His journey to Soul Mountain is circuitous, which is certainly like life itself, and his authorial privilege, but I have trouble climbing over the rocks and around the rubble with him. If anybody else has anything to offer that will give me a more positive feeling about this experience, I’ll be grateful! Maybe I’m in a bad mood this week. In fact, I know I am, and I know I’m not the only one! I’m sorry, Charlie and everybody, for not being around to hold up my end or to contribute anything!

What an interesting post, Jo. You've also jogged my memory of something I thought when I read a portion of the book months ago. I didn't think of the woman as either a real person or as a she/feminine side of the narrator. I thought of her as part of his knowledge of China, as just one piece of his experience of and concern for his homeland. That's not so different from what we do when thinking of a question/challenge/dilemma. If I think about poor children who are not covered by health insurance and who end up at an emergency room seriously ill, I PICTURE children in my mind at an emergency room, limp with fever. I don't know them but I know of them.

betty

Hmmm your post is a real thought provoker Jo - his relationship with this woman does seem to be filled with her relating to gender abuse. and then she is also shown as an object of his personal interest - he wants to show her rather than he being shown - but best of all, I love your discription of the read as if we were climbing over and around the boulders on the side of a mountain.

With the events of the past week I had not been able to get into the book - my thoughts seem to be focused on another area of the world and the use or misuse of power rather than a personal introspective look at life using a culture and nature to disclose this journey. Maybe now more than ever this personal journey does have more meaning - there really is nothing I can do about others and their use or misuse of power, but I can see Gao's model of introspection as an example for my own introspection.

Thanks for the nudge Jo.

Betty are you feeling any better - miss your voice - just your commenting on our posts to me is wonderfully grounding, especially posts that deal with women's issues.

I've been having much trouble not always able to get in to seniornet - Marcie and Eric are helping but it is still erratic but I plan on picking up Soul Mountain again and putting on my hiking boots.

Today I feel somewhere between stupid and happy, which, given the options of life, isn't too bad! Thanks for responding to my whining, Betty and Barbara. I have to tell you that shortly after I posted, it occurred to me that I too am lost in the mountain, stuck in the mire! Perhaps Gao doesn't allow us or himself to get out of his predicaments because they are vivid reminders of how tough that journey of the soul is, how frustrating and ambiguous the trail to that place of enlightenment and peace. Maybe he never gets there, maybe I don't either; maybe the dark, confusing mountain and the mud that keeps us from stepping into the boat and sailing off under the sunlight are permanent reminders of the human condition!
Barbara, thanks for characterizing the experience this way: "...a personal introspective look at life using a culture and nature to disclose this journey. Maybe now more than ever this personal journey does have more meaning - there really is nothing I can do about others and their use or misuse of power, but I can see Gao's model of introspection as an example for my own introspection."

Hi everyone - finally got the book from the library and, while I'm recovering from post-triathlon flu, I'll jump in shortly. I've been away, and I'm sorry - I've missed you all and am ready to get back to the fun of discussing books with you!

...a sight for sore eyes. Welcome back, Sarah. Sarah, who climbed the mountain, swam the ocean and rolled across the plains. Sarah's home, ya'll!

Sarah's HOME!

Sound the trumpet!
Bang the gong!


How did you do in the triathlon?

ginny

Good to see you here, Sarah. I hope you can shed more light on this reading experience. Chapter-wise, I'm in the 20's, and in addition to the problems I have with the discontinuity in the narrative, I still don't hear a VOICE. The narrator hasn't really made himself known as a particular individual. What is it...? Is it an utter lack of ego that promps this type of writing? Am I just too used to sensing, hearing, even "seeing" a more rounded person when I read? The journey of the soul is intended to be shared, I'm sure, but I'm also sure I would be more engaged if I had a fuller impression of the one leading us along.

OK visited with some of my Chinese Indonesian friends and learned a bunch - not the whole key but at least a bore in the door to see a bit more of what Gao is doing and saying -

First of all their thought is the book is written much like the Taoist "Book of Change" - short excerpts that add up to an entire phylosophy.

Also, the early texts for Confucian classics, although printed later from wood blocks, were incised on stone tablets - during the Han dynasty 46 of these tablets were broken and used to build a Bhuddist temple (ahum a goddam bhuddist temple) Supossedly there are hundred of fragments of these 46 tablets still in existance. Then the Wei dynasty set up its Stone Classics. Of the 35 stones there ar over 140 fragments left. During the Shu dynasty [I looked it up and it is the years 938 AD] all 13 Stone Classics were composed requiring thousands of stones and where as the stones have disappeared the rubbings are still available.

I'm seeing, not only these short almost isolated chapters like stone tablets or Tao 64 hexagrams but, the chapter where Gao lies on a stone slab with the Book of Change under his head like a pillow has more symbolic meaning.

Than the biggie - The Mountain is a metaphor for the Spiritual, and the Mountain is also a metaphor for Society.

Chinese and Indonesian artists, writers, developers of theater - continue the traditional, spiritual symbols, and mythology as a primary inspiration. The two symbols most frequently used, the mountain or triangle and the tree of life, which refers to the Hindu-Buddhist cosmology.

Using these symbols, artists see their individual ego as unimportant but their spirit as the ultimate, supreme, incomparable part of a wide, spiritual and invisible world. Often they practise mysticism, with the goal of attaining harmony and spiritual growth. These artists believe in supernatural powers and see themselves as modern priests or healers. Gao is a playwright, artist, storyteller, and an author.

I also learned that white rocks or snow covered rocks represent tears.

And than finally - the parts that were confusing me the most - why all this abuse toward the women in the book - I learned the stories about the girls, the women, are stories using women as the symbol for the cultural revolution. The human destruction that was the Cultural Revolution. Gao is telling us through tales of women about, innocence lost, of power being abused, the pettiness and brutality of the officials and the triumph of the human spirit.

Widodo had read Soul Mountain. He recently graduated from UT and is more familiar with Western Lit. He said if we read Proust we can better understand Gao Xingjian's Soul Mountain. That each thing he encounters on his journey stirs his imagination to half remembered folktales, myths and history both ancient and modern.

Because I'm playing catch-up, I'm at the beginning of the book. I am struck by how much this book causes me to reminisce about travels I once did in Central America. Gao truly captures what it is like to travel in the "third world": "the old bus is a city reject"; "the bus station . . . littered with ice-block wrappers and sugar cane scraps. . ."; the old inn with a "cotton blanket [that] is a suspicious grey."

Gao paints pictures with words, and I find I truly can imagine the narrators' surroundings.

Which gets us to the narrator(s). Are "you" and "I" but one person at different times in the journey? So far, I am finding "you" the more interesting "character," with a more linear story. He is looking for Lingshan, a place with ancient forests and virgin wilderness, unspoiled by tourists, who, once they arrive "put up gaudy pavilions and terraces. . . ."

Do you believe such a place exists? Is he looking for a real place or something akin to paradise or Shangri-La? Much of the first few chapters consists of descriptions of how the landscape has been changed by civilization, which causes me to doubt that a virgin wilderness can still be found. We hear of crowds and their litter, the effects of tourism on a place, the city people who visit the country who "effus[e] fondness and affection for the place" because "[t]hey don't intend to stay . . . ."

I get the feeling that he will neverfind a real place so unspoiled. When he is lost in the mountain at night, that area seems undefiled, as does the area where he is trying to step into the boat and get stuck in the mud. (I'll have to go back and look at those passages again.) I think Lingshan is a location not to be found on a physical map, only to be located in his own spirit, if at all.
I think his awareness of the damage human beings have done to the environment and natural resources comes through loud and clear, so I'm not ready to say that his only purpose in writing is to focus upon a spiritual quest.

The segments of Xingjians's experience challenge the mind and emotions. Overcoming cancer he won a "reprieve from death" and was thrown back into life. There seems to be a disconnect between the stories until we look more closely. Two things tie them together: he is fleeing and he is seeking. He is fleeing the repressive regime in China and fleeing something in himself from which he cannot quite escape. I preached a sermon once on "A Time To Remember". After the gathering broke up a lady came to thank me and said, "But, can anyone tell me how to forget?" And so we flee our loneliness disappointments,losses and failures, hoping to forget and escape. Even in the relationships he developed on the journey both he and women he lived with were seeking something but were disappointed. Or did they give themselves without expection of return?

The collage of stories show him seeking, looking for Lingshan, Soul Mountain. If he were seeking some kind of fulfilling, lasting relationship he didn't seem to plan for it or achieve it. Was it an inner emptiness that drove him on his quest? Did life meet him on the journey? Could it be that sometimes the journey is as important as the destination? Moses made a long journey toward the Promised Land. When he got there he could only look across the river but not enter it. But WHAT A JOURNEY!

RUSS





'rer

The segments of Xingjians's experience challenge the mind and emotions. Overcoming cancer he won a "reprieve from death" and was thrown back into life. There seems to be a disconnect between the stories until we look more closely. Two things tie them together: he is fleeing and he is seeking. He is fleeing the repressive regime in China and fleeing something in himself from which he cannot quite escape. I preached a sermon once on "A Time To Remember". After the gathering broke up a lady came to thank me and said, "But, can anyone tell me how to forget?" And so we flee our loneliness, disappointments, losses and failures, hoping to forget and escape. Even in the relationships he developed on the journey, both he and women he lived with were seeking something but were disappointed.

The collage of stories show him seeking, looking for Lingshan, Soul Mountain. If he were seeking some kind of fulfilling, lasting relationship he didn't seem to plan for it or achieve it. Was it an inner emptiness that drove him on his quest? Did life meet him on the journey? Could it be that sometimes the journey is as important as the destination? Moses made a long journey toward the Promised Land. When he got there he could only see it across the river but not enter in. But WHAT A JOURNEY!

RUSS





'rer

RacerRuss - some beautiful thoughts. I especially loved this: "The collage of stories show him seeking, looking for Lingshan, Soul Mountain. If he were seeking some kind of fulfilling, lasting relationship he didn't seem to plan for it or achieve it. Was it an inner emptiness that drove him on his quest? Did life meet him on the journey? Could it be that sometimes the journey is as important as the destination? "

Your questions, while principally rhetorical (I think) remind me of the confusion I feel as I begin reading this book (remember, I am far behind the rest of the group). I am unsure of several things:

Is Gao telling us about something peculiar to China, and to the oppression and radical change China has experienced in the past 50 or so years - or is he making a commentary on the world?

As I noted in my first post, the early narrative is so evocative for me of travels I had in Central America 20 years ago that I find myself viewing the narrators' experiences as universal, rather than peculiar to China.

And then the second question is whether Gao is trying to tell us something about man's effect on nature and the wilderness, and is the journey purely an external one in which we learn things about the outward surroundings the narrator encounter? Or, on the other hand, is the journey actually a more internal one, in which the narrator is seeking something elusive that has little to do with the external world in which he finds himself?

Jo seems to think the book is about both an interior journey and a commentary on the devastation man's presence has caused in the natural world: "I think Lingshan is a location not to be found on a physical map, only to be located in his own spirit, if at all. I think his awareness of the damage human beings have done to the environment and natural resources comes through loud and clear, so I'm not ready to say that his only purpose in writing is to focus upon a spiritual quest."

What do others think? What is Gao trying to tell us with this story? What does he want us to think about China? About the world in general? About relations between men and women, man and animals, humans and nature?

Why the constant jumping back and forth between "you" and "I"?

Does this book have a plot - and if so, what is it?

Sarah, I like your questions - my two cents worth is there is the expression - reading is a creative act - I think we all bring our spirit to the read therefore, we all focus on a different aspect of any story and different buttons are pushed within us as we read - for me I so firmly believe in the concept that the entire universe is repeated in a grain of sand that I see any and all stories as an extension of something within myself; my connection to a universal spirituality as well as, a social connection to mankind. To me all journey stories are a quest, much like the myth of Parcival.

What I found fascinating reading Soul Mountain is the places of interest he chooses to include - it reminds me of our taking a journey back east and visiting many of the Revolutionary war and Civil war sites as well as, other locations that commemorate the beginnings of this nation. Since we are one of only a very few nations that is adamant about keeping religion and state separate we do not have many hallowed religious reverend places of interest entwined with our commemorative historical sites and than our sites are not buried in the wilderness. Yes, there are a few in the wilderness, like the Oregon trail and some important historical Indian sites but, not centers of past governments.

Ever since I heard that Proust would be an author to keep in mind while reading Soul Mountain I'm remembering the only Proust book I did read Swan's Way which drove me crazy. I kept thinking, get on with it, until I learned it was a series of reflections.

I'm seeing a lot of destruction in this books that is not cataclysmic but the subtle description of destruction to the environment and the references to historical sites and cities that after learning the story of the times, we learn the historical story included destruction through wars or family feuds. Now that I understand the girl and her experiences is symbolic for the Cultural Revolution again, there is everything from toying with her to brutality and her distraction.

Yes, I can see what RacerRuss is saying about searching, almost a longing but then I do not see Gao so much as fleeing but as falling back into time and into what is basic, like his living with nature and choosing the simplest of accommodations. Like someone collapsing in on oneself.

This is one book that I think I need to read through and then go back and see how the pieces fit. Or if the pieces have a relevance beyond their mere mention - example, one could choose to include in a journey of the U.S. Valley Forge and the Trail of Tears. That combination would give one impression versus choosing Valley Forge, the Liberty Bell and the Statue of Liberty.

Sarah, your questions will help me to finish this book! It’s more productive to read with a purpose, and the sense of aimlessness had really slowed me down. I almost gave up! Barbara, your comments echo the feeling I get about the narrator: he does seem to have fallen back into time, to have collapsed in upon himself.
Does he reveal to us what he longs for, or sre the vignettes pictures of a traveler/thinker who doesn't even know what he is hoping to find?

Jo, I thought you especially would get a kick out of this review, since Gao himself engages in critique of his own writing style. The critic also comments that while he spends a few days at most reading most novels, this one took him a month to read.

http://ph.tsinoy.lycosasia.com/Reviews.cfm?ID=324

Is it worth it? If I am provoked to think about long ago travels in Central America, and Barbara is provoked to think about visiting Revolutionary and Civil War sites, doesn't that tell us something about the universality of Gao's quest? Barbara puts it beautifully: "I so firmly believe in the concept that the entire universe is repeated in a grain of sand that I see any and all stories as an extension of something within myself; my connection to a universal spirituality as well as, a social connection to mankind."

We relate to Gao's story because the quest to hold onto what was special, pure and unspoiled from our past is universal.

I have read several times that Gao's book was rejected by communist China. Why was the book so threatening?

Thanks Sarah! His own comments on the book sure ring a bell! I'll have to finish it to find out what seemed so decadent to the Chinese government. Maybe it was the sex? It is so introspective, so sleepy in tone and style, I have to think that it must be very different in the original language.

I'm sure much of what Gao writes is subtly critical of the government, symbolic of the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, etc., but at least so far the book is hardly a direct indictment of communism. It certain has an environmentalist bent, but mostly because Gao demonstrates such a reverence for the natural world. I love the way he describes the unspoiled places:

"A range of magnificent indigo mountains is directly opposite, their peaks covered in white clouds, thick layers of billowing churning clouds. In the ravine, a few wisps of smoke-like cloud are rapidly dispersing. the white line below must be the rushing waters of the river flowing through the middle of the dark forest ravine."

"Some distance away is a white azalea bush which stuns me with its stately beauty. It has an ethereal purity and freshness and as I get closer, it seems to get taller - it is swathed in clusters of flowers with petals larger and thicker than those of the red azaleas I saw earlier. Lush white flowers are scattered beneath the bush. They have not begun to wither and are so charged with life that they exude a lust to exhibit themselves. This is pristine natural beauty. It is irrepressible, seeks no reward, and is without goal, a beauty derived neither from symbolism nor metaphor and needing neither analogies nor associations. This white azalea with the purity of snow and the lustre of jade keeps re-appearing but it is always a solitary bush and appears and disappears, here and there, among the slender cold fir trees, like the tireless hidden cuckoo which captivates one's soul and keeps leading one towards it. I take deep breaths of the pure air of the forest, inhaling and exhaling is effortless and I feel the very depths of my soul being cleansed. The air penetrates to the soles of my feet, and my body and mind seem to enter nature's grand cycle. I achieve a sense of joyful freedom such as I have never before experienced."

Gao draws pictures with words in a way I haven't read since I read Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. "Word pictures," my dad used to call them. Have you felt a similar reverence when in a beautiful wild place - the oneness with nature and the earth? I certainly have - and in so many places. A blazing red tree in Vermont; red rock in the Southwest; clear blue water and craggy rocks along the Monterey peninsula in California - it all causes my heart to sing!

Sarah I agree the verbage is dreamlike almost poetic - The struggle seems to be oppression - the oppression of woman, regimes, ideology, and solitude. The loneliness is mirrored in the endless expanse of the countryside, of knowing that he will face death as he has faced his life: alone. He almost blocks out his brother as they visit the Doctor. Then as much as the references are tied to his country, it is the eternal exile's story. Every immigrant family knows the remembering and keeping alive the history and folklore of a place that is all the more because of its absence.

Interesting, Barbara, that you see the loneliness mirrored in the endless expanse of the countryside. To me, it seems Gao (or the narrators, if they differ) is heartened and bolstered by the beauty of the country.

Why so much talk of suicide, especially among women?

As I understand it Sarah the women are symbolic of the Cultural Revolution and suicide would be a way of explaining its demise. Having worked now with two young women who were children of Professionals and caught in the Cultural Revolution they both were the most untrusting folks I have ever worked with and I have worked with now about 35 to 40 Chinese families - granted they were from either Taiwan or Hong Kong or Singapore or Indonesia and only one other older gentleman, a Doctor who escaped from Beijing after the Tienaman (sp) Square revolt.

He being older he had a quiet dignity but had a hard time understanding how we see value in this country which is so often tied to how we can reduce our income tax as well as increasing the value of our owned real estate through the appreciation that is a historical given in certain areas of town rather than, buying cheap so as not to have a loan. Where as with the two young woman "perfection" was their name and one went as far as actually measuring the foundation to see that it met code of 8" from the soil line.

What I have found interesting is that every Chinese family I have worked with uses some measure of Feng Shui with a few actually calling back to their homeland to speak with a specialist to help them determine when they should write their offer or when they should move into the house. A few have a book they consult that also outlines for them when, where and how.

I just wondered if the two young woman's lack of ability to trust is tied to, not only their experience being pulled from their homes and sent to work in the fields and later when they were older re-united with their fathers who were working again in their profession (a Professor and a Doctor neither father can leave China) as if everything was OK; if that erupt change in their lives followed by this semblance of returning to life as it was, (the death of the Cultural Revolution) allows them to feel insecure about trusting anything or anyone.

Gao doesn't seem to write with this lack of trust but I wonder, if his journey into his past (the many references to history when various locations are mentioned in the book) and into the countryside is almost like blocking out what is difficult. Almost like an adult in therapy who looks at past good memories rather than face the difficulties of abuse but than has flashbacks that they often discribed as if it were happening to someone else.

Yes, Barbara, I suspect a lot of this journey into the past and the countryside is therapeutic for Gao.

What do you all make of the role of women in this book - enigmatic, suicidal, shamans, zhuhuapo (beautiful young women "who specialize in enticing men where the road suddenly bends on the dark side of muntains, often in paviliions on mountain tops"), "chirping black spirits," spirit mediums, "a row of old women, some standing and some kneeling, all dressed in black tops and black trousers, and all toothless," a young girl, utterly terrified, who "is constantly transforming" into a beautiful young woman?

And finally, a direct reference to the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. In Caohai, site of a lake: "During the Cultural Revolution, the new county revolutionary commitee resolved to implement a new initiative: draining off the water and converting it into fields. They mobilized one hundred thousand civilian workers from the county, blasted scores of drainage channels, and built retaining walls to reclaim this part of the lake for cultivation. But it wasn't so easy to dry out a lake bed which had been saturated for several million years. . . . The lake is now only one third of what it used to be and the surrounding area is all swampland which defies drying off or being restored to its original state."

Do you believe the scene in which the narrator has an X-ray of his lungs and finds them clear of any indication of cancer? Or is but another dream or fantasy in a book filled with dreams, memories and fantasies that all seem a bit phantasmagorical?

I'm also intrigued by the role of religion. When he realizes his X-ray is clean, he hears himself "silently intoning, taking refuge in Namo Amitofu, Buddha." As he puts it, "In the past, I would certainly have considered it preposterous to think that one day I would be praying. I used to be filled with pity when I saw old people in temples burning incense, kneeling in prayer. . . . Pitiful wretches, they're old and if their insignificant wishes aren't realized, they prey that they will be realized in their hearts. However, I thought it was ridiculous for a robust young man or a pretty young woman to be praying. . . . I couldn't understand how people in the prime of life could do such a stupid thing but now I have prayed, prayed devoutly, and from the depths of my heart."

This book has been very difficult to read and discuss, but I think it has value as a work of fiction. I plan to finish it - once I'm done with my house move, which will take me away from the computer for the next few days. We'll finish up the discussion on October 15; do come on in and make your final observations about the book.

Did it enlighten you about China? Give you information about the Cultural Revolution? Make you think about the environmental harm we are wreaking on our fragile planet? Wonder about the treatment of women? Feel the pain of a man who has learned he suffers from cancer? Wonder at the beauty of unspoiled wilderness? It did all of this for me.

Let's have your final thoughts!

Sarah it is a book that is just taking time - each chapter is a project of research for me and the writing is as if each chapter were the outline for a poem - it has been a book that I have been un-able to sit and read more than 3 chapters without laying it down and pondering. The book itself has not taught me as much about China as the allusions to places and history that are allowing me to glimpse through research a world I never knew.

I loved the bit about the women in her trance rolling in hysterics, eyes closed in religious fervor and then proclaiming Gao has bad luck and is without reprieve. It took me a minute but the symbolism of the cultural revolution as an out of control hysterical happening taking on religious zeal and pronouncing any educated unbeliever as un-reprievable is priceless.

This is a book that asks the reader to slow down. Even without the need to do all the research the writing and its symbolism prompt the urge to a quiet reverence for this author's use of words and imagery.

The philosophy of Lao Tzu is simple: Accept what is in front of you without wanting the situation to be anything other than what it is.
Gia-Fu Feng

Reading this novel was maddening and enlightening. I enjoyed the novel on the first reading, as I sped through it and let it wash over me. The second time, I "studied" it and the slower I read it, the more aggravating it was. The slower you read it, the slower you need to read it. You can grind to a halt on this one and conceivably spend days on 1 chapter - only to find out you need to really spend a little more time. Finally, I let it go and remembered my first reading.

"Don't go searching for spirits and ghosts, don't go searching for cause and retribution, don't go searching for meaning, all is embodied in the chaos."

I was in a bookstore the other day and saw a new novel by one of my favorites, Don DeLillo: Pafko at the Wall: The Shot Heard Round the World. Wow, I thought, he just came out with The Body Artist not all that long ago. He's becoming extremely prolific. Turns out that Pafko is really just the first chapter of Underworld.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. What I would recommend is going into a bookstore and reading Gao's classic tongue-in-cheek review of his own book contained in Chapter 72. Then decide for yourself whether you want to spend a few days reading it - or a few months. This is my best advice.

"You've slapped together travel notes, moralistic ramblings, feelings, notes, jottings, untheoretical discussions, unfable-like fables, copied out some folk songs, added some legend-like nonsense of your own invention, and are calling it fiction!"

"He says he actually has no ideology but does have a small amount of nihilism in him, however nihilism isn't the equivalent of absolute nothingness. It's just like in the book where you is the reflection of I and he is the back of you, the shadow of a shadow. Although there's no face it still counts as a pronoun."

The rest of the chapter is a scene right out of Beckett and is purely brilliant.

"Reading this chapter is optional but as you've read it you've read it." Reading the book is optional, but reading this chapter is not for an understating of Gao's philosophy of fiction.

Or to put it another way:
In Chapter 81 (the last) Gao says:

"…it is best for me just to pretend that I understand even if I don't.

While pretending to understand, I still don't understand.

The fact of the matter is I comprehend nothing. I understand nothing.

This is how it is."

Or to put it another way:


In chapter 81 (the last) of Tao Te Ching:

Truthful words are not beautiful. Beautiful words are not truthful. Good men do not argue. Those who argue are not good. Those who know are not learned. The learned do not know.

Amen, brother!
Charlie

Cleaning out some old Bookmarks and found this little Gem

A reason why there are so many female ghosts in the Chinese literary tradition is that women had so few choices in real life, and ghosts could remedy that. In traditional, paternalistic Chinese society, women were often victimized-abandoned by husbands, maltreated by mothers-in-law. . . . With no place to turn, such women had only two choices: They could either wait for their tormentor to die and, hopefully, be punished in hell, or the woman could become a ghost and take revenge while their tormentor was still living in the mundane world.

Read more:

http://www.goodorient.com/lib/goodorient/august2000news.html