Product Description
the new novel from the Nobel Prize-winning author of international bestseller Soul MountainThe unnamed narrator of this book recalls his Beijing boyhood, his tenth birthday, the death of his grandfather, the accidental drowning of his mother and the effect all this trauma had on the frail, sensitive young boy he was then. He then pulls us forward in time to view the sexually active adult he has become, engaged in a series of difficult relationships, in constant trouble with the Chinese authorities, and in danger of being marked out as a 'counter-revolutionary'. The book moves between the nightmare of the Cultural Revolution insanities of the late 1960s and early 1970s to the tentative, limited liberations of the 1990s, and the narrator moves between China, Hong Kong, Paris and Frankfurt. Through it all throbs an overwhelmingly powerful sense of the past, distant and near, and a moving and unprecedented insight into the character of modern China.* Gao has his narrator say of the book's purpose: 'Your writing is not in the cause of pure literature, but you're also not a fighter using your pen as a weapon to promote right, moreover you don't know what's right.You know you're certainly not the embodiment of right and you write simply to indicate that a sort of life worse than a quagmire, more real than an imaginary hell, more terrifying than the judgement of the last day has existed. Furthermore, it's highly likely that after people have forgotten about it, it will make a comeback, and people who've never gone crazy will go crazy again, and people who've never been oppressed will oppress or be oppressed. This is because madness has existed since the birth of humanity.' ... Read more

Product Description
Una obra escrita desde el alma y destinada a permanecer en la historia de la literatura. Premio Nobel de Literatura 2000Sinopsis: Una casualidad inicia esta novela: dos tazas de té entrechocan sobre la mesa de un compartimento de tren provocando el contacto entre dos desconocidos que han emprendido un largo viaje. Desde las primeras páginas Xingjian hace un retrato amplio y profundo de China, de su gente, de sus costumbres, de su forma de vida. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Chinese ink painting
Gao Xingjian was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000. Besides the evidence of greatness in literature, he is an artist in Chinese ink painting and in other art forms.The book under review grew from his art exhibition of twenty-seven brushstroke paintings in black and white held in 2007 at the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame. These paintingsare ofnon-representational, non-conceptual images and are accompanied with bilingual essays that Mabel Lee translated into English.These essays illuminate the artistic aim of Mr. Gao and his method of painting, whichcombines Chinese calligraphy and Western impressionism.The essay "Maree de Soir" urges the reader/viewer to note the lack of perspective, of up or down, ofbalance, and of references and the presence of "images [...] clear and distinct..."Another essay points out the filmic textures of pictures, which were derived from the application of several inks with varying trace minerals mixed with water.The effect of this application is to create seemingly moving images that affect a sense of tranquillity as is experienced in one's listening to music. On page 138, he says, "My painting would be described as a sort of inner vision, contemplation, hallucination or image of the mind."The visual results of his linear brushstrokes and tranquil observation are a fresh perception and sensation. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by University of Oklahoma on March 22, 2002. The length of the article is 588 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian.
Author: Sylvia Li-chun Lin
Publication: World Literature Today (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2002
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Volume: 76Issue: 2Page: 135(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Criticism, published by Wayne State University Press on September 22, 2002. The length of the article is 2282 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian.(Book Review)
Author: Kyoung Lee
Publication: Criticism (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 2002
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Volume: 44Issue: 4Page: 445(5)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Proceso, published by CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V. on October 15, 2000. The length of the article is 1542 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Un académico sueco, traductor del chino Gao Xingjian desde hace 20 años.(traducción de obra literaria de autor chino; La montaña del alma, libro; extracto)(TT: A Swede academician who has been Gao Xingjian's translator for over twenty years.)(TA: translation of Chinese author's works; The Mountain of the Soul, book; excerpt)(Extracto)
Author: Sanjuana Martínez
Publication: Proceso (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 15, 2000
Publisher: CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V.
Page: 86

Article Type: Extracto

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more