All that needs to be said is that outside, a mist is enclosing the green-blue mountain in a haze and your heart is reverberating with the rushing water of a swift-flowing stream. (p.25)

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Soul Mountain won the nobel prize for literature, so naturally, I assumed I would be reading a great work of fiction. I was wrong. There's a sentence late in this "novel" in which Xingjian sums up his own thoughts about this book and it pretty much sums up my opinion of this book as well

"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." ( )

This is a very interesting book but definitely not an easy read. There is a lot of references to Chinese history and culture which are for non Chinese person hard to digest. It is also an interwoven narrative that drifts throughout in different directions. You need willpower to read it. ( )

La novela narra el largo viaje de un hombre en busca de una enigmática Montaña del Alma, donde todo, selvas y bosques, templos, animales y hombres, desde el salvaje hasta el monje o al erudito, conserva la pureza de su estado original. El autor entremezcla magistralmente bellas y crueles historias chinas con fragmentos folosóficos y referencias literarias. Artísticamente inmensa, novela de la memoria y a la vez de la historia. Una obra de crítica política, cultural y social en la que China viene a ser su único protagonista

ÑB-5