Scan barcode
A review by graywacke
One Man's Bible by Gao Xingjian
55. One Man's Bible by Gao Xingjian
published: 1999
format: 450 page Hardcover
acquired: 2003 from a 75% Off Books (do they still exist?)
read: Dec 14-24
rating: 4
Another dusty book on the shelf, this one has been hanging around for some 14 years with my eye on it, but with my never having any clue what it contained. After reading a few pages, I looked up a few reviews and found some really critical, especially in comparison to [b:Soul Mountain|45961|Soul Mountain|Gao Xingjian|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388243382s/45961.jpg|45123] (which led to his Nobel prize). These negative reviews were a bit unfair but perfect for lowering my expectations and allowing me to really enjoy this.
It's a lightly fictionalized memoir of Gao's experiences in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (roughly 1966 to Mao's death in 1976). He mixes in a life as a Chinese exile in the present (1996-1998) obviously based on him, but likely heavily fictionalized, or he was quite the promiscuous one. He is, I imagine, playful with the truth in many ways.
His life in and memories of the Cultural Revolution are insane. It's not clear to me how political involved he was, but he experienced purges that flipflopped on themselves and purge the purgers. There was no right answer except to learn to mimic everyone around you with full emotional commitment. Anything that stood out brought suspicion, which brought a lot of suffering or worse. He says that it was almost easier to try to rebel than not to, since he craved independent thought and expression. Gao is an artist in different ways, visually, in play writing and as a novelist. The cover of the book is his own art work.
There is a sophistication to how the book is presented. First in how he mixes the present and past so that they are distinct but become a whole. Part of this distinction is in how his younger self is always described in third person, but his (fictional?) current self is addressed directly always as "you". Second is in how he strives to create atmosphere. A lot of this stuff is beyond words, he has to create the experience in the text to really express it, and he does this really well. And third is the pacing. There is weak narrative drive as the each section, each chapter generally closes a story, with some notable exceptions. But it paces nicely and continuously so that it becomes a really nice to book to get lost it, and pick up anytime. It comes apart at the end where he ties off the past and then spends a lot of time about his fictional present and all his love affairs. He tells how content he is, but the impression is the opposite as it all comes out empty, and I'm not sure that wasn't his intention.
All this together made for a really enjoyable reading experience and I think a fine book that leaves the reader with a lot to think about. A writer and artist's book. And it makes me really want to read [b:Soul Mountain|45961|Soul Mountain|Gao Xingjian|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388243382s/45961.jpg|45123].
Long review, but here’s the stuff I still want to mention:
-Rural Anhui
-The marriage
-The regional political leader
-reform through labor and the escape
published: 1999
format: 450 page Hardcover
acquired: 2003 from a 75% Off Books (do they still exist?)
read: Dec 14-24
rating: 4
Another dusty book on the shelf, this one has been hanging around for some 14 years with my eye on it, but with my never having any clue what it contained. After reading a few pages, I looked up a few reviews and found some really critical, especially in comparison to [b:Soul Mountain|45961|Soul Mountain|Gao Xingjian|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388243382s/45961.jpg|45123] (which led to his Nobel prize). These negative reviews were a bit unfair but perfect for lowering my expectations and allowing me to really enjoy this.
It's a lightly fictionalized memoir of Gao's experiences in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (roughly 1966 to Mao's death in 1976). He mixes in a life as a Chinese exile in the present (1996-1998) obviously based on him, but likely heavily fictionalized, or he was quite the promiscuous one. He is, I imagine, playful with the truth in many ways.
His life in and memories of the Cultural Revolution are insane. It's not clear to me how political involved he was, but he experienced purges that flipflopped on themselves and purge the purgers. There was no right answer except to learn to mimic everyone around you with full emotional commitment. Anything that stood out brought suspicion, which brought a lot of suffering or worse. He says that it was almost easier to try to rebel than not to, since he craved independent thought and expression. Gao is an artist in different ways, visually, in play writing and as a novelist. The cover of the book is his own art work.
There is a sophistication to how the book is presented. First in how he mixes the present and past so that they are distinct but become a whole. Part of this distinction is in how his younger self is always described in third person, but his (fictional?) current self is addressed directly always as "you". Second is in how he strives to create atmosphere. A lot of this stuff is beyond words, he has to create the experience in the text to really express it, and he does this really well. And third is the pacing. There is weak narrative drive as the each section, each chapter generally closes a story, with some notable exceptions. But it paces nicely and continuously so that it becomes a really nice to book to get lost it, and pick up anytime. It comes apart at the end where he ties off the past and then spends a lot of time about his fictional present and all his love affairs. He tells how content he is, but the impression is the opposite as it all comes out empty, and I'm not sure that wasn't his intention.
All this together made for a really enjoyable reading experience and I think a fine book that leaves the reader with a lot to think about. A writer and artist's book. And it makes me really want to read [b:Soul Mountain|45961|Soul Mountain|Gao Xingjian|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388243382s/45961.jpg|45123].
"You know you are certainly not the embodiment of truth, and you write simply to indicate that a sort of life, worse than a quagmire, more real than an imaginary hell, more terrifying than Judgement Day, has, in fact, existed."
Long review, but here’s the stuff I still want to mention:
-Rural Anhui
-The marriage
-The regional political leader
-reform through labor and the escape