Jabal Al-Ruh

Author's name: Gao Xingjian Publisher: Dar Al-Adab for Publishing and Distribution Year of publication: 2010 Literary classification: Novel Brief about the book: The novel Mountain of the Soul forms a unique work in the contemporary literary scene. This work, which is, at the same time, an internal journey, a dialogue between specific characters with pronouns "I," "you," "he," or "she," has (the pronoun "we" indicating the masses is excluded because it undoubtedly evokes more than necessary painful memories...) a call for scenes and virgin Chinese forests, a depiction of love's wounds or simply a description of a moment of pleasure resulting from love or contemplating a river, a classic wandering and wonderful story, an evocation of the whimsical or Kafkaesque contemporary reality, reflection on the art of novel writing. This work could not have been, afterwards, anything without the language in which it was written: a modern, musical language, without artificiality or ambiguity, "flows" completely when read aloud. The theatrical experience is fundamental in Gao Xingjian's writing: he regularly creates a distance between the novel and the reader through the phrase "says," which is repeated endlessly and is also found in his plays. And if "I" is another person for Gao Xingjian, then "I" becomes "you," a kind of reserved, distant, and therefore universal inner voice. When the conscience of "I" tries to achieve its illusions, it is the conscience of "you" that represents it.