ABSTRACT
Gao Xingjian's Soul Mountain is predominantly an introspective journey into the remote mountains and ancient forests of Sichuan in southwest China. It is an autobiographical novel in its depiction of the story of a wandering man who takes a journey in search of the self and its relation to the collective. The thematic substance of Soul Mountain may be traced to two traumatic and interrelated events in Gao Xingjian's life: his being targeted for criticism at a time when memory of the persecution of writers during the Cultural Revolution was still palpable, and his being wrongly diagnosed as having lung cancer. Gao Xingjian's Soul Mountain presents a landscape, as diverse and complex as it is beautiful and inspirational. The landscape is presented through the prism of a traditional aesthetic that values the integration of landscapes and humanscapes. The visual landscape of Soul Mountain is shaped by exotic nature in a state of uncontaminated pristine glory mountainous terrain, rivers, and wilderness.
