'Shades of the Other Shore' and 'Ballade Nocturne' (Review)

It's been a while, but I've finally found a few hours to devote to the other two beautiful Cahiers I received from Daniel Medin at the Center for Writers and Translators at the American University of Paris.  Last time, I looked at an interesting piece from László Krasznahorkai and an alphabetical guide to the life of a translator - today's offerings are just as interesting and varied :)

*****
Shades of the Other Shore, like many of the cahiers, is another mix of prose and imagery.  Writer Jeffrey Greene and artist Ralph Petty are two Americans with a new life in France, and their words and paintings provide an outsider's view on the country.  Petty's vivid watercolours accompany Greene's mix of poetry and prose nicely, but (of course) I'm more focused on the literary side of the partnership...

The writing shows some interesting juxtaposition at times (e.g. Jeanne d'Arc and Steve Irwin...), but many of the pieces come back to the two constant themes of his mother, who lives with him in France, and death.  In 'On Hoarfrost', the writer turns cleaning his frosty windscreen into something deeper in his attempts to remove the white, equalising covering:

"My mother is already seated in the car, engine running with the defroster blowing, and as I scrape away the hoarfrost, her face and figure emerge from under the glass, looking out as if I were exhuming her from the next world into this one."
p.8 (Sylph Editions, 2013)

'The Silent Gardener' treads a similar path, but in a more poetic vein:

"My mother sleeps under a fig tree
 with no leaves, only the spring sun" (p.16)

The title also seems to examine this preoccupation with 'the other side', although he might just be talking about France.  If I'm honest, this wasn't really my thing, but there were some nice lines, and the pictures were very pretty :)

*****
The second work was one I was a little more interested in checking out as it was by a writer whose work I've enjoyed before, Gao Xingjian.  While all the work I'd previously read by the Nobel laureate had been prose works, the subject of this cahier is a short play, originally written in French, translated (by Claire Conceison) into English directly, but with a possible Chinese version in mind.

The play, Ballade Nocturne, is a short piece, with a focus on music, pictures and dance.  There are just four roles: a musician, two dancers and an actresss who also plays a character called 'she'.  Anyone familiar with Gao's prose work, especially Soul Mountain, will recognise the focus on shadowy pronouns as descriptors...

'Elle', the focus of the piece, is all woman:

"On dirait une femme nature,
 mais pas fatale.
 On dirait une femme perdue,
 mais sans rien de public,"
p.2 (Sylph Editions, 2010)

"One might call her a natural woman,
 but not a femme fatale.
 One might call her a lost woman,
 but not a common whore." (p.17)

First we are introduced to her as a person, then the writer positions her as a representative of her gender in a battle of the sexes:

"Oh là là, femme contre homme,
 une dure bataille.
 Qui sera le vainqueur?
 Et qui sera conquis?" (p.4 )

"Oh la la, man versus woman
 a tough battle.
 Who will be the conqueror?
 And who will be conquered?" (p.19)

In the eternal struggle, Gao suggests that men need first to understand women to be worthy of them.

This theme of the struggle is taken up more literally as the play continues (at one point, the musician - the only male character - is trussed up and dragged off stage!).  It's very clear that 'she' is protesting against a man-made world and would like to propose some alternatives:

"et s'il ya une religion en laquelle croire,
 ce sera notre propre corps." (p.11)

"and if there is a religion worth believing in
 it will be our own bodies." (p.29)

If women ruled the world...

There is an intense focus on what is going on around the actors, and the cahier is full of stage directions, descriptions of the background music, and the dances the two dancers are to perform.  To an uncultured novice like myself, it's all rather arty, and Ballade Nocturne is described in the translator's introduction as a 'polymorphic' work, one which can't be pigeon-holed into 'theatre', 'dance' or 'art'.

As always, there is an abundance of beautiful extras.  In addition to Conceison's insightful introduction, the 'reader' is treated to Gao's beautiful ink-wash illustrations, as well as the original French-language version in a pamphlet insert.  It's a book which is a joy to read and admire - being totally honest, I'm not completely sure I'd enjoy sitting through the actual play though!

*****
The Cahiers Series produces beautiful pieces, coffee-table books for those interested in good literature and translation, and I'm very grateful to M. Medin for sending some my way.  Sadly though, with two young kids around, they're unlikely to be sitting on my coffee table any time soon.  Perhaps some of my readers will have more luck with that idea...

40 - 'Soul Mountain' by Gao Xingjian (Review)

In February, I posted a review of Gao Xingjian's collection of short stories, 'Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather', and, after recently reading 'Getting Rich First' (and with the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen square crackdown just around the corner...), I decided it was time to give Gao's Nobel-Prize-winning novel 'Soul Mountain' another try. As previously mentioned, his merits are not unanimously agreed upon, so I thought that this time I would read the book with one eye on the controversial topics and methods denounced by certain detractors. Well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

The book itself is a fictionalisation of a journey by the author around rural China in 1982, not (as you can imagine) because he needed a break from the rat race, but rather because he had heard rumours that he was shortly to be denounced and brought in by the government (so you could say the trip to the country was for his health). Two main narrators, 'I' and 'You', move around the countryside, the mountains and the forests of southern China in search of Lingshan, the Soul Mountain of the title. On the way, they encounter many interesting, bizarre, sensuous and worrying people and try to document some of the disappearing customs of life outside the major cities of the east.

Gao (or his literary representatives) is searching for something, and it is really up to the reader to decide what the mythical Lingshan represents. The main character 'I' often reminisces about his childhood and seems to be searching for some remnants of a time which, if not idyllic, is certainly better than the present. This search for times past may just be a desire to escape the oppressive period he is living in, a very difficult one for a writer whose opinions do not exactly mirror those of the state. Unfortunately, he eventually realises that escape is impossible; however many mountains he climbs, the next one always looks bigger and better. In the end, it's time to return to Beijing, to go back to society, friends and warmth.

The book also portrays a search for a style of life which may be becoming obsolete. Throughout their travels, the protagonists (especially 'I') visit rural towns and villages, interview monks and shamans, attend religious and cultural festivals, request performances of old folk songs from venerable elders, and look for ancient folk songs to copy down for posterity. There is an obvious desire on the part of the author to preserve these old traditional ways in the face of both the cultural rewriting of history and the unstoppable march of modernisation and urbanisation.

Although the village scenes may appear to be unchanged from hundreds of years ago, there are many signs of the decline of rural life. Most of the bearers of the old stories and songs are old, and the new generation is not always interested in keeping the traditions alive; the government officials most definitely not.

Another threat (which has since become a reality) is the plan to create the Three Gorges Dam, a project which will necessitate the removal of millions of people and the destruction of many villages and cultural artefacts. The project is mentioned several times, usually in connection with a place of beauty or site of historical interest which will be lost under the new water level. The dam project seems to be the epitome of the aims of the Cultural revolution; the ability to wipe out all resistance in order to create a new reality, whatever the cost.

Enough description, let's turn to the criticism (and there is a lot of it). Before (and while) reading 'Soul Mountain', I did a lot of research (OK, I used Wikipedia and Google...) on what people thought about it, and, while many people loved it, there was a significant number of disgruntled readers. One of the most common criticisms concerned the use of the multiple narrators and the part they played. In addition to the aforementioned 'I' and 'You', Gao also created a 'She' (to accompany 'You') and a 'He' (when 'You' became too close to 'I' - bear with me here). At times, this does cross over into poetical lunacy, but I found the idea and use of 'I' and 'You' aesthetically pleasing and relevant to the book. 'I''s (my?) journey was more grounded in fact while 'You''s (your???) story was more mystical and slightly less connected to reality. This use of the double character enabled Gao to explore the mystical and the practical at the same time - and gave the story a lot of variety, too.

Another criticism, which I have a lot more time for, is that the book is lewd and, at times demeaning to women. Although there were obviously political issues which the writer had to face, it is very easy to interpret the story as one big mid-life crisis. The main characters seem to fall in and out of bed with women on a regular basis, and these women are portrayed as sensuous and cunning, with a hidden agenda of ensnaring a man in their web of romance. The need for women to possess a man (a desire which Gao does not appear too fond of ) is pitted against man's desire to do the deed and get out of there pronto (I paraphrase slightly). I am not the world's biggest feminist, so if I cringe slightly at certain sections, many people may find the author's treatment of relationships somewhat disturbing.

The big question though, the 555-page question in fact, is this: is 'Soul Mountain' even a novel? Several critics have answered in the negative, and, if you are expecting a linear progression with a clear ending, you will be very disappointed. Several parts of the book could be chopped up and reassembled in a random order without making much of a difference to the reading experience (which actually sounds like a fun, and rather Zen, thing to do). Cleverly, Gao anticipates this; one of the later chapters consists of a dialogue between the writer and a literary critic who throws this accusation at the author (but never quite makes it stick).

My answer would be: is it important? If the reader enjoys a book on any level, then the definition of the genre can be left to academics with time and research money on their hands. Despite the admitted flaws in the work, I found 'Soul Mountain' to be an interesting journey through a place which could soon be consigned to the pages of history and a time where writers had to be very careful about what they wrote. One thing I would add to that though is that knowing a little about the writer and the history of his country makes for a much better reading experience. The information I gathered through reading Gao's other novel, 'One Man's Bible' (no review because I read it last year: sorry!) and surfing the internet meant that my second reading of this book was a more rewarding experience than the first.

12a (I'm very superstitious) - 'Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather' by Gao Xingjian

Just over a week ago, I got the train into the city after my last day of work at the language centre to meet colleagues for drinks to celebrate the end of the traditional busy season. I got off at Melbourne Central, and (being a suburbanite who has no concept of how things work in the city) I took the first set of escalators I walked past and left my exit point from the station to chance. Luckily for me, I happened to dawdle past a 'Borders' book shop, and (being a suburbanite who lives a 40-minute drive from the closest 'Borders' shop), I decided to go inside and browse. Of course, fifteen minutes later, I walked out with two books, one of which I am about to review for you (aren't I kind...).

Gao Xingjian is a Chinese writer who, having had a few run ins with 'the party' (including the premature closing of his play; and Broadway producers think they have it tough...), decided to change his holiday in Paris to an extended stay outside China. He's still there. In 2000, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his novel 'Soul Mountain', and he followed this up with another novel, 'One Man's Bible'. I read both of these books last year, so I was happy to see virtually the only other translated work of his, a short story collection entitled 'Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather', on the shelves of 'Borders'.

The book contains six short stories, most of which were written before his impromptu emigration, and it helps to have a passing knowledge of life under the Chinese cultural revolution to understand the subtle themes of the stories (or you can just read 'One Man's Bible', which is more of a memoir of that time). The brief tales mostly have an underlying sense of sadness and frustration, caused by a life of having to do what you are told and needing to keep your true thoughts and actions hidden from... well, just about anyone really. The sentences are usually deceptively simple, but the viewpoint often dances around, making it difficult for the reader to keep track of individual voices and views (which may well be the point).

The title story follows the reminiscences of a man who sees a fishing rod in a shop window and wants to buy it and give it to his grandfather in the country. This event sets off a trail of mingled memories and imagination, and a vain attempt to revisit the past. The sense of longing for a simpler time is palpable; the ending expected but poignant.

However, it's not all good with Gao. The final tale takes things a bit too far; a stream of seemingly unlinked, fantastic events bursts onto the paper and ends with a man sleeping on the beach forty pages later. The writer himself said that his works had no underlying meaning and were mainly about the language itself, but this story was everything non-literary types suspect books of being; overblown pretentious waffle.

Another area of concern was the translation. Translating novels into English is not as straight-forward as it may seem, especially if you have no desire to read a book written in a foreign language translated into another foreign language. Although the translator, Mabel Lee, is actually Australian, the language used can appear a little Americanised at times, at least for Englishmen like myself. There was also a story which interspersed commentary from a football (the round ball variety) match into the text, and I was less than convinced with Ms. Lee's rendering of the terminology.

Gao is lionised and idolised in the West; however, in the East, his fame is not quite as unanimously accepted. I have read some commentary which criticises his writing as obscene and boring - there have even been questions asked about his standard of Chinese. It is hard to know how much of this is genuine criticism though, and how much is funnelled through official mouthpieces. Most of his works are only published in Chinese in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and I haven't met any Chinese national who has actually read one of his books. The fact that the copies of his books which make it to the mainland are knock-offs may explain the language criticism.

Anyway, on the whole, I'm happy I got lost under Melbourne Central, and I look forward to re-reading (most of) these stories again soon. And, if you're good, I might even tell you (one day) what the other book I bought was...