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One Man's Bible
 
 
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One Man's Bible (Paperback)

by Xingjian Gao (Author), Mabel Lee (Translator)
3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Flamingo (7 Oct 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007142412
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007142415
  • Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.2 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 450,715 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #6 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > X > Xingjian, Gao

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Product Description

Review

from the reviews of Soul Mountain: 'A picaresque novel on an epic scale... Soul Mountain bristles with narratives in miniature -- stories from ancient Chinese history, folk tales, childhood reminiscences, memories of the Cultural Revolution, as well as bitter arguments and passionate sex. Gao's aim is to represent "the ineffability of life", and, as far as that is possible to do, he has done it in this complex, rich and strange novel.' Independent on Sunday 'Gao's portraits of fellow wanderers, farmers and party officials are vivid and shine a light on their place and time. The language (wonderfully translated by Mabel Lee) is luminous and tactile... There's a feeling of entering and moving through a place we had seen only through mist.' Time Out 'When he writes of his experiences in the real world, Gao transcends cultural barriers. A good story will out in any language, and when Gao is good he is staggeringly so. His writing about the Cultural Revolution is remarkable.' Daily Telegraph 'There is a sense throughout that Gao is running after things that are already vanishing. On the nature reserves, people are shooting bears and even pandas; trees are being cut down a hundred times faster than before. Stones inscribed with historical inscriptions have been dynamited to yield materials for bridges that were never built... Soul Mountain is Gao's attempt to bring back what is lost. In the end, his gift is to look beyond politics at the human condition, offering no easy explanations and refusing artificial allegiances.' Sunday Times


David Harrison, Bristol Evening Post

'Well written, emotional and truthful'
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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.2 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Compelling but flawed, 3 Sep 2008
By E. Woollard "Elli" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
A strange, disturbing book, One Man's Bible flits somewhat uneasily between the China of the Cultural Revolution and the protaganist's sexual encounters in the West, decades later.
Written by a self-confessed 'carnival performer with language', Gao Xingjian's latest work is at once a novel of freedom and repression, whether political or sexual, and a philosophical tome on the art of writing itself.
If the subject matter alone makes for a difficult read, the style in which it is written compounds the problem. While the author's self-division into the 'he' of his early life (the work is apparently semi-autobiographical) and the 'you' of his later years is relatively simple to grasp, less easy it the disjointed narrative. The first few chapters follow a fairly regular pattern, alternating between the author's life as a young man in China and his encounter with a German woman, who had been raped as a child and who is now able to act as his muse, enabling him to reminisce on his past. However, this Margarethe disappears from the scene relatively early on, and we are left with a stretch of the novel that deals mainly, although apparently not always chronologically, with life in Mao's China. And then suddenly we find ourselves in Sydney, where the author is taking a young French woman for a walk in a national park. More strange still is the chapter in which the author has an imagined conversation with the dead Mao.
Perhaps this disjunction is intended as metaphor for the cultural dislocation experienced by a writer exiled in the West struggling to explain an alien past to a Western audience. Somehow, however, the recounting of the author's sexual conquests are never really explained in the context of the rest of the book, and it is unclear as to exactly what kind of a work Gao Xingjian is trying to write.
One Man's Bible is certainly a compelling read, if only for its strangeness, but whether it is deserving of the Nobel Prize is another matter. Although one reviewer has compared Gao Xingjian to W.G. Sebald, I would suggest that Sebald, with his fluidity of prose and ability to capture the ghosts of the past, would have been a more suitable winner.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Of course it is you!!, 6 Dec 2003
By Michael Gerlinger (Frankfurt, Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
(Pardon me. This is not much of a review, but I found the ones already posted so revolting that I had to react immediately.)
4 not 5 stars because One Man's Bible lacks the uncanny zen-like qualities of the most wondrous parts of the deservedly noble-prize winning "Soul Mountain".
No this is no easy reading. It would be all too strange if a book about the devastations that a repressive regime (here: in the chinese cultural revolution) does to the human soul would be such a joy to read. Come across any easy reading about the holocaust lately?
If you can't stand the intensity of human feelings and hurt - go back to your Agatha Christie or whatever!
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14 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps It Is Me, 19 Oct 2002
By taking a rest - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
The Nobel Prize for Literature is given to a writer for the body of work they have produced. I have wondered in the past if the circumstances under which an author wrote, and or the danger their writing placed them in ever played a role in their recognition as well. "One Man's Bible", by Gao Xingjian was a very trying book to wade through. I received a copy early and it took me almost 2 months to finally make my way through the work. This became a book I would read between others as opposed to a work I enjoyed enough to read for what it had to offer. The book is written as though it was produced as it came to the writer's mind, not organized, rather just a chronicle of a variety of thoughts and experiences.

There are a few issues which may detract from the possibility of enjoying this work including, my lack of knowledge regarding the various rebellions, revolutions, and counter revolutions that this tale chronicles. I am also unsure how easily the original work in Chinese translates in to English. Much of the persecution the author describes is familiar to other repressive regimes that were based in Soviet Russia, or a variety of European Countries. But even though the wretched behavior of whatever group in power exerts over the weak is appalling, I have a harder time getting involved with the work. It is not a lack of empathy, but a lack of knowledge or perhaps a lack of understanding of Chinese history and culture.

This author has clearly had an impact on the literary world, and he may or may not have been recognized with The Nobel Prize if he lived in a nation that permitted freedom of expression. I don't have that answer, and that is why I do not rate the book as a poor one.

The part I really did enjoy was a chapter when the author wrote about writing and why people in general and he in particular write. While this was interesting it was confined to a single chapter, and this was not enough to keep me interested for any great length of time.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars One Man's Bible
If I had to name my top five books ever, this book would be amongst them and probably near the top. I find it impossible to praise it too highly. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Ma Margaret Anne Bede

1.0 out of 5 stars No it's me as well
I found this book incredibly hard to read. I think a lot of it must be down to the translation, as it was hard to work out which characters the author was referring to in a lot of... Read more
Published on 17 Oct 2003

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