Soul Mountain is a long novel about a man who, after a troubling medical scare and a period of political pressure, sets out on a journey through the remote mountains, forests and villages of southwestern China. He is looking for a place of peace and for a half-mythical mountain of the title. The narrative shifts between pronouns, with 'I', 'you' and 'she' sometimes standing for different sides of one consciousness. Along the way he meets folk singers, shamans and travellers, and recalls his past. The book blends travel writing, memory, legend and reflection, and is a landmark of modern Chinese fiction.
Quotes
Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell.
Realty exists only through experience, and it must be personal experience.
The creature known as man is of course highly intelligent, he's capable of manufacturing almost anything from rumours to test-tube babies and yet he destroys two to three species every day. This is the absurdity of man.
Some distance away is a white azalea bush which stuns me with its stately beauty.____ This is pristine natural beauty. it is irrepressible, seeks no reward, and is without goal, a beauty derived neither from symbolism nor metaphor and needing neither analogies nor associations.