Polyphony Embodied - Freedom and Fate in Gao Xingjian’s Writings 9783110351873, 9783110346428

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Polyphony Embodied: Freedom and Fate in Gao Xingjian’s Writings

Chinese-Western Discourse

Volume 1

Polyphony Embodied: Freedom and Fate in Gao Xingjian’s Writings

Edited by Michael Lackner and Nikola Chardonnens

DE GRUYTER

ISBN 978-3-11-034642-8 e-ISBN 978-3-11-035187-3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover Image: alexdndz/iStock/Thinkstock Typesetting: Meta Systems Publishing & Printservices GmbH, Wustermark Printing and binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgments This volume contains selected papers presented at the international conference “Gao Xingjian: Freedom, Fate, and Prognostication,” hosted by the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, October 24–27, 2011. In addition to the scholars whose contributions are included in the volume, we would like to thank all participants at the conference including the moderators. The creation of this volume profited immensely from the constructive and cordial atmosphere during the conference. Special thanks go to Dr. David Juste, at the time visiting research fellow at the Consortium, whose close ties to Prof. Mabel Lee (University of Sydney) reinforced the idea of organizing a conference on Gao Xingjian and his creative work. Without the kind participation of Gao Xingjian himself, neither the conference nor the volume would have been possible. We are greatly indebted to Prof. Mabel Lee for her continued support and advice from the beginning and her invaluable help in editing this volume. Available day and night and always ready to provide support, she made the editing process a most pleasant task. Our heartfelt thanks also go to our translator in the U.K., who did a wonderful job on rendering some of the contributions from Chinese into English. Finally, we are most grateful to Christina Oikonomou, Anne Schmiedl, Zhao Jingou, and Alexander Moldovan for their editorial assistance.

Contents Acknowledgments Illustrations

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Michael Lackner and Nikola Chardonnens 1 Introduction Gao Xingjian Freedom and Literature

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Mabel Lee Gao Xingjian’s Transcultural Aesthetics in Fiction, Theater, Art, 19 and Film John McDonald The Aesthete as Revolutionary: Saving Art from Politics

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Antony Tatlow The Silence of Buddha: Triangulating Gao Xingjian, Brecht, and 57 Beckett Liu Zaifu Gao Xingjian’s Notion of Freedom

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Jessica Yeung Reading Gao Xingjian’s Treatment of Freedom in Soul Mountain and 79 One Man’s Bible in the Sartrean Framework Wang Liying The Concept of Freedom in Gao Xingjian’s Novel One Man’s Bible Noël Dutrait Sex, Freedom, and Escape in Gao Xingjian’s One Man’s Bible Gilbert C. F. Fong Wild Man and the Idea of Freedom Lin Gang Toward an Aesthetics of Freedom

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Contents

Zhang Yinde Gao Xingjian Carefree: Of Mountains and Seas and Carefree as a Bird 139 Sookyung Oh Tradition and Freedom: The Artistic World of Gao Xingjian and His Play 149 Hades Quah Sy Ren Multivocality as Critique of Reality: Fate and Freedom in Gao Xingjian’s 171 The Man Who Questions Death Wah Guan Lim Between Memory and Forgetting: Ten Years after Gao Xingjian’s Winning of 185 the Nobel Lily Li Finding Freedom and Reshaping Fate: An Exile’s Disentanglement from 203 Obsession in Gao Xingjian’s Novels Kwok-kan Tam Fate as (Re)Visioning of the Self in Soul Mountain

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Shelby Chan Trap Revisited: The Man Who Questions Death and the Tragedy of 241 Modern Man Index of Works by Gao Xingjian Name Index

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Illustrations Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

1a–c: 2a–e: 3: 4:

Fig. 5: Fig. 6: Fig. 7:

Dream (2004) by Chen Haiyan 51–53 54–56 Six Accounts of a Floating Life (2008) by Bingyi 56 I Watch Myself Dying (2009) by Bingyi Lin Zhaohua’s Production of Brecht’s Schweyk in the 58 Second World War (I) Lin Zhaohua’s Production of Brecht’s Schweyk in the 59 Second World War (II) 66 Brecht’s Lutheran Bible 67 Painting by Gao Qipei (1660–1734)

Michael Lackner and Nikola Chardonnens

Introduction Like artists, important writers defy unequivocal interpretations. There is no doubt that Gao Xingjian is a modern writer, whose reflections on the human condition go far beyond the often naïve and optimistic understanding of modernity that has prevailed in China for more than a century. By the same token, Gao is a cosmopolitan writer, who transformed inspirations from Brecht, Beckett, Ionesco, and other paragons of Western modernity into multi-faceted visions of his own without any parochial limitations in language and in generic or local conventions. On the other hand, he is deeply rooted in the Chinese past; however, like in his handling of Western modernity, Gao’s view of “China” is highly selective and individualistic. His attempt to escape from any kind of mask thus does not make him more accessible in the sense of an unambiguous reading of his works. Gao has been brought up in the spirit of the French Enlightenment à la Chinoise, with its severe ban of “superstition,” which excludes any belief in fate as an ontological category. Later on, he had to go through the increasingly violent Chinese version of Enlightenment with its culmination in the Cultural Revolution. In sharp contrast to the frenzies of modern Chinese “enlightened” nominalism, where the prevailing arbitrariness substitutes one slogan by another, Gao is distrustful of the positivist and “progressive” Chinese variety of the Lumières. This is perhaps one of the reasons for his relative neglect in China: he is not busy with “saving China.” It is, therefore, not surprising that in his more recent works, the attentiveness to Buddhist Enlightenment plays an important role. Buddhism, and in particular the idea of awakening is not conceivable without the Buddhist concept of fate (yuanfen). But how can one be modern, skeptic, disillusioned, and, at the same time, concede a place for fate in one’s worldview? In Gao Xingjian’s own words, fate is an “important element” in his works, but it remains “a great mystery,” something “unknown,” “inexplicable behind the coincidences.” The belief in fate need not necessarily lead to faith in a religion, but it does inspire “religious feelings” (Interview by Michael Lackner). The tension between freedom and fate, manifest in many of Gao’s works, has also been the starting point for an enquiry by the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities, “Fate, Freedom, and Prognostication. Strategies of Coping with the Future in East Asia and Europe.” Established in 2009 at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, we have explored philosophical ideas on fate and techniques of prediction in traditional and modern East Asia

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while selectively contrasting them with comparable phenomena in Europe. Current projects in various fields include, for instance: research on oracle bones (the earliest evidence for both writing and divination in archaic Chinese); on “daybooks” (manuscripts that contain indications for auspicious and inauspicious days for certain activities); on the relationship between Buddhism and divination (with its dogmatic and pragmatic aspects); on the role of fate in Daoist religion; on the persistence of mantic arts in the modern and contemporary sinophone world; on concepts of the future in modern China; on the seventeenth century Chinese translation of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologica (with an emphasis on Thomas’ statements on fate and free will). Gao Xingjian, a man of many arts – writer, painter, and film maker – seemed an ideal interlocutor for addressing the issue of fate and freedom across various continents and epochs. In order to get more insight into the Gesamtkunstwerk Gao Xingjian embodies, which reminds one of the gentleman’s activities in traditional China, the Consortium organized a conference, a public reading, a screening of his films, and an exhibition of his paintings in October 2011. Following his request, we changed the order of the Consortium’s key words into “Freedom, Fate, and Prognostication in Gao Xingjian’s works” for the conference, thus emphasizing the predominance of freedom in his thought. Although prediction does play a decisive role in Soul Mountain (and admittedly in Gao’s life), since it is the age-old Chinese Classic of Changes that enables the protagonist to envisage fate, it nonetheless remains a rather marginal aspect when compared to the existential tension between freedom and fate. Even though Gao may mistrust modern “scientific” ways of prognostication, ancient forms of prognostic knowledge operate in his works – in the shape of Edmund Husserl’s sedimentation. Dealing with a “divinatory civilization par excellence” (Jean Levi), Sinologists may feel less reluctant to face the question of fate than “enlightened” Westerners. Posing this question to Gao Xingjian and a group of distinguished scholars from literary and art criticism as well as experts in translation and philology presented many advantages: we were less interested in a general discussion on the multitude of aspects in Gao’s works and even less in controversies concerning their aesthetic value than in obtaining a response to the crucial issues of the Consortium from a clearly defined angle. And, in fact, our question made the contributors refocus their thinking and leave some of the trodden paths of our academic habits. Readers waiting for a contemporary reconciliation of freedom and fate will nevertheless be disappointed: while traditional China possessed a relatively well defined idea of fate, which offered the possibility of negotiation and adaptation after having calculated the essential lines of one’s destiny, modernity, both Chinese and Western, seems to

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have completely dethroned the once powerful concept. However, we might ask whether fate has rather been suppressed and exiled to a remote corner of our consciousness than simply having been dethroned. Ironically enough, it is precisely the skeptical attitude engendered by a suffering from modernity – Nietzsche’s “tragic modernity” (although Gao would prefer Kafka in this regard) – that allows a refuge for fate as an influential authority in our existence much more than the equally modern, but simplistic teleological variety of allegedly enlightened thought. Although no more conceived to be calculable in the way the oracular Classic of Changes once “fathomed the cosmos” and “ordered the world” (Richard Smith), it is simply there, obnubilated, inexplicable, perhaps a result of coincidences (like the great thinker Wang Chong (27–ca. 97 AD) would have agreed), and yet sensible. This is one of the answers we obtain from an artist of Chinese origin and a citizen of the world. The very nature of the answer can already be called a polyphonic one: there is a plethora of affirmative as well as skeptical voices; but polyphony, as embodied by Gao Xingjian, is an even more multifaceted phenomenon: the puzzling game with personal pronouns, some of which denote multiple identities (the “I,” “you,” “he,” and “she,” while deliberately avoiding the “we”) in Soul Mountain and, mutatis mutandis, in theater plays and in other novels and short stories, is but one example of a conscientious choice of differentiated chorus parts. The often ephemeral, even abrupt changes of the human mind that matter to Gao call for a kind of polyphonic treatment that is capable to do justice even to the musical aspects of the human voice: sound and rhythm. The deep chords he strikes in human nature are often embedded in one person: human beings are the resonating bodies that enable the multitude of our inner voices to be heard. In terms of language, two voices at least – Chinese and French – characterize his writings, and it seems difficult to assign him to a conventional place in either of these linguistic communities and traditions. He is not the spokesman of any clear-cut “culture;” and he is reluctant to “save” any nation. Most important for our contention, however, is the fact that Gao Xingjian’s aesthetic experience embodies prose, theater, painting, and film. Taken together, they form a polyphonic Gesamtkunstwerk while diversity of voices characterizes every single one of them. There is an explicit occurrence of poetry and music in Gao’s theater plays, but both can also be considered as ubiquitous in all his artistic creations. Even his paintings are interwoven with literary experience. By these scattered examples, it should become apparent that there is no need to refer to Bakhtin’s idea of polyphony (and Gao Xingjian has always remained somewhat skeptical with regard to postmodern thought) to accept

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that a much larger (and, perhaps, a much more conservative and tangible) concept of polyphony is required to get closer to Gao Xingjian’s creations. The replies to the question of freedom and fate in Gao Xingjian’s work we received from our authors thus manifest the polyphony that was to be expected. In his inaugural paper, Gao Xingjian addresses the topics of freedom and literature and the nature of their relationship. Not only as a writer, but as an individual, Gao assigns greatest value to the notion of freedom as “an ultimate quest for humans,” if not “the only one.” In present-day society, the individual is constantly exposed and subjected to any number of restrictions and limitations by politics, market economy, religion, social morale, family and fellow citizens, and many other factors. Even in a democratic system, where freedom of speech and thought is anchored in the constitution, the individual must fight for freedom and resist any form of prevailing ideology. This existential dilemma, or “the truth of human life,” is most articulated in literature, which may offer help insofar as it transcends reality and renders “unending understandings not only of society but also of people.” Only in understanding society and, more importantly, the self, the individual may attain freedom. The contributions by Mabel Lee, John McDonald, and Antony Tatlow provide detailed contextualization by placing Gao and his oeuvre into a political and literary perspective. Based on an extensive and well-informed look at the artist’s personal and creative life, Mabel Lee delves into the nature of Gao Xingjian’s aesthetics in fiction, theater, art, and filmmaking. Gao’s aesthetics is embedded in Chinese tradition while at the same time drawing inspiration from and employing Western literary and creative techniques and practices. By combining and contrasting traditional Chinese and Western methods, Gao finds his own voice that makes his creative endeavors so unique. John McDonald focuses on the artist’s role between politics and art, and situates Gao Xingjian and his search for saving art from any kind of politics and ideology within the broader context of both socialist China and the contemporary global art market. While for a long time art in China was to serve the Party, due to the growth of a global market Chinese art has turned into a product that even embraces politics by addressing political issues to appear more meaningful. In Gao’s view, “Art will be saved when we have purged aesthetics of all judgments of political value” (Return to Painting 42). To do so, the artist needs to repudiate politics and ideology and concentrate on an exploration of the self as the only source of creative freedom. By triangulating Gao Xingjian, Bertolt Brecht, and Samuel Beckett, Antony Tatlow explores the commonalities and differences in the philosophical underpinnings of the authors’ works. Despite different cultural contexts, all three authors lived through times of intense political turmoil that not only chal-

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lenged their art but also their very existence. In their search for meaning, the authors resort to similar means: Their writings are filled with split personalities to represent the instability of the self in such times (in Gao Xingjian’s case: the changing pronouns). With extensive references to Buddhism and the Buddhist notion of nirvana, the writers address the dilemma of the individual being caught in the inescapable double bind of identity. In other words, when reflecting upon the self, the individual loses personal consciousness as mind and universe turn into an undifferentiated whole. In order to recognize the self and its relation to the whole, the individual must thus transcend this “emptiness of nothing.” While especially Beckett remains rather pessimistic in his writings, Gao stresses the possibility of escaping from this dilemma by exploring and recognizing the self. Pursuing Gao Xingjian’s emphasis on freedom, a large part of this volume focuses explicitly on this topic. Liu Zaifu begins with a theoretical discussion of Gao’s notion of freedom based on an excerpt from One Man’s Bible. Freedom to Gao is, first of all, individually defined and obtained by a person, that is, not linked to external factors or bestowed upon by society or God. Freedom exists only upon awareness of its existence, that is, without the individual being aware of their freedom, there is no freedom to speak of. This awareness, however, only lasts momentarily, so freedom is only present when experienced by the individual in a certain moment. Freedom thus becomes a personal spiritual experience far from politics and other public areas. As Liu notes, Gao’s notion of freedom is rooted in real human existence, and does not present a hypothetical construct, but finds realization through individual awareness and creative expression. Gao exercises this freedom by drawing inspiration from established traditions to develop new images, new narratives, and new languages in the aesthetic space of his creations. Jessica Yeung elaborates on Gao Xingjian’s notion of freedom by placing it in a Sartrean framework and exploring the theme of freedom in Gao’s novels Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible in comparison with Sartre’s The Roads to Freedom. In both cases, the writers not only devote much attention to the topic of freedom, Gao has also long been influenced by Sartre’s writings. The protagonists in Gao’s novels are characterized by the search for meaning of the self between past and present without being able to reconcile past and present self. In Soul Mountain, the protagonist tries to let go of attaching meaning to the self by resorting to Buddhist enlightenment, thus realizing Sartre’s early notion of freedom, that is, an ontological state of absolute freedom. The protagonist of One Man’s Bible, however, follows Sartre’s later notion of freedom that takes into account the societal conditions in which humans practice freedom. Having experienced a change in his existential conditions after hav-

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ing left China, the protagonist thus once again finds himself in a situation of having to commit himself and exercise freedom despite the supposed improvement in his living conditions. Gao’s novels, therefore, both refer to Sartre’s notion of freedom in the ontological as well as social sense. Wang Liying concentrates on the concept of freedom as pictured in Gao Xingjian’s novel One Man’s Bible. By referring to Isaiah Berlin’s notion of negative freedom (or liberty), Wang describes Gao’s concept of freedom as the ultimate liberation of the individual from his environment. This individual form of freedom involves the repudiation of collective identity both in the political and cultural sense. As opposed to negative freedom (or “freedom from”), Berlin’s (higher) notion of positive freedom implies the “freedom to” lead a life striving for self-determination and self-realization. In reality, positive freedom may implicate a decrease in negative (individual) freedom when practiced in a collective framework – a notion strongly rejected by the protagonist in One Man’s Bible. Facing the new situation of exile, the protagonist resorts to what Berlin calls the “retreat to the inner citadel” in order to safeguard his individual identity and negative freedom. Devoting his attention to the same novel, One Man’s Bible, Noël Dutrait explores the topic of freedom in relation to the themes of sex and escape. Both themes play significantly into Gao Xingjian’s notion of freedom: having experienced the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, the protagonist leaves China and escapes to Europe to obtain a greater degree of freedom. Yet, the reunion with a Jewish woman, which turns into a passionate love affair, forces him not only to confront and reflect upon his past life in China but also his new life in exile. The protagonist thus begins to redefine his idea of freedom as independent from any external factors and only to be realized by the individual who is conscious of this freedom. Gilbert Fong focuses on Gao Xingjian’s play Wild Man and the notion of freedom expressed therein. The play features multiple storylines seemingly distinct but interconnected in a way that has been described as polyphonic, that is, for instance, various scenes taking place simultaneously with different characters speaking and performing at the same time. Gao deliberately employs this theatrical technique as a counter-discourse of pluralism against realistic theater as much as ideological oppression to allow for free movement of the narrative. In the play, the protagonists do not enjoy freedom; on the contrary, they are hindered in their actions by outside forces that they do overcome to some extent towards the end of the play. However, obstacles still remain for the protagonists as they do not consciously strive for freedom, but rather accept things as they are. As opposed to later works, Gao here advocates negative freedom as proposed by Isaiah Berlin (see Wang Liying’s contribution), that is, “freedom from” any outside interference and obstruction.

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Lin Gang further follows the discussion on the notion of freedom by inquiring into Gao Xingjian’s theory of “without isms.” For many decades, literature and literary thinking in modern China have been subjected to political and ideological “isms” to a point of close entanglement between politics and literature. By introducing his concept of “without isms,” Gao has promoted the rejection or absence of any kind of ideology in literature, firmly stating that literature “is purely a matter for the individual” (“Cold Literature,” 78) and that a writer cannot serve as a spokesperson to foster a political standpoint on behalf of politicians or the people at large. In case of political oppression, a writer may only attain freedom through escape from a totalitarian regime to the “free world,” thus freedom and escape are closely linked to one another. Yet, even in the “free world,” freedom is still at stake and has to be pursued actively in light of political and market forces that may also corrode individual freedom. By connecting freedom and escape, Gao taps into the traditional Chinese treatment of freedom by referring to the Daoist ideal of returning to nature and being “free and unfettered” advocated by Zhuangzi on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the Chan Buddhist notion of the innate “Buddha nature” that requires no guidance from the outside, but is completely independent from any external forces. Gao Xingjian’s drawing on Chinese traditional thinking to allude to the idea of freedom is further developed in Zhang Yinde’s contribution, focusing on the drama Of Mountains and Seas and the poem “Carefree as a Bird” in light of China’s ancient mythology and the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi. By rewriting and employing images and metaphors stemming from early Chinese mythology and philosophy in his works, Gao formulates an individual notion of freedom that can only be found in escape and isolation from society, as opposed to the freedom of action the protagonist in Of Mountains and Seas falls victim to. In referring to the Zhuangzi, Gao likens his idea of freedom to the Daoist notion of roaming free and unfettered, “carefree as a bird.” By utilizing the mythical image of Kunlun Mountain as the objectivized form of primal chaos, Gao further develops his concept of freedom as to return to the original state of things that dissolves the distinction between the objective world and the self to allow for truly becoming free and unfettered. Sookyung Oh explores Gao Xingjian’s views on tradition and freedom by looking at the development of his dramatic theory and his treatment of traditional Chinese repertoire in the play Hades. Appreciating and rediscovering the aesthetic features of traditional Chinese opera through the eyes of Western playwrights, Gao has used the suppositional nature of Chinese opera to break new ground in theater. His close encounter with Chinese folk drama during a journey along the Yangtze in the early 1980s further shaped his dramatic

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theory, resulting in his incorporating both the ritualistic and entertaining nature of folk theater to pursue a so-called omnipotent drama that combines various sorts of performance techniques in an empty space. Gao thus draws inspiration from traditional theater repertoire while abandoning the formulaic character of Chinese opera to attain absolute freedom in performance. As for Hades, the play serves as a perfect example of Gao’s dramatic theory as it contains traditional elements but is unconstrained by tradition in its performance. Attending to the topics of fate and freedom, Quah Sy Ren elaborates on Gao Xingjian’s technique of “multivocality” (or “polyphony”) as the theatrical form and structure in the play The Man Who Questions Death. While all of Gao’s dramatic works feature the method of multivocality, three different types can be identified: the first type enables multiple characters to speak with different voices at the same time. The second type shifts the attention to a single character consisting of several identities that are voiced through different personal pronouns. The third type resembles the second type insofar as it also refers to a single character; unlike the second type, which is more concerned with reflections on the outside world, this type of multivocality involves both internal and external voices of the same character. Exhibiting this third type of multivocality, the protagonist of The Man Who Questions Death finds himself trapped in a situation that may well be read as a metaphor for the individual’s fate of having lost freedom and being confined to modern society and its many ideologies. In “dialogue” with his other self, the protagonist’s life continually loses meaning until he finally accepts that death is the only choice in life. Wah Guan Lim delves into the question how Gao Xingjian, despite his being a globally renowned writer and Nobel laureate, has been obliterated from collective memory in contemporary China. Lim traces Gao’s erasure from public consciousness back to the Chinese Communist Party’s commonly employed “Technique of Forgetting History,” which aims at eradicating any detail of Chinese history running contrary to the Party’s interests, after the controversial staging of his play Bus Stop in the early 1980s. In fact, the play not only contained elements that may be interpreted as critical hints at social problems in China, but Gao also resorted to Western techniques prevalent in Brechtian and Absurdist theater to go against conventional realist theater promoted by the Party. By evoking the image of Lu Xun in the play, Gao applied what Marvin Carlson terms “ghosting” in an attempt to evade censorship. Despite his failure at that time, Gao’s elimination from Chinese history has not been complete due to another form of resistance coined by Diana Taylor, that is, “repertoire:” Gao’s writings continue to be circulated worldwide through his own efforts as much as those of international scholars and translators, thus keeping his memory alive.

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In a similar vein, Lily Li focuses on a discussion of memory and forgetting, yet from a perspective within Gao Xingjian’s works, concentrating on the repercussions of being in exile as addressed in Gao Xingjian’s novels Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible. Both novels deal with the protagonists’ inner experience of exile while trying to find a balance of past and present life and reconstruct the identity as a writer and human being. Whereas the protagonist in Soul Mountain is mostly concerned with memories of the past, the main character in One Man’s Bible successfully passes through the process of disentanglement from obsession with his homeland to find freedom in his new life in exile. This process of disentanglement usually involves various psychological stages: waves of nostalgia, critical objectivity, willful forgetting, and integrating the past with the present. In Soul Mountain, the protagonist immerses himself into nostalgic memories of the past for a large part of the novel before reaching a state of disillusionment that leads to a more critical attitude towards life in exile, and finally moving into the stage of willfully forgetting all memories to adjust to the present. However, only the protagonist in One Man’s Bible, after going through all stages of disentanglement, manages to close the gap between past and present and find absolute freedom. Kwok-kan Tam explores Gao Xingjian’s notion of fate as expressed and dealt with in his novel Soul Mountain. As opposed to the traditional Chinese concept of fate, which emphasizes the determination by supernatural forces, modern socialism promoted the idea of a promised land that would only be achieved through people. Soul Mountain depicts a world in which the protagonist finds himself disenchanted in his pursuit of the Promised land, and caught up in the social and political absurdities of contemporary China. To the protagonist, fate represents a pattern of unknown factors that determine his life, and merely serves as an explanation to make sense out of his life. In order to escape the political absurdities confronting him, he sets out on both a physical and mental journey (symbolized by different personal pronouns) to search for the origins of Chinese culture. Throughout the journey, the protagonist reflects upon the self only to realize that “the self is in fact the source of mankind’s misery” (152). Buddhism alone may offer salvation by returning to the original self, that is, a self without distinctions. In the last contribution, Shelby Chan inquires into the phenomenon of being trapped experienced by many of Gao Xingjian’s characters as a symbol of modern man surrounded by other people. Like in other plays, the protagonist in The Man Who Questions Death finds himself trapped in an enclosed space with no hope of escape. Throughout the play, various layers of traps become apparent: first, it is other people who impose on the individual. The second trap, also physical, is epitomized by the museum of modern art as an

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allegory of modern life and the degeneration of modern man. Death, the third trap, signifies a trap in both the physical and metaphysical sense, that is, death inflicts a limit on the individual’s life span as much as on his physical body. The last layer of being trapped, however, is self – when unaware of its subjectivity. Through otherizing the self (symbolized by That Man in the play), the individual not only frees himself from the constraints imposed by others, but also attains an understanding of the self as the only way to find freedom.

Works Cited Gao, Xingjian. Soul Mountain. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney; New York: HarperCollins, 2000; and London: HarperCollins, 2001. Print. — Return to Painting. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Print. — “Cold Literature.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; and New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2006. 78–81. Print. — Interview by Michael Lackner. Documentary on Gao Xingjian and the IKGF Gao Xingjian Conference (2011). International Consortium for Research in the Humanities, 2012. Web. 22 July 2013.

Gao Xingjian

Freedom and Literature* Freedom is a magnificent word, and it is also an ultimate quest for humans, even if it might not be the only one. However, what constitutes freedom? The freedom I talk about is not philosophical speculation, but the possibilities for human action under the restraints of existential conditions in real life. The people I talk about are not abstract concepts about people, but real individuals in real life, because this is precisely what concerns literature. Given the individual’s numerous predicaments in socialized life, how to obtain freedom, that is, the possibility of choice for the individual in life, has been an important topic in literature from ancient times to the present. From this another topic is produced, so-called fate and whether it can be predicted. This is the general theme of the international research conference on my literary and art creation held at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen. First of all, I express my heartfelt thanks to the scholars in Germany who have organized this conference. I also take this opportunity to thank the professors and scholars who have accepted invitations to participate and all of my friends here for showing such an interest in my creations. The philosophical question of what is free and determined unavoidably turns into freedom and certainty in the domain of literature. The individual living in a specific society is continually subjected to a variety of regulations from politics, ethics, customs and religion, and also from family, marriage and sexual relationships that impose numerous restrictions on the individual’s action. In modern societies since the 20th century, totalitarian politics and ideology especially have regulated people’s actions, and furthermore even shackled their thinking. Needless to say, the freedom to speak in public is abolished, and various types of political correctness manufactured by the political authorities and official ideology are used to control the individual’s thinking. However, in countries with democratic systems, does the individual necessarily enjoy freedom of speech and thought, and does democracy necessarily guarantee the freedom of the individual? These are also questions that must be discussed. In the globalized market economy, present democratic politics has not basically changed people’s existential problems or endowed the individual with greater freedom. The principles of power benefits and market profitability

* This essay was originally published in Gao Xingjian: Aesthetics and Creation (Cambria Press, 2012), and has been reproduced with the permission of Cambria Press.

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direct politics, and pervade every corner of life via all-embracing mass media strategies, so how can there be freedom for the individual? This old eternal problem continues to cause anxiety in people, and my creative works aim to respond to this. If a writer whose works are banned in a communist totalitarian state flees the oppression of dictatorship, is there any certainty that he will win freedom of thought on arriving in the democratic West, or will he enter into another kind of politics, one with so-called different political viewpoints? And taking the argument a step further, when an individual flees one kind of political oppression, is it obligatory for him to pursue another kind of politics, even if it is democracy? Now that is an even more interesting question. But even more fascinating are the following questions: In the present world, is there politics that transcends political parties, and is freely controlled by the individual? And for the individual who does not enter into party politics, does he have the option of transcending this kind of politics? Freedom lies precisely in such choices. This freedom of choice is not simply between the political views of different political parties. Can there be choices apart from black cat or white cat, or neither black cat nor white cat? And furthermore, can one totally disregard the colour of the cat, and take a separate path to think independently. In other words can one transcend the reality of politics to think freely? However, present ideologies are the same as political authority, and deny people this sort of freedom. Its various dogmas shackle people’s thinking just as much as religious trials and morality sermons in medieval times. In the 20th century that has just passed Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, state socialism and various forms of nationalism have created different models for political correctness to replace the codes of traditional morality and religion. And superstitious belief in the communist revolution and fascism likewise unleashed madness throughout entire races that engulfed the world from Europe to Asia over the past century, and still has not totally disappeared. How the individual resists a trend of thought that engulfs the entire race in order to think independently may be said to be the grim test confronting modern man and also a topic that cannot be avoided by the literature of present times. To be without isms is my reply. The premise for freedom of thought, I believe, is not to choose any ism but instead to cast aside the restraints of ideology. In his life an individual’s freedom is inevitably subjected to a range of restrictions from the circumstances of his life. Apart from political pressures and social constraints, there are various economic and ethical limitations, and even psychological uncertainties, and to some degree such existential dilem-

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mas have inevitably plagued people since the beginning of human existence. And freedom has never been a right that has come with birth, and furthermore cannot be conferred by anyone. The humanism of the Enlightenment treated freedom as man’s natural right at birth, and this was an appeal for reason. But while the liberalism of modern times had humanism as its starting point, it utilized freedom and human rights as banners and was an ideology, instead of indicating the true situation of human existence in present times. Freedom has to be fought for by people themselves, and even in democratic societies it is not conferred without cost, especially in the case of freedom of thought. When confronted by practical advantages and the laws of the market, freedom and human rights are often reduced to so much empty rhetoric. The real question finally depends on the choice of the individual: whether he chooses freedom or advantages. And the choice for freedom primarily derives from an acknowledgement of the need for freedom, so knowledge of freedom precedes choice. In this sense, freedom is thus the challenge of man’s awareness to his existence. It is only when individuated life seeks self-affirmation and to affirm the meaning of life that there is this struggle, and that there is an awareness of the need and indispensability of freedom. However, in this globalized age the disappearance of individuality is widespread, and the individual is drowning in the statistics of sociology and the percentages of mass media opinion polls. The individual cannot hope to influence omniscient party politics, even less so to change the world, moreover allpervasive market laws have turned people into consumerist animals, and playing the role of supermen saviours of the world has already become an outdated myth. Democratic politics that is premised on the victory of the majority has turned ambitious politicians into vote-seeking movie stars and television celebrities, merely passers-by who change every five years. In the meantime, no country is lucky enough to escape the deterioration of the natural ecology or global financial crises of unprecedented severity. How can the problems of human survival, not to mention the individual’s dilemmas, be dealt with? The conflict between the dilemmas of survival and the free will is the perennial topic of literature: how the individual transcends his environment and is not controlled by it. The tragedy and comedy and even the absurdity of the struggle, can only be dealt with aesthetically, but writers through the ages from ancient Greek plays down to the modern novels pioneered by Kafka have in fact succeeded. Some things are achievable by humans, while others are not, and while humans cannot defy fate they are able to aesthetically transform experiences and feelings into literary and art works that can even be transmitted to later generations, and in so doing transcend both the dilem-

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mas of reality and the times. Therefore it is only in the realm of the purely spiritual that humankind can possess an abundance of freedom. Literature can win literary independence and autonomy only by rejecting practical advantage, and literature released from political advantage and the laws of the market returns to the original intent of literature. Literature is originally man’s articulation of existential dilemmas and life’s anxieties. It refers to separate, concrete, real individuals and not to abstract concepts about people, and it is in this that literature differs from philosophy. Whereas philosophers seek to announce ultimate truths, writers merely manifest the truth of human life, a truth associated with the subjective individual’s own vibrant feelings, and because these feelings differ from person to person they can never all be articulated. These concrete and authentic existential dilemmas and the individual’s own anxieties are complicated and hard to explain, but they are the questions intrinsic to literature that has extricated itself from philosophy and sociology. Free will primarily derives from an understanding of the self, and when literature transcends social criticism and proceeds to scrutinize the usual chaos of the human self and tries to sort it out, understanding begins. This sort of understanding can gravitate towards ethics or towards religion, but when it gravitates towards aesthetics it leads to literary and art creation. This sort of understanding is the awakening of the self, and free will is determined by the awakening of the self. At that time the darkness and light, good and evil and God and the Devil within the chaotic self all gradually become clear. What directs a person’s fate is not solely determined by his life’s environment, it is determined even more by his understanding of the self. The complexity of human nature definitely cannot be explained merely by judgements of right or wrong or good and evil, and shows that understanding the self is an uninterrupted process, that people’s feelings and desires ebb and flow until the end of life. And it is this type of human life that literature’s understanding confronts. Using paradox or dialectics from philosophy to analyse this sort of understanding is inadequate. Philosophical methodologies are instrumental rationality and used for speculation, but once introduced into literature and art often foment disaster. In the 20th century revolutions in literature and art the negation of negation template turned literature and art into political propaganda, or else so-called postmodernist subversion made them into explanations of concepts. Aesthetics was dispensed with and meaning abolished, and literature and art even turned into conceptual games. Binary opposites as a methodology of course are useful for certain things. However things and people are boundlessly abundant, so the choice of either

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this or that is inadequate for dealing with the multitude of changes in the world. Are there choices apart from antinomy and dialectics? Can another path be taken that is neither this nor that? Taking neither this nor that path does not necessarily lead to compromise or to taking a middle path. The numerous divisions and opposites such as progressive and reactionary, revolutionary and antirevolutionary, innovative and conservative that came with the flood of 20th century ideologies were used as the prevalent mode of thought and even for making value judgements, and profoundly interfered with people’s thinking. One divides into two, if it is not this then it is that: antinomy and dialectics are binary theories that simplify and stereotype things and questions. The evolution of things and the relationships between them are complex and harbour all sorts of possibilities. Even between the poles of obverse and reverse lies a wealth of mechanisms, the problem is how to discover and control those mechanisms that can be transformed. New understanding and creation come from discovering these mechanisms that are hidden in things, and moreover of converting these mechanisms into viable methods. Freedom of thought is also like this, if one cannot break with existing patterns and find fresh new expressions, then so-called freedom of thought will still be empty rhetoric, or else merely a whole lot of vacuous talk about overthrowing predecessors in which anger and scorn become substitutes for understanding and creation that was a common 20th century malaise, and endures even today. Laozi’s “one gives birth to two, two gives birth to three, and three gives birth to the myriad things” is an ancient wisdom that acts as a cooling elixir to help people escape the vicious circle of endless revolutions inherent in the negation of negation. To overthrow is not the pattern for the evolution and transformation of things, and the medium between the two is impregnated with mechanisms for producing the myriad things. Freedom of thought is like this too. Fresh thoughts often are born at the boundary between two things, and the long accumulated history of human culture is the continual discovery of new understanding on the foundations of predecessors. Literary and art creations too are like this. Ultimate truth is best left to philosophical speculation. For individuated lives, what is significant is affirming the existence of individuated life and the meaning of life, because it is this that is the cause of people’s anxiety. Through his research on sex psychology and the subconscious, Freud found a key to unlock the self that was the cause of people’s anxieties, but indeed there were other keys. In Asia of the East, the monk Huineng of Tang China also provided a profound understanding of the self that entailed eradicating the control of the self and the resorting to observation. It is possible to use both keys to instigate fresher understandings, and of course there are further possibilities.

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Narrations in language are affirmations of the self. What is interesting is that all human languages use as the subject the three pronouns I, you, he. These constitute three mutually referential coordinates that make it possible for the self’s observations. By starting off with an awareness of language, that is the understanding achieved from the different narrations of the speaking subjects, an alternative path is provided. Literature is the epitome of this sort of narration, and moreover what can be narrated is inexhaustible. What literature provides are unending understandings not only of society but also of people. Is it possible for the individual to control his own fate in modern times when there are so many existential dilemmas? And following from this is it possible for fate or the future to be predicted? And are there new answers to these ancient questions? Each writer can use his own means of replying, and similarly a single correct answer cannot be obtained. For me the world and human nature cannot be recreated but they can be understood, and this is the propensity of literature that transcends practical advantage. Therefore, while life for writers of this type of literature is generally difficult, there is the need for such writers. And is it possible for humans to predict the future? The communist utopia may be regarded as the greatest prediction in human history, and it had ups and downs for less than a century before eventually collapsing. Some intellectuals locked into old Marxism still call for rebuilding this utopia, but it is doubtful that the recreation of such a myth can arouse frenzied waves of the times. Nonetheless, crowd fanaticism can certainly still be re-enacted by the manipulation of political authorities. The globalization of market economies brought economic crises of an unprecedented scale that was unanticipated by the Western countries promoting the globalization, and this has led to an intractable decline in Western countries. Who could have predicted that in just the past twenty years, the communist totalitarianism of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe would suddenly crumble, that the countries of Asia would unexpectedly rise, and that the totalitarianism of the big boss China would remain unchanged. Social change is hard enough to predict, and the fate of the individual even harder. When the individual is confronted by the all-engulfing fanatical tides of the times, whether it is the violent revolution of communism or wars initiated by fascism, the only escape is to flee, and this must be recognized before disaster is upon him. To flee is thus to save oneself, and even more difficult to flee are the dark shadows of the inner mind of the self, and if one lacks sufficient awareness of the self, one will undoubtedly first be buried in the hell of the self, and right until death not see the light. The hell of the self is

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delusion that can suffocate and destroy a person. However literature can serve as a sobering medication that will arouse the conscience, promote deep introspection, and help one to observe all the phenomena of the universe as well as awaken people to investigate the darkness of the inner mind. Literature is helped by people’s life experiences, but its insights far surpass all prognostications.

Mabel Lee

Gao Xingjian’s Transcultural Aesthetics in Fiction, Theater, Art, and Film The Noble Prize and Interventions of Fate Gao Xingjian was crowned Nobel Laureate for Literature in December 2000. In its hundred-year history this was the first time the prize had been awarded for a body of works originally created in the Chinese language. In the opening sentences of his Nobel Lecture, “The Case for Literature,” he acknowledges that “various lucky coincidences,” in other words “fate,” had provided him this opportunity to address the Swedish Academy (32). Of direct relevance, it would seem that fate had intervened to make translated editions of his major works available to the Nobel judging panel, because only one of the jurors was able to read Chinese. Indeed, established academics Göran Malmqvist (Stockholm University), husband and wife team Noël and Liliane Dutrait (University of Provence), Gilbert C. F. Fong (Chinese University of Hong Kong), and Mabel Lee (University of Sydney) had worked independently to produce Swedish, French and English translations of his plays, novels and short stories. In each case they had not been commissioned by publishers, but had sought permission from Gao Xingjian to translate specific works, and then taken it upon themselves to find the publishers. Nobel pundits and overseas China experts were upset by the award to Gao Xingjian, because they knew nothing of the large number of works he had produced after leaving China at the end of 1987. He had resettled in Paris where he immediately began to recoup the lost decades of his creative life, and by committing himself to a reclusive life of writing and painting he had absented himself from the gaze of China watchers. The Chinese authorities attacked the award to Gao Xingjian as political, and proclaimed there were many other far superior Chinese writers. A media blackout on the Nobel events occurred in China, and Gao Xingjian books were even confiscated by customs officials. Although not mentioned at the time, this churlish reaction was provoked by the awkward fact that Gao Xingjian had been airbrushed from China since the early 1990s. His play Escape (1990) with its unmistakable setting of the military crackdown on students in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, had led to his expulsion from the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Writers’ Association, as well as the confiscation of his Beijing apartment and contents, but it was the imposition of an “unofficial” (but nonetheless imple-

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mented) publication ban on his writings and writings about him that had effectively erased his existence as a writer in China. Those “unofficial” bans remain in place to this day, so that Gao Xingjian research in China has been effectively stymied for over twenty years. Politically problematized it has necessarily been outside China that any substantial Gao Xingjian research has been carried out. Henry Yi-heng Zhao published the first Gao Xingjian research monograph Towards a Modern Zen Theatre: Gao Xingjian and Chinese Theatre Experimentalism first in Chinese in 1999, and then in English the following year. Liu Zaifu’s Chinese-language essays written over a twenty-year period were collected in his Gao Xingjian’s Stance (2000), followed by his On Gao Xingjian (2004) and Introductory Essays on Gao Xingjian (2011). While research papers have been published in many languages, the largest number of Gao Xingjian books and edited volumes has been in the English language. From the 1980s, a body of scattered research publications existed in English, and these were collected in Kwok-kan Tam’s Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian (2001). In 2002, the widely read journal Modern Chinese Literature and Culture produced a special Gao Xingjian issue. Since then, other research monographs have appeared, including Sy Ren Quah’s Gao Xingjian and Transcultural Chinese Theater (2004), Izabella Łabędzka’s Gao Xingjian’s Idea of Theatre: From the Word to the Image (2008), and Jessica Yeung’s Ink Dances in Limbo: Gao Xingjian’s Writing as Cultural Translation (2008). The present volume is yet another contribution to an emerging critical mass of Gao Xingjian studies in the English language.

Earlier Interventions of Fate Unrecorded conversations I have had with Gao Xingjian over a period of more than two decades and comments scattered throughout his autobiographical novel One Man’s Bible (1999) point to other significant interventions of fate that clearly contributed to his Nobel award. To begin with, his voracious reading habit and cosmopolitan sensibility from early childhood must count as important factors. He was born in 1940 in Nationalist China during the Japanese invasion, and his father being an employee of the Bank of China, the sizeable family library traveled under armed escort as part of the family’s belongings alongside Nationalist Government gold to the wartime capital of Chongqing. Gao Xingjian was a sickly child, and his mother who took charge of his early education immediately noted how effortlessly he was learning to read and write. Her response was to assign him the task of keeping a diary for homework instead of the usual school practice of mindlessly copying out Chi-

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nese characters. Often confined indoors, he spent hours browsing through the family library that also contained a large collection of foreign publications. He had unlimited access to the library, and admits to being a precocious reader who had read a huge number of books for adults well before beginning his formal school education. The brilliant colors of the European masters fascinated him, and he began saving pocket money to buy tubes of oils for his own art creations. His early cosmopolitan aesthetic sensibilities must have begun with his reading of Chinese translations of Western children’s books, and then further developed by his fondness for listening to Western classical music and playing the violin. Incidents in One Man’s Bible demonstrate that his childhood paintings and poems received constant adult approval, and he has mentioned to me that even as a child he highly rated the pure creations of his childhood self. However, that idyllic situation suddenly changed. On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong declared the founding of New China, and, packaged with compelling nationalistic propaganda, guidelines for remodeling society. Gao Xingjian entered a new learning environment at school, and like everyone else he embraced the idea of serving the nation and socialism. As a young teenager, having decided on a career as an artist, he undertook formal lessons in oil painting to prepare for tertiary studies at college. However, when a few years later, in 1957, it became clear that to pursue a career in art would mean a lifetime painting propaganda posters, he enrolled into a five-year French literature course at the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute. As an undergraduate he fast-tracked his learning by borrowing a shelf of books each week from the library, and he claims that by the time he graduated virtually every book in the library bore his autograph as a borrower. This intensive study of French literature and world literatures in French translation occurred at the very time when censors elsewhere were systematically emptying library shelves of all books from China’s “feudal” past, and replacing them with new writings aimed at “educating” the population. The guidelines for the production of China’s new socialist-realist literature stipulated that heroes and villains were to be unambiguously portrayed: there was no place for “inbetween” characters. Hero stereotypes were for people to emulate, and persons observed to be acting like the villain stereotypes were to be reported immediately to the authorities. It must surely have been an intervention of fate that French-literate censors were not available at the time. Gao Xingjian’s voracious reading as an undergraduate reconnected him with the creative impulses of his childhood. As a young adult, he realized that his own perceptions and judgments had been stealthily eroded by his school education. He had continued the habit of keeping a diary, and his reading reignited his desire for self-expression in writing. His reading was focused and

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critical, because he not only aspired to write, but to write in a way that would satisfy his own aesthetic criteria. However, aware that his writings did not conform to the official guidelines, he wrote in secret and concealed whatever he wrote. By the time he graduated in 1962 and was assigned work as an editor and translator at the Foreign Languages Press in Beijing, writing had already transformed into a strong visceral need. Nonetheless, at the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), he had no option but to burn a suitcase of unpublished manuscripts, diaries, notes and even old family photographs to avoid the risk of having them found by marauding Red Guards and turned into evidence that would have seen him branded as a counterrevolutionary. The decade of the Cultural Revolution was one of endless mass movements and mass criticism meetings that were being orchestrated at the top echelons of national politics. The Red Guards were subsequently disbanded, and Military Commissions appointed to round up unfortunates who happened to have sided with the wrong factional leaders. At the May Seventh Cadre School where his work unit had been sent to undertake reform through hard physical labor, Gao found that his workplace colleagues had been mobilized to target him for criticism at a mass meeting. He knew this charade was merely a prelude to his imminent arrest. Responding to basic survival instincts, he took decisive action and immediately fled to a remote mountain village and resigned himself to working as a peasant for the rest of his life. It was not until five years later, as the Cultural Revolution drew to an end, that he was able to return to his workplace in Beijing (Gao, One Man’s Bible 124–36). The end of the Cultural Revolution signaled the beginning of a more relaxed political environment. Already forty-eight years old, Gao Xingjian for the first time began to publish a steady stream of short stories, as well as erudite essays about modern European literature. In 1979, thanks to his proficiency in French, he traveled to France as the official interpreter for a delegation of writers led by veteran writer Ba Jin (1904–2005). His publications admitted him into the Chinese Writers’ Association, and in 1980 he went to France and Italy as a member of a writer’s delegation. When he first saw the original works by the European masters at the Louvre and Musée d’Orsai, he knew he would never be able to paint anything comparable, and on the return journey of his second trip, he resolved to abandon oil painting. In the past he had occasionally dabbled with Chinese ink painting, and his earliest works were already a radical departure in subject matter from traditional ink paintings. Arriving back in Beijing he immediately set about exploring the potential of Chinese ink painting in his art creations (Lee, “Aesthetic Dimensions,” 127–45). In 1981 the Chinese Writers’ Association facilitated his transfer to the Beijing People’s Art Theater to work as a writer, and in the same year he pub-

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lished a thin volume called Preliminary Explorations into the Art of Modern Fiction. The book outlines how writers in China and the West were able to produce works of enduring appeal because the characters had been endowed with human qualities, and argues against literature being used for preaching. His attack on the nation’s established guidelines for literary production made him an instant celebrity in literary circles, a status that was consolidated when his plays Absolute Signal (1982), and Bus Stop (1983) were staged as “experimental theater” at the Beijing People’s Art Theater to wildly ecstatic audiences. Containing no hero or villain stereotypes, both plays put into practice his ideas for character portrayal, and, working in close collaboration with the director Lin Zhaohua (b. 1936), the productions revealed techniques without precedent in China’s socialist-realist theater repertoire. Of course his activities had not gone unnoticed by the custodians of the nation’s socialist-realist literary traditions, and his essay “Wilted Chrysanthemums” (1991) recounts the saga of how those three works would cause him to run afoul of the authorities. Preliminary Explorations into the Art of Modern Fiction went into a second printing in 1982, and when established writers began to publish endorsements of the work, the party secretary of the Chinese Writers’ Association duly reported that a “reactionary little book” by a “minor writer” was having a harmful effect on young writers, and even worse that the book was being applauded by major writers. The official publication of the Chinese Writers’ Association Literary Gazette conveyed the same message in the guise of “a letter from a reader.” It was in this background of political uncertainty that Absolute Signal was staged ten times as “experimental theater” before capacity audiences. When public performances followed, Gao Xingjian became known to the international world through the French newspaper Le Monde declaring that the play signaled the birth of avant-garde theater in Beijing. He Jingzhi (b. 1924), the deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee turned up to see the play, and responded by denouncing “modernism” in his New Year speech to literary circles. Soon after, Literary Gazette convened a conference in Beijing to discuss modernism, and Gao Xingjian was served notice to attend so that he could be publicly criticized. Unexpectedly, a number of veteran writers refused to attack him, and instead spoke out in defense of his book. Literary Gazette arranged a similar conference in Nanjing, and encountered an even greater rebuff from veteran writers. Next, the Propaganda Department organized a symposium in Beijing, and once again several veteran writers spoke out in Gao Xingjian’s defense (Gao, “Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 142–5). Gao was buoyed by the support he had received from established writers. He consulted with eminent playwright Cao Yu (1910–96) who was the direc-

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tor of the People’s Art Theater about staging his other play Bus Stop. As Cao raised no objections, Gao Xingjian and Lin Zhaohua proceeded to rehearse the play without seeking approval from the Party Committee. Ten performances took place in secret in the banquet hall on the third floor of the theater, with the windows covered in black cloth. Gao Xingjian recalls that for all ten performances all 200 seats were taken, and that many stood through the two-hour piece. After each performance the audience refused to disperse, and stayed to talk with the production team. At the tenth show, the party secretary of the Writers’ Association arrived unannounced, and promptly left without a word. Later it was reported that He Jingzhi had declared Bus Stop to be “the most poisonous play written since the founding of the People’s Republic of China” (Gao, “Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 147). This news sent Gao into a comatose state, and his friends were alarmed that he might attempt suicide. Around this time a routine health check found a shadow on his lung, and a follow-up hospital examination diagnosed him with lung cancer. He took sick leave and left Beijing. In his absence, friends informed him that the Propaganda Department had ordered two performances of Bus Stop, and had issued tickets to designated work units so that people could write criticisms of the play. The “anti-spiritual-pollution” campaign had begun, but seemed to be of no concern to him: his father had died within three months of being diagnosed with the same disease, and he resigned himself to a similar fate. However, a later examination by a specialist indicated that the shadow on his lung had miraculously vanished (Gao, “Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 145–8). He had won a reprieve from death, but was forced to return to Beijing to attend a workplace meeting where each person in turn was required to state their position on “spiritual pollution.” Obviously, he was being baited, and when it came to his turn, he lost control, and smashed the glass he was holding, cursed, and stormed out. The leading national literary magazines were instructed by the Propaganda Department to publish articles to denounce Bus Stop, and it was reported that the author would be sent to Qinghai for “training.” He did not wait around to be sent to a prison farm, but immediately fled Beijing by train, heading straight for the ancient forests in Sichuan province where it would be hard to track him down. He had with him a workplace letter stating that he was traveling in the mountain forests of the Southwest to gain first-hand experience of the lives of woodcutters for a novel, and the 400-yuan advance royalty from People’s Literature Publishing House for it. For the next five months he wandered through eight provinces, covering a distance of 15,000 kilometers, until towards the end of the year his friends told him that the campaign had ended, and it was safe for him to return (Gao, “Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 148–9). That solitary journey along the fringes of Han-

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Chinese civilization would form the contextual background for his novel Soul Mountain (1990). During 1983, Gao Xingjian’s international presence was furthered by the publication of two items in the Hong Kong based Renditions: A Chinese-English Translation Magazine, 19 & 20: Geremie Barmé’s “A Touch of the Absurd: Introducing Gao Xingjian and His Play The Bus Stop” and Ng Mau-sang’s “Contemporary Technique and National Character in Fiction by Gao Xingjian.” Also, on October 1, 1984, Bus Stop was performed in Yugoslavia, and the play broadcast on Hungarian National Radio. His new play Wild Man (1985) was staged in early May, this time in the main auditorium of the Beijing People’s Art Theater, and Gao Xingjian took the opportunity of holding the first exhibition of his artworks in the theater foyer. The play established his credentials as a playwright in the theater world of China, and a review in the USA-based The Christian Science Monitor described the play as “truly amazing” (Gao, “Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 152). However, by this time Gao had already been singled out in a vendetta, so when a committee appointed by the Ministry of Culture unanimously voted Absolute Signal best play in a compilation of recent plays, a notification from above excluded it as “ineligible for selection” (Gao, “Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 153). At the end of May 1985, he left for Berlin on a fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), taking with him a number of his paintings for an exhibition at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, and afterwards selling most of them. His stay in Europe lasted several months, and he traveled extensively, giving lectures, presenting play readings and participating in seminars at universities and literary venues. On returning to Beijing at the beginning of 1986, he began rehearsals for his new play The Other Shore (1986), but it was stopped after a few rehearsals. Also, all attempts to find a publisher for his collection of short stories Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (1989) were blocked (Gao, “Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 151–3). While it seemed unlikely that Gao Xingjian would stage future plays in China, overseas interest in his work continued, and in 1987 his play Hiding from the Rain (1984) was staged in Stockholm, and Bus Stop in England and Hong Kong. During that year the political situation in China deteriorated further with the launch of the “anti-capitalist-liberalization” campaign. Gao traveled for a fourth time on invitation to Europe, and by the end of the year, settled in Paris where he has since lived (Gao, “Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 153– 4). During his short literary career in China three of his plays had been performed, and established writers and audiences had endorsed his work; importantly, he had international credentials as a writer and artist that were crucial for his relocation to Paris. Fate had decreed that he would experience life in one of the most repressive regimes in China’s history, nonetheless he was

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provided opportunities to develop his creative talents within that environment as well as to escape situations that could have terminated both his physical and creative life. Fate had also prepared the way for him to relocate with relative ease into his new environment. Of course, environment as determined by fate alone does not determine the individual’s potential to achieve goals: the decisions and actions of the individual are equally important. One Man’s Bible reveals that from childhood Gao Xingjian had an unusually strong sense of self, as well as a dogged curiosity to work out how and why things were so. In other words he had a propensity for logical thinking and analysis. As a young adult his strong sense of self allowed him to resist the invasive political propaganda aimed at foisting the thoughts and perceptions of others upon him, while his intellectual curiosity led him to analyze what he read and to critique what he wrote, even though for a long period he was writing in secret and for his eyes alone. His creations across genres indicate that fate had endowed him with a powerful intellect and exceptional creative talents. Underpinning his unique innovations is his close interrogation of Eastern and Western cultural traditions and practices, and his intense intellectual curiosity led him to investigate the internal dynamics of genres, and the creative act in all its stages until the actualization of a work. It is this aspect of his quest for aesthetic fulfillment that has led to substantial breakthroughs in his creative endeavors.

On the Importance of Freedom For Gao Xingjian freedom is imperative for the individual. In One Man’s Bible the word “freedom” occurs twenty-three times over two pages, and it is here that he most fully defines the significance of freedom to him both as an individual and as a creative writer: To be self-activated and to exist for yourself is a freedom that is not external to you. It is within you, and it depends on whether you are aware of it and consciously exercise it … Freedom is not conferred, nor can it be bought, it is your own awareness of life … Instead of saying Buddha is in your heart, it would be better to say that freedom is in your heart. Freedom castigates others. To take into account the approval or appreciation of others, and, worse still, to pander to the masses, is to live according to the dictates of others. Thus it is they who are happy, but not you yourself, and that would be the end of this freedom of yours. (358–9)

It is this so-defined notion of freedom that underpins the unique aesthetics informing the full range of his creative endeavors. It is an aesthetics embedded

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in Chinese philosophical traditions from which he has exhumed valuable insights for the creative writer or artist. Reverberations of Zhuangzi’s untrammeled freedom of the creative self can certainly be detected, but because of his erudition in world cultural traditions and practices, one could say that his unique aesthetics has been forged by a powerful intellect and keen analytical skills. He has no compunctions about voicing radical views, and to forcefully argue his case. In this he follows the tradition of China’s greatest exponents for the self and the individual. Having relocated to Paris he finally gained the freedom to articulate his views as a public intellectual. From 1990 he began to warn about the intrusion of the unsupervised ego in literary and art creation and to relentlessly indict Nietzsche for having had a pernicious impact on the development of China’s modern literature in the early twentieth century. He saw the baleful influence of Nietzsche’s death of God as having spawned countless self-anointed gods with inflated egos, many of whom had wreaked havoc on the world during the twentieth century (Lee, “Two Autobiographical Plays,” x–xi). As a practicing artist, his was a lone voice that spoke out against the political dynamics governing modern international art movements and art institutions (Lee, “Aesthetic Dimensions,” 127–45). A few years later he completed a lengthy treatise “Another Kind of Aesthetics” (1999) that, while addressing specific art issues, contains the fundamental elements of his creative aesthetics. His sustained discussions on aesthetics written over the past two decades have been collected in Without Isms (1996) and Aesthetics and Creation (2008) and form the focus of the latter part of the present study.

On the Art of Narration It was in Beijing that Gao Xingjian began his novel Soul Mountain (1990) in 1982, writing it with total freedom because he believed it had no prospect of ever being published. Completing the manuscript in late 1989 in Paris, it was published in Taipei in 1990. In “Literature and Metaphysics: About Soul Mountain” (1991) he states that the first problem he had to deal with was the Chinese language itself: it had become riddled with “undiluted Western morphology and syntax” (84), and had lost its auditory appeal. He blamed this on the linguists who had standardized the language by explaining it in terms of Western grammar, the writers who had unwittingly imitated poor translations of modern Western authors, and the critics who had promoted these translations as a modern Western style. To find an uncontaminated form of the language he turned to oral folk traditions and local dialects, and to the writings of

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the two early masters of narrative fiction, Feng Menglong (1574–1645) and Jin Shengtan (1608–61). He found that Feng Menglong used the living language, while Jin Shengtan made the dead language of books come to life, and furthermore that Jin’s language “resonates, swirls and bends, and his long sentences undulate in a flowing rhythm of great elegance” (87). This made him realize that sound is the “soul of language,” and he resolved to restore the musicality of the sounds and rhythms inherent in the tonal nature of the Chinese language in his own writing. To this end he used a tape recorder to record his perceptions before listening, then transcribing it as a text that he would revise many times (86–8). It was through probing this characteristic element of language that Gao Xingjian established his unique fiction aesthetics. He notes that in Western stream-of-consciousness literature the writer establishes a subject, and then proceeds to track the subject’s psychological processes. In his view, this form of writing would be more accurately described as “a flow of language.” By changing the pronoun from “you” to “he,” he observed that the subject is endowed with different angles of perception. He therefore made the changing of pronouns the linguistic structure of Soul Mountain, a novel that he describes as “a long soliloquy” in which the pronouns keep changing in “a flow of language” (90). Soul Mountain is based on three trips he made along the Yangtze in 1983 and 1984, the longest being 15,000 kilometers, and incorporates Chinese indigenous narrative traditions into a modern Chinese novel that is informed by Western novels in its concern with tracking the psychological activities of the protagonist who is none other than the author himself. He had written Soul Mountain to experience “the joy of writing,” in other words the exhilaration of translating his non-verbal psychic reality into the Chinese language, and providing it with aesthetic actualization (Lee, “The Writer as Translator,” 1–18). His perceptions are those of a writer living in modern times, and he acknowledges that he has gained insights from Zhuangzi and the Chinese translation of Diamond Sutra, but he is intent on writing something fresh and innovative. However, he categorically rejects the modernist stance of trampling on literary antecedents and the uncritical negation of tradition. He further states that he has also been inspired by the writings of Pu Songling (1640– 1715), Shi Nai’an (c. 1296–1371), Cao Xueqin (c. 1715–63), Liu E (1857–1909), Tolstoy (1828–1867), Chekov (1860–1904), Proust (1871–1922), Kafka (1883– 1924), Joyce (1882–1941) as well as some French nouveau roman writers, but affirms that this does not stop him from searching for his own mode of narration (“Literature and Metaphysics,” 87–94). In a second essay, “The Modern Chinese Language and Literary Creation” (1996), he elaborates on the rationale for the measures he adopts in his writ-

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ing, such as first recording his thoughts and perceptions so that he can listen to the sounds. For him writing is first a search for the music of language, and only then a search for content, characters, structure and thought. In preparing to write he chooses appropriate music, for it is music that allows him to enter the mental state for writing. When the right language has been found, “the sentences to be recorded or written become audible, like musical phrases, and are no longer an arrangement of concepts or views dependent on thinking” (Gao, “The Modern Chinese Language,” 110). He had experienced the musicality of Proust (1871–1922) and Brecht (1898–1956) in their writings about psychological perceptions, and it is musicality in the Chinese language that he seeks to achieve in his own writing. What became clear to him was that any language involving sound must be actualized in a flow of linear time, just as in the case of music. But whereas music and drama can be polyphonic, this is not possible in fiction. Nonetheless, he argues that in certain linguistic contexts it is possible for the writer to create meanings beyond words, that is, to create a tension that can induce feelings, moods or psychological space (110–2). He describes the specific measures he uses to purify the Chinese language that he writes. In fact what he removes are superfluous elements that had come into being with government measures to standardize the Chinese written language that were progressively implemented from the early 1920s. He strives for succinctness and clarity, and eliminates adjectives and other attributives where possible, and separates into short sentences any components that clutter up the principal clause. He also discards all non-essential elements in sentences, such as adverbial and verbal suffixes, and he aspires to make every Chinese character function to its fullest potential. For example if a monosyllabic verb can replace a disyllabic verb with the same meaning, he will use the monosyllabic verb. On the premise that writing, reading and the actualization of language are all psychological activities, and to observe or comment on something is not a passive act, he argues that a person is not like a camera that only mechanically releases a shutter or lens: the eyes of the person behind the camera are constantly choosing images, and adjusting the focus and line of vision. The person’s responses to the image are also involved, so writing includes naming, as well as making judgments and associations (113–4). He claims that literature is a way of describing human existence, so it is necessarily associated with human feelings. If the language of literature is devoid of human feelings, and is only form for the sake of form, or language for the sake of language, it will be “an empty shell of language that in time will turn into a heap of linguistic garbage” (119). Gao Xingjian was resolute in his quest to capture the music of the Chinese language in his writing, and the narrations of both Soul Mountain and One

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Man’s Bible pulsate with the poetry of many voices. He was inspired by European developments in the novel in modern times, and was intent on depicting the psychology of his characters. In fact in these two autobiographical novels he is determined to track his own psychology, and by his ingenious strategy of changing pronouns (I, you, he) he is able to present rich portrayals of the psychology of his own male self. Women of course occur in these novels, and they are composite fictional representations of women he has encountered in life. His attitude towards female psychology is summed up in his comment about the pronoun “she” in Soul Mountain as being “the male subject’s experiences and thoughts regarding the other sex, with whom a direct link is impossible” (“Literature and Metaphysics,” 90). While he acknowledges that “a direct link is impossible” to female psychology, his writings succeed in presenting readers with highly credible images of women. By relegating each of the women he portrays to the position of third person, he effectively disassociates himself from speaking on behalf of the woman. Instead, based on his objective observations she is made to speak for herself.

The Playwright, the Actor, and the Theater By 2000 Gao Xingjian’s plays had been staged in various languages on five continents, and his most recent play Ballade nocturne (2007) is amongst several plays that he had written first in French and then in Chinese. Today his plays are being staged regularly in Europe, Asia, USA, Canada, Australia, Latin America and Africa. For example, in the first three months of 2012, Hades (1987) was staged in Seoul, and Of Mountains and Seas (1993) in Hong Kong: both as large commercial productions. The Other Shore was performed in a small theater in Sydney for the second time (the first being in 2003), and again with large audiences. From 1992 to 2003 Gao Xingjian directed several of his plays: his most recent productions include his opera Snow in August (2000) in Taipei (2002) and in Marseille (2005), Weekend Quartet (1996) at Comédie Française (2003), and as part of the City of Marseille’s “Gao Xingjian Year” events The Man Who Questions Death (French 2000 and Chinese 2003). Gao Xingjian has used the strategy of changing pronouns in a number of plays that focus on the psychology of women, and in this genre he is able to enlist the help of female performers. Cognizant that at best he can only provide a man’s view of a woman’s psychology, he is nonetheless unfazed by the challenge of presenting an objective and moreover credible portrayal of his male observations of female psychology. Whereas he is able to employ the pronouns “you” and “he” to provide critical distance that will allow him to write with

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enhanced objectivity about his own male psychology, for him to use “you” to scrutinize a woman’s psychology is of course not an option. In his play Between Life and Death (1991), he achieves critical distance between himself as the male author and the woman depicted in the play through a number of ingenious tactics. A female performer acts the role of the woman, while preserving her status as a performer, while a female dancer performs the woman’s different psychological states. A male performer plays the roles of the man, a ghost and an old man, but it is only “the female performer acting the role of the woman” who speaks throughout the whole play, and she refers to the woman in her role as “she,” so that “the female performer acting the role of the woman” says of the woman, “she says,” “she thinks,” “she feels” etc. The woman is thus twice removed from the male author Gao Xingjian who shares with the audience his observation of the woman’s psychology by coldly and clinically reporting on what the woman purportedly says. Gao’s early publications on theater aesthetics were collected in his book In Search of Modern Theater (1988). After relocating to Paris, he continued to publish on drama, performance and theater production in lengthy essays such as “Dramaturgical Method and the Neutral Actor” (1995) and more recently “The Potential of Theater” (2007). His conversations with Gilbert C. F. Fong, recorded over several years, probe various aspects of theater and theater production, and were published in their joint names as On Theater (2010). In his essay “Dramaturgical Method and the Neutral Actor” (1995) he sums up his idea of theater, and defines his notion of the “neutral actor.” Theater is for him a process, one that begins with the writing of the play and ends only with its actualization by the performance of the actors in the theater. As playwright, he will have fully rehearsed a play in his mind by the time he has finished writing it. He had grown up watching traditional Chinese opera as well as marketplace entertainers and storytellers. Then as a young adult he had studied developments that had taken place in Western theater and performance. While in Paris he was able to survey the most recent advances in European theater, and to enjoy the freedom of seeing his own plays performed without the threat of political repercussions. He saw his plays produced in different languages with European directors and performers, and had the opportunity to train actors in “neutral actor” performance as well as to direct some of his own plays, so it was with the authority of experience that he wrote “Dramaturgical Method and the Neutral Actor.” In his view the director had usurped the position of the playwright in contemporary Western theater, with the result that what is spoken on the stage has become secondary to sound or light effects or onstage installations. For him the theater has been transformed into “a place for playing with visual sensations” in which the actor is merely “a

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live prop or live puppet in the hands of the director,” but this is decidedly not the sort of theater he wants, because the plays he writes are for actors to perform (Gao, “Dramaturgical Method,” 160). Maintaining that it is the interaction between actor and audience that infuses theatrical art with life, he notes that theatricality and the sense of theater are often absent in contemporary theater, and that performances are even proudly called “anti-theater” and “non-theater.” His search for another kind of theater takes him to the origins of theater, and he points out that although theatricality has been considered movement since ancient Greek theater, “modern theater has also construed the clash of intellectual concepts as movement, so that political, social and ethical issues have all been written into plays” (161). On the other hand, he sees China’s traditional opera as being like Greek theater, in that it is written according to the original idea of movement. However when modern Western theater was introduced into China, it was called spoken theater, and since then dialogue gradually came to replace movement. In full agreement with French playwright Antonin Artaud (1896– 1948) that there should be a return from language to movement in theater, he gives serious thought to Artaud’s “creative interpretation” of theater as a process: “By extension it could mean that movement was not necessarily required to construct complete incidents, and also that even when a part of a movement was enlarged for viewing, it was still a process. In that case even subtle psychological feelings, as long as they were presented as a process on the stage, could be theater” (161). He found that the Polish playwrights Jerzy Grotowski (1933–99) and Tadeusz Kantor (1915–90) had both affirmed this principle by using different methods. Grotowski had strengthened the tension of psychological processes through the performance of the actors. On the other hand, while disapproving of Kantor’s turning actors into puppets that he saw as “live and moving corpses,” he saw Kantor’s replacement of incidents with changing inner mind hallucinations as providing interesting prospects for the writing of plays (161). Armed with these new insights he went on to argue that any small human psychological activity can be theater, as long as it is presented on the stage as process, change, discovery or surprise. He further asserts that as theatricality is embedded in classical plays this allows them to be staged over and again, whereas weak plays can only be director-reliant and have to resort to the aid of various stage techniques, that is, from the visual arts. He suggests that more could be learned from music, because music too is realized over the space of time, and like theater is a process, so for example contrastive tension and contrasts in polyphonic unity that are used in music composition can be adapted as dramaturgical methods. While acknowledging the importance of the play in a theater production, he states that the composite nature

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of theater art depends primarily upon the actor performing to and communicating with the audience (161–4). His close interrogation of Western performance theories and Eastern performance practice led to an important breakthrough in performance theory that he achieved by advancing his notion of the “neutral actor.” The full significance of this breakthrough can only be measured by an appreciation of the fact that while Western performance theory had developed over time with the support of an established body of writings, this had not been the case in traditional Eastern theater where performance techniques were intuitively transmitted from master actor to student actor over many years of rigorous observation and imitation. This being the case, the master actor himself had generally not questioned or tried to understand the performance techniques he had acquired through the same training process. Because acting was traditionally regarded as a lowly profession, and the fact that actors were recruited from amongst the impoverished and generally illiterate members of society, Eastern traditional performance had not been theorized or transmitted in manuals. Gao Xingjian notes that in the two dominant schools of Western performance the relationship between the actor and the role is fundamental. The Stanislavsky school is concerned with how the actor can go deep into a role, live in it, and its aim is to achieve a likeness of reality and real life. The other school is similar to Eastern theater, that of China’s Peking Opera and Japan’s Kabuki in which the actor is concerned with how to act the role while preserving his status as actor. In his view Brecht had transformed Eastern theater into another Western performance method, one emphasizing that the actor is someone playing a role, and that employed “alienating strategies” to help the actor evaluate his own performance of the role on the stage by preserving a distance from the portrayed character. However, after probing deeper into China’s traditional opera performance, Gao identified a transitional stage during which the actor divorces himself from his everyday-life person, and prepares himself physically and mentally to perform the role. He argues that performance is not simply a relationship between the actor and the role, but that it is in fact a tripartite relationship. This transitional interval of self-purification produces the “neutral actor,” and a performance using the neutral actor constitutes “tripartite performance.” This is not unique to Chinese opera, and he states that it occurs in the performance of some “great Western actors.” On the stage the actor’s awareness of this purified self becomes “a third eye” that controls and modulates the performance, and using his status of neutral actor, the actor is able to observe both the audience and the role he is acting (“Dramaturgical Method,” 164–5). By identifying the existence of this neutral actor state Gao Xingjian was able to investigate new possibilities in dramaturgical and performance meth-

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odology. He asserts that the neutral actor state can be induced with a modicum of effort; the problem is how to sustain this state throughout an entire performance: for this training was required. He therefore turned his attention to actor training, and his play The Other Shore was written specifically for this purpose. He likens the training to an athlete’s training, during which after a certain point the body relaxes, the mind becomes focused, and psychological burdens vanish. The actor will confront the role like a boxer confronting his opponent, and through “a third eye” he transforms the psychological process of acting into that of a purified self focusing upon and measuring up the role, and while performing, his inner mind experiences are transmuted into observable bodily responses. This ensures that the role’s narration of its inner mind is not reduced to random emotional outpourings by the actor, but is instead a taut, positive and lively performance. He warns: “It should be noted that the audience comes to the theater not to see sentimental outpourings, but performance art” (“Dramaturgical Method,” 167–8). It has been Gao Xingjian’s curiosity and erudition that have continued to challenge him to explore further. As he writes his plays with the performance in mind, it can be assumed that the neutral actor is embedded in his writing, and when he has directed plays he invariably devotes much attention to rigorously training the actors. In the two plays, Between Life and Death and Dialogue and Rebuttal (1992), he employs pronouns to examine the psychology of his characters (“Dramaturgical Method,” 171). With a neutral actor addressing his or her role in the second or third person, the distance facilitates a candid disclosure of the inner mind of his characters. His plays range from monologues as in Between Life and Death, to large-scale works involving many characters such as Wild Man, The Other Shore, Of Mountains and Seas, Hades and Snow in August. In his large-scale works his aim is to create what he calls “omnipotent theater” that incorporates martial arts and various types of folk theater including masks, performers on stilts and even dog-plaster sellers. To prepare for the world premiere of Snow in August in 2002 performers were subjected to many weeks of rigorous neutral-actor training. As director of the production he knew he had achieved his goal of “omnipotent theater.” In Seoul, his play Hades was produced as small theater in 2011, and as a commercial production in 2012. Jungseok Park directed both productions of Hades, confirming that Gao Xingjian’s omnipotent theater can also be achieved by talented and imaginative directors working with translations.

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Another Kind of Art In tandem with his literary and theater productions, Gao Xingjian’s artworks too have enjoyed a steady development. Since 1985 he has held over fifty major solo exhibitions throughout Europe and in various cities in Asia and the USA. Art books have been published for his major exhibitions; recent volumes include La Fin du Monde (2007), Between Figurative and Abstract (2007), Depois do dilúvio (2008) and Gao Xingjian (2010). Five years after abandoning oil painting and turning to painting with Chinese ink, he succeeded in creating works in the Chinese expressive mode that are distinguished by a style recognizably his own. Unlike traditional Chinese ink painting with its deliberate one-dimensional flatness, Gao’s ink paintings are characteristically invested with distinct properties of multiple textures and depth. As in the case of his writing, he enters a transcendental state before painting, and again he achieves this state by listening to music. He paints exclusively with black Chinese inks, but black Chinese inks contain naturally occurring metal and organic residues that produce a wide spectrum of subtle hues of green and blue within what is predominantly black. How he chooses ink, and mixes it with water are technical points that he does not discuss anywhere, but his general meticulous attention to detail would suggest that he has systematically studied the nature of types of Chinese inks and paint brushes, as well as the diverse natures of various types of silk paper, and in more recent times also canvas. His essay “About My Painting” (1992) is his earliest and most detailed account of how he approaches painting. For him painting is a “spiritual experience” during which he attains a state of “heightened ecstasy.” After painting, every joint of his body aches, and it normally takes a week for him to recover. Whereas writing is never a problem, he can only start a painting when his energy level is high, and once he begins he will often paint for up to ten hours, with only small naps in-between. Before starting a painting he enters a transcendental state by listening to music, and he mentions having used Mozart’s Great Mass, Mahler’s 8th Symphony, Shostakovich’s 11th, 14th and 15th Symphonies, Messiaen’s L’Ascension, works by Philip Glass, as well the funeral dirges sung by folk Daoists and Yi nationality priests that he had recorded during his travels in China. By listening to music, all thought of language is purged, and with his eyes closed in deep meditation, images surge up from the depths. He makes no attempt to copy the images, but allows them to manifest themselves in his painting. Aware that his heightened state of ecstasy verges on madness, “he concentrates on maintaining control and does not allow himself to become possessed,” otherwise the painting would end up an “irretrievable mess” (“About My Painting,” 286). He also states that he avoids

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painting in sunlight, drawing the curtains and relying on artificial light to paint (“About My Painting,” 285–9; Lee, “Aesthetic Dimensions,” 127–45). Maintaining that even if one does not intend to paint them, by closing one’s eyes and focusing one’s mind, it is not difficult to see images of the inner mind. And one will discover that these images appear only in variations of black and white, that there is an absence of color, and also that there are varying depths and textures. His paintings are invariably such externalized images of the inner mind. One is tempted to argue that distance and texture are dependent upon light, and as if anticipating such a question, he writes in Between Figurative and Abstract (2007) that whatever his mind focuses upon is illuminated by an inner source of light. For Gao Xingjian the magic of ink painting lies in the brush strokes and the ink, and while professing admiration for the work of Zhu Da (1625–1705) and Xu Wei (1521–93), he states that he will not be imprisoned by their techniques. What he appreciates in Western painting is light and texture, and he acknowledges that his special interest in black-and-white photography is also reflected in his painting. Of Western artists he most admires Alberto Giacometti (1901–66), and declaring that while contemporary art searches for new materials, new concepts and new syntheses, like Giacometti he prefers to return to the source of art, that is, the image, and for this he relies on direct perception. His paintings seek to capture images, and he leaves it to the viewer to decide whether his paintings are called figurative or abstract. However he rejects categorically the rationality and intellectual games of conceptual art, maintaining that “brain-bashing” can only produce poor art (“About My Painting,” 287–9). Because he paints in the expressive style that has evolved from Chinese calligraphy, the first stroke is of critical importance, and if successful, the following strokes are, as it were, “spontaneously created,” but this does not mean that the work is the random expression of the self. Instead, he suggests that the painting is supervised by “a pair of cold eyes,” akin to what Renoir has called “loneliness,” but which he prefers to call “tranquil observation” as it is known in Chinese art. He states: Chinese brush strokes are varied and imbued with energy. My images are not constructed with lines, but instead spontaneously manifest themselves. I treat lines, in other words the brush strokes, as the objective in painting, and in this I am informed by Chinese calligraphy. I do not reject the essential, by seeking after what is subsidiary, i.e., by seeking to paint anything extraneous. I place importance on the variation and stratification of ink color. What is inherent in the ink is far superior to any impure added dyes. These features are not present in Western oil painting, and I strive to take them to their full potential. Western painting pays close attention to color differentiation and the application of color, and this is quite different from the close attention to brush strokes and ink colors in Eastern painting.

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… Western painting seeks after feeling, whereas Chinese traditional ink painting seeks after the spiritual. My intention is to link the two. (“About My Painting,” 288–9)

When he wrote “About My Painting” in 1992, Gao Xingjian had already held ten solo exhibitions since 1985. He was a practicing artist who painted in Chinese inks in the expressive mode, but at the same time he was equally erudite in the art history of China and the West. His two essays “Another Kind of Aesthetics” (2000) and “The Aesthetics of the Artist” (2007) demonstrate that he is a formidable art historian who is outspoken in his criticism of the politics of contemporary international art institutions that he claims dictate what counts as “contemporary art” and exclude practicing contemporary artists who fail to conform.

Explorations in Filmmaking Over the past half-decade Gao Xingjian has added innovative filmmaking to his creative endeavors, an ambition he had harbored while still living in Beijing. His first film project was aborted when the authorities launched their criticism campaign against him in 1983, so he published his screenplay “Huadou” (1982) as a short story in 1984. His second screenplay also failed, and was published as the short story “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather” (1986). His short story “In an Instant” (1991) that he wrote after relocating to France was originally also a screenplay, but again the realization of a film continued to elude him. He was intent on creating a different type of film, one in which picture, sounds and language are separated, so that each component could enjoy the autonomy of predominating, while the other two components acted as accompaniments. His first film Silhouette/Shadow was completed in 2005, and he refers to it as a “cinematic poem” in his essay “Concerning Silhouette/Shadow” (2007). The film includes documentary footage of Gao Xingjian Year events in Marseille in 2003: his art exhibition, and the rehearsal and performance of The Man Who Questions Death. There is also footage of the Taipei (2003) and Marseille (2005) rehearsal and performance of Snow in August. While rehearsing The Man Who Questions Death in 2003, Gao collapsed and was rushed to hospital. His brush with death is also aesthetically captured in the film, with flashbacks of his childhood, and images of his partner of many years. The film is shot in color, and he works with sunlight to focus on the rich textures of the façades of old buildings, cobble-stoned streets, and desolate heaps of rubble that have always captivated him. Shots of natural

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scenery in Southern France appear to be replicated in his paintings that are also filmed. What is important is that the film clearly demonstrates how he has integrated his art aesthetics into film, and that both color and movement have been introduced into his art (Lee, “Aesthetic Dimensions”). His second film After the Flood (2008) was similarly created as a “cinematic poem.” This short black-and-white film dispenses with language, and six dancers do not speak as they perform before a screen onto which his ink paintings are projected as background. In his essay “After the Flood” (2011) he notes that the recent earthquake in Japan with monster tides of black howling seas engulfing heaven and earth like scenes of the end of the world in the Old Testament seemed uncannily to corroborate his film. He also makes reference to his large ink painting End of the World (2006) that depicted people “serenely facing a black tide rising at the edge of the horizon,” that seemed somehow to portray the Japanese victims of the recent disaster. However, he adds that the film is painting and performance devoid of reality. He also discusses the conceptual framework of the film: The narrative structure common to film is also abandoned, so each scene can be viewed either as paintings or photographs that are linked only by movements or sounds. The sounds designed by stage acoustics expert Thierry Bertomeu do not set out to copy the sounds of the natural world, and, though composed like music by synthesizing and arranging sound matter, do not construct clear musical phrases and at most may be considered sounds that approximate music. The sounds do not merely serve to create atmosphere; being also on a par with but independent of the paintings, they serve as a kind of counterpoint. Neither painting, nor dance, nor sound is prioritized; each has relative autonomy, and this is what I call tripartite film, a cinematic poem with immense freedom that is different from most films that invariably prioritize the picture and use other elements to explain the picture. (“After the Flood,” 221)

In Conclusion Gao Xingjian’s unique achievements were possible because fate had provided him with extraordinary intellectual and creative potential, as well as the opportunity to access knowledge about cultural developments in the rest of the world at a time in China when political propaganda had virtually subverted all critical learning or thinking. However, opportunities may be grasped or irretrievably lost. Had fate not also endowed him with the ingenuity to formulate strategies to escape life-threatening situations, and then strategies for fleeing to an environment with adequate freedom for the realization of his ambitions, he could very well have squandered his creative potential. He had fled the tyranny of repressive politics in China and achieved freedom for the fulfill-

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ment of his creative self, but living in the West he soon discovered that in free and democratic societies there are also insidious impositions on creative freedom that are generated by the media and hype, market forces, the ideology of political correctness, and the demand to be politically aligned. Notwithstanding the intensity of a person’s aspirations, the individual inevitably confronts ageing, and finally death, while fatal accidents and man-made and natural disasters can of course prematurely terminate life according to the whims of fate. Gao Xingjian ultimately sees his creations as a challenge to death.

Works Cited Cheung, Martha P. Y., and Jane C. C. Lai, eds. An Oxford Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama. Hong Kong; New York: Hong Kong University Press, 1997. Print. Denton, Kirk A., ed. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 14.2 (2002). Special issue on Gao Xingjian. Print. Gao, Xingjian. Preliminary Explorations into the Art of Modern Fiction [Xiandai xiaoshuo jiqiao chutan]. Guangzhou: Huacheng, 1981. Print. — “The Bus-Stop.” Trans. Geremie Barmé. “A Touch of the Absurd: Introducing Gao Xingjian, and His Play The Bus-Stop.” Renditions: A Chinese–English Translation Magazine, 19 & 20 (1983): 373–86. Print. — “Contemporary Technique and National Character in Fiction.” Trans. Ng Mau-sang. Renditions: A Chinese–English Translation Magazine, 19 & 20 (1983): 55–58. Print. — In Search of Modern Theater [Dui yizhong xiandai xiju de zhuiqiu]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1988. Print. — Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather [Gei wo laoye mai yugan]. Taipei: Lianhe wenxue chubanshe, 1989. Print. — “Huadou.” Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather [Gei wo laoye mai yugan]. Taipei: Lianhe wenxue chubanshe, 1989. 101–43. Print. — “Wild Man.” Trans. Bruno Roubicek. “Wild Man: A Contemporary Chinese Spoken Drama.” Asian Theater Journal, 7.2 (1990): 184–249. — “Fugitives.” Trans. Gregory B. Lee. Chinese Writing and Exile. Ed. Gregory B. Lee. Chicago: Center for East Asian Studies, University of Chicago, 1993. 89–138. Print. — Six Plays by Gao Xingjian [Gao Xingjian xiju liuzhong]. Taipei: Dijiao, 1995. Print. — “Absolute Signal.” Trans. Shiao-Ling S. Yu. Chinese Drama after the Cultural Revolution, 1979–1989. Ed. Shiao-Ling Yu. Lewiston, ME: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996. 159–232. Print. — “The Bus Stop.” Trans. Shiao-Ling S. Yu. Chinese Drama after the Cultural Revolution, 1979–1989. Ed. Shiao-Ling Yu. Lewiston, ME: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996. 233–89. Print. — Without Isms [Meiyou zhuyi]. Hong Kong: Cosmos, 1996. Print. — “About My Painting.” Without Isms [Meiyou zhuyi]. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Cosmos, 1996. 285–9. Print. — “Bus Stop.” Trans. Kimberley Besio. “Bus Stop: A Lyrical Comedy on Life in One Act.” Theatre and Society: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Theatre. Ed. Haiping Yan. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. 3–59. Print.

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The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1999. Print. “The Other Shore.” The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1999. 1–44. Print. “Between Life and Death.” The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1999. 45–80. Print. “Dialogue and Rebuttal.” The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1999. 81–136. Print. Soul Mountain. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney; New York: HarperCollins, 2000; London: HarperCollins, 2001. Print. Return to Painting. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Print. One Man’s Bible. Trans. Mabel Lee. New York; Sydney; London: HarperCollins, 2002. Print. Snow in August. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2003. Print. Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather. Trans. Mabel Lee. New York; Sydney; London: HarperCollins, 2004. Print. “In an Instant.” Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather. By Gao Xingjian. New York; Sydney; London: HarperCollins, 2004. 117–60. Print. “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather.” Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather. By Gao Xingjian. New York; Sydney; London: HarperCollins, 2004. 79–116. Print. “Hiding from the Rain.” Trans. Tzushiu Chiu. Studies on Asia: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Asian Studies Series III, 2.1 (2005): 1–19. Print. dir. La Silhouette sinon l’ombre [Silhouette/Shadow]. Triangle Méditerranée, 2005. DVD. The Case for Literature. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. Print. “The Case for Literature.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. 32–48. Print. “Literature and Metaphysics: About Soul Mountain.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. 82–103. Print. “The Modern Chinese Language and Literary Creation.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. 104–22. Print. “Wilted Chrysanthemums.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. 140–54. Print. Escape & The Man Who Questions Death. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2007. Print. “Escape.” Escape & The Man Who Questions Death. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2007. 3–74. Print. “The Man Who Questions Death.” Escape & The Man Who Questions Death. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2007. 75–108. Print. Between Figurative and Abstract. Notre Dame: Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, 2007. Print. “Concerning Silhouette/Shadow.” Trans. Mabel Lee. Silhouette/Shadow: The Cinematic Art of Gao Xingjian. Ed. Fiona Sze-Lorrain. Paris : Contours, 2007. 19–34. Print. Of Mountains and Seas: A Tragicomedy of the Gods in Three Acts. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2008. Print.

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Aesthetics and Creation [Lun chuangzuo]. Taipei: Lianjing, 2008. Print. dir. After the Flood [Après le deluge]. Circulo de Lectores, 2008. DVD. Gao Xingjian. Singapore: iPreciation Gallery, 2010. Print. Ballade nocturne. Trans. Claire Conceison. London: Sylph Editions; Paris: The American University, 2010. Print. — Aesthetics and Creation. Trans. Mabel Lee. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2012. Print. — “Dramaturgical Method and the Neutral Actor.” Aesthetics and Creation. By Gao Xingjian. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2012. 159–78. Print. — “The Potential of Theatre.” Aesthetics and Creation. By Gao Xingjian. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2012. 41–64. Print. — “The Aesthetics of the Artist.” Aesthetics and Creation. By Gao Xingjian. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2012. 65–88. Print. — “After the Flood.” Aesthetics and Creation. By Gao Xingjian. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2012. 221–26. Print. — “Another Kind of Aesthetics.” Aesthetics and Creation. By Gao Xingjian. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2012. 89–158. Print. — “Concerning Silhouette/Shadow.” Aesthetics and Creation. By Gao Xingjian. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2012. 179–88. Print. — and Gilbert C. F. Fong. On Theater [Lun xiju]. Taipei: Lianjing, 2010. Print. — and Beate Reifenscheid. La Fin du Monde. Koblenz: Ludwig Museum im Deutschherrenhaus, 2007. Print. Łabędzka, Izabella. Gao Xingjian’s Idea of Theatre: From the Word to the Image. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2008. Print. Lee, Gregory B., ed. Chinese Writing and Exile. Chicago: Center for East Asian Studies, University of Chicago, 1993. Print. Lee, Mabel. “Two Autobiographical Plays by Gao Xingjian.” Escape & The Man Who Questions Death. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2007. xii–xviii. Print. — “Aesthetic Dimensions of Gao Xingjian’s Painting.” Between Figurative and Abstract. By Gao Xingjian. Notre Dame: Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, 2007. 127–45. Print. — “The Writer as Translator: On the Creative Aesthetics of Gao Xingjian.” Translation, Culture and Reception: Chinese Literature in the World. Kwok-kan Tam and Kelly K. Y. Chan eds. Hong Kong: Open University of Hong Kong Press, 2012, 1–18. Print. Liu, Zaifu. Gao Xingjian’s Stance [Lun Gao Xingjian zhuangtai]. Hong Kong: Mingbao, 2000. Print. — On Gao Xingjian [Gao Xingjian lun]. Taipei: Lianjing, 2004. Print. — Introductory Essays on Gao Xingjian [Gao Xingjian yinlun]. Hong Kong: Dashan wenhua, 2011. Print. Quah, Sy Ren. Gao Xingjian and Transcultural Chinese Theater. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004. Print. Tam, Kwok-kan, ed. Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2001. Print. — and Kelly K. Y. Chan, eds. Translation, Culture and Reception: Chinese Literature in the World. Hong Kong: Open University of Hong Kong Press, 2012. Print. Yeung, Jessica. Ink Dances in Limbo: Gao Xingjian’s Writing as Cultural Translation. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008. Print.

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Yan, Haiping, ed. Theater and Society: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. Print. Yu, Shiao-Ling S., ed. Chinese Drama after the Cultural Revolution, 1979–1989: An Anthology. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996. Print. Zhao, Henry Y. H. Towards a Modern Zen Theatre: Gao Xingjian and Chinese Theatre Experimentalism. London: School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, 2000. Print.

John McDonald

The Aesthete as Revolutionary: Saving Art from Politics In his famous address at the Yan’an Forum on Art and Literature of 1942, Mao Zedong pronounced: “There is in fact no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes or art that is detached from or independent of politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause; they are, as Lenin said, cogs and wheels in the whole revolutionary machine.” Compare this to Gao Xingjian’s pronouncement in his essay, Return to Painting (2001): “Art will be saved when we have purged aesthetics of all judgments of political value” (42). Between these two statements lies the communist victory, when Mao’s forces were welcomed as liberators; the Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1957, in which intellectuals were encouraged to criticize the government and subsequently imprisoned; the Great Leap Forward of 1958–61, an ambitious scheme for increasing China’s industrial production that ended in a disastrous famine; and the Cultural Revolution, which raged from 1966–76, an act of social vandalism without parallel in the twentieth century, or perhaps any time in history. The only art that accompanied these tumultuous events was a constant outpouring of socialist realist images featuring idealized versions of smiling peasants and workers doing their duty for the motherland. The only art seen by the vast majority of Chinese people was to be found on the ubiquitous propaganda posters. It was not art that “served the people,” as Mao had demanded, but art that served the state; that served the interests of power. During the Cultural Revolution large character banners were used to post slogans and denunciations – exhortations to further destruction. Is this the inevitable result when art is put in the service of politics – an immense, premeditated lie? In all his writings, Gao Xingjian puts a premium on truth. Truth, he says, is “the ultimate ethics of literature” (The Case for Literature 43), even if it “could well be a captive bird that once held in the hand will die” (30). Here he recognizes the paradox of a literature devoted to the truth, because fiction, by its very nature, is a work of the imagination. It might be described as a tissue of lies that occasionally, miraculously, reveals something we accept as “true.” During the Mao era the truth was considered a poor substitute for the ideal. Art was not expected to document the difficult conditions of peoples’ lives, but to provide positive inspiration for workers and peasants to strive towards a better world. The Party, and, through the cult of personality, its all-seeing, all-

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knowing chairman, was to be trusted with the responsibility of guiding the people towards this utopia. There was nothing realistic about socialist realism, because artists were obliged to accentuate the positives and avoid anything that might be construed as criticism of the government and its policies. As these policies resulted in economic disaster and famine, the gap between art and truth grew ever wider until the only completely acceptable subject was the face of Mao Zedong. During the worst days of the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards intended to obliterate the traditional art of the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace, replacing everything with images of Mao. In those days even paintings that extolled the glories of peasants, workers and soldiers might be found to contain ideological errors, or – as was often the case – fail to make figures look sufficiently happy and heroic. In much of the propaganda art of the 1950s and 60s, muscle-bound men and beautiful women beam at the viewer, rapt in the quasi-religious ecstasy of revolution. This was, of course, kitsch – the usual outcome of subjugating art to a political ideal, asking it to be functional rather than merely beautiful. Whistler stated the case succinctly in his “Ten O’Clock Lecture” of 1885: “Beauty is confounded with Virtue, and, before a work of Art, it is asked: ‘What good shall it do?’” (Thorp 81). It is one of the ironies of modern history that the East had all the political revolutions while the West had the artistic ones. As the Bolsheviks were establishing a new order in Russia, Picasso and Braque were pioneering Cubism. While Stalin was conducting his show trials and purges, the surrealists were holding fashionable exhibitions and writing manifestos. As the West embraced pop music and the counterculture of the 1960s, the Red Guards were smashing up temples and palaces, burning books, beating and murdering teachers and scholars. How attractive those political revolutions seemed to the aesthetic revolutionaries! Picasso became a celebrity convert to the Communist Party, while André Breton embraced Trotsky’s political line. Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard went further, becoming apologists for Stalin. The leading Fabian socialists, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, toured the Soviet Union during the height of Stalin’s terror, and returned to write a book of a thousand pages, extolling its glories. During the Cultural Revolution a procession of Western intellectuals was taken around China on guided tours, and returned to express their admiration of everything they had seen. There are dozens of books written by Westerners in praise of the Cultural Revolution, and it is hard to forget Julia Kristeva’s assertion that Chinese women had a superior life to their French counterparts because of their involvement in productive labor. A photograph

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in her book shows a young woman at a tractor factory “pushing against the tide of tradition” (65). In Australia, artist Brett Whiteley dedicated his 1972 exhibition to The People’s Republic of China, telling interviewers that “Peking is the centre of world sanity” (McDonald), and praising the civilized way in which the Chinese were conducting their revolution. Needless to say, Whiteley had never spent one minute in China. This was the very same time that Gao Xingjian was working as a laborer in the countryside. For those who have not had to suffer the consequences, revolution has always been possessed of an ineffable glamour. Modernism, an almost exclusively Western phenomenon, made frequent, promiscuous use of the term “revolution” until we finally arrived at the ad men’s promise of a revolution in tea making or laundry powder, or sadly, in Australia, the “education revolution” lauded by our Chinese-speaking former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. But has there ever been a revolution without bloodshed? Without terror and catastrophe? In its final stage of debasement the term has kept pace with China’s entry into the free market. Every second newspaper article about the New China, or contemporary Chinese art, seems to be called “Cultural Revolution,” although sometimes “Great Leap Forward” gets trotted out. To assess the emptiness of the “revolutionary” gesture in modern Western art one might consider Alexander Rodchenko’s avant-garde exhibition of 1921, which came with a manifesto called The Last Painting. On the gallery wall Rodchenko hung three small square monochromes in red, yellow and blue, announcing that he was giving up the petit-bourgeois activity of painting in favor of photography and design projects. The “Last Painting” had been painted, and the brush would be forever superseded. Ninety years later, we can look back and see that Rodchenko’s “Last Painting” was but the prototype of a new genre. In the century that followed Rodchenko’s grand pronouncement whole schools of painting, entire careers, have been devoted to the production of monochrome paintings, with most of these painters considered to be highly revolutionary and avant-garde. In retrospect Rodchenko’s conflation of politics and art seems naïve in its presumption that a revolutionary society would need to jettison the art of the past and establish a new path for artists to explore. As we have seen in both the Soviet Union and China, the revolutionary state would evince nothing more than a longing for the academic models of art established in the ateliers of early nineteenth century Paris and paraded every year in the salons. Rodchenko’s prognostication about the future of art was no less flawed than the ideas of Soviet and Chinese leaders on the future of the communist state. A revolutionary politics does not call forth a revolutionary new art. It nips such movements in the bud because they may lead to confusion, criticism and subversion.

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These are, of course, the exact goals of Western artists ever since Courbet set out to épater la bourgeoisie. But Western artists soon found that the liberal democratic state is almost infinitely adaptable, able to absorb and even encourage the most outrageous acts of subversion. This has allowed artists to play the roles of sacred monsters and holy fools, able to comment critically on society while essentially challenging nothing. In time these subversive artists would be funded and supported by the state they perpetually criticize; complaining loudly if they miss out on a grant or inclusion in a prestigious exhibition. Some artists such as Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol openly celebrated the clandestine love affair that existed between radical art and money, and cynicism has since spread exponentially among artists who realize the value of biting the hand that feeds. Not only does the liberal democratic state tolerate subversive, “revolutionary” artists, it needs them to demonstrate its own broadmindedness and openness to criticism. It is no coincidence that some of the most adventurous and big-spending collectors of contemporary art have been banks and multinational corporations. “One after the other,” writes Gao Xingjian, “the political revolutions of the twentieth century have come to an end. The revolution in the arts, linked to the ideologies that drive these social and political revolutions, found itself facing a new crisis in the aftermath of its victory over art. Where will the art of this new century take us? You, artists, should not carry on like prophets; go back to doing the only thing you are capable of doing and return to painting” (Gao, Return to Painting 53). In addressing this “crisis” Gao does not venture a prediction as to the future of art, he makes a recommendation: “Forget politics and go back to painting.” But the activity of painting as Gao seems to understand it bears little resemblance to the forms that painting has assumed in recent years. When painting is done at all at the high end of the contemporary art scene, it is often conceptual, programmatic painting, created by workshops and marketed by commercial galleries that are themselves multinational corporations. An artist such as Damien Hirst has become a billionaire selling paintings made by teams of assistants who cover canvases in colored spots using stencils, or pour paint on a spinning disc. This is “painting,” but with no trace of the artist’s hand, and very little intellectual involvement beyond the initial idea. These paintings routinely sell for gigantic prices, with their value as status symbols being closely allied to the money spent in their acquisition. One could argue there is something inherently Western in this commodification of art, which puts a high value on qualities such as professionalism and productivity. By contrast the traditional Chinese idea of art had no respect for the professional painter who worked for money. Art was a gentleman’s

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activity, an emanation of the spirit. Only the devoted amateur who painted with a pure heart could hope to achieve mastery. Admittedly this was an ideal that was rarely achievable, assuming an inherent genius in the wealthy, leisured gentleman that could not be replicated in the professional. It was the difference between an artist and a tradesman. Under communism this distinction could not survive, yet the Chinese reverence for brush and ink painting, for calligraphy and other traditional forms, survived Mao’s attempts to obliterate tradition and reshape the culture in his own image. Art in China today is a mixture of styles and forms, both traditional and contemporary, influenced by Eastern and Western models. In the wake of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, artists suddenly found themselves able to study modern Western art and even emulate it. This resulted in a decade of frantic activity during which the entire history of modernism was replayed in China. From the mid-1980s artists were experimenting with postimpressionism, metaphysical art, cubism, expressionism and surrealism. By the end of the decade there was a flowering of the most extreme forms of conceptual and performance art. One thinks, inevitably, of Zhang Huan’s 12 Square Meters (1994), in which the artist sat for an hour, covered in flies, in a filthy latrine; or Zhu Yu’s Eating People (2000), in which he claimed to have cooked and eaten a human fetus. The notion of the artist as an inspired amateur was completely overturned by the growth of a global market for Chinese art. Much of the work made in the late 1990s seemed purposely concocted for collectors and curators from Europe and America who looked upon Chinese art as the offspring of Andy Warhol’s silkscreen poster print of Mao. Contemporary Chinese artists gave the foreigners what they wanted: endless images of Mao in all sorts of frivolous, satirical guises. Such works are still being manufactured today and find a ready market, but in the age of globalization the taste for political kitsch has been expanded to include images of Osama Bin Laden, George W. Bush, and now Barrack Obama. Art in China is no longer the slave of politics, now it actively embraces politics as a kind of theater, a debased, cartoonish activity that drains the meaning out of recent history, turning world leaders into celebrities, empty signs that may be repeated over and over until their reality has been forgotten. The process is actually a global one. Today Alberto Korda’s iconic photograph of Che Guevara adorns the t-shirts of countless teenagers who do not even know who he was. He simply looks “cool” (Guevara). There is a certain irony in Gao Xingjian’s claim that “Art will be saved when we have purged aesthetics of all judgments of political value” (Return to Painting 42). For it is no longer ideology that holds art by the throat, but

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the thousand arms of an international art market that requires a constant stream of products: an endless flow of bogus outrage and pre-packaged subversion, in which political messages echo impotently within the walls of contemporary art museums. It sounds superficially as if Gao is making a prophecy when he says: “Art will be saved when we have purged aesthetics of all judgments of political value” (42), but it is hard to imagine a day when there is no working relationship between aesthetics and politics. It could even be argued that aesthetics is playing an ever-greater role in politics with the growth of consensus between opposing parties creating the need for other ways to distinguish one side from the other. When parties no longer stand for their traditional constituents, and policies are almost indistinguishable, an increasing prominence is given to creating the mere appearance of political difference. It is a truism to say that contemporary politics often seems more concerned with individual charisma than sound policy making. Politics needs art, but does art have an equivalent need for politics? If one were to remove the politically charged works from the large international exhibitions on the biennale circuit these shows would shrink to a fraction of their existing size. Contemporary art is saturated in politics, or at least in the rhetoric of politics. It is through an engagement with political issues such as racism, neo-colonialism, environmentalism and forms of inequality that an artist’s work appears more urgent, more significant, than that of another artist who is concerned only with beauty. There is no way of purging this thoroughly politicized art, it may only be rejected or avoided. Yet this would also mean avoiding many of the biggest museums and art events. One might take Gao’s words to mean that the concept of “art” needs to be rescued from the expanded field in which it describes anything and everything, and realigned with the pursuit of beauty. The political art that dominates the biennales no less comprehensively than propaganda art dominated the Mao era needs another title. Maybe it is all propaganda, albeit on behalf of minorities rather than the all-powerful state. Gao Xingjian has written persuasively about the necessity of fleeing from an unbearable present, whether it is the oppressiveness of the totalitarian state, or the seductive glamour of a contemporary art world that bears an increasing resemblance to the world of haute couture. He calls upon the artist to repudiate politics and ideology in favor of a comprehensive exploration of the inner world. This is a realm beyond language, beyond those facile categorizations that distinguish between Eastern and Western sensibilities, between abstraction and figuration. Gao Xingjian’s own paintings are rooted in Chinese brush and ink traditions, but they break all the old rules. His paintings are

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definitely not in the static, meticulous style of gongbi painting, yet while they bear some semblance to the free spirited style of xieyi painting, they are quite different. It doesn’t make much sense to analyze his paintings as we might analyze a traditional brush-and-ink painting. They are works of personal invention, influenced by the artist’s memories, his tastes in music, his absorption of both Eastern and Western influences, his health and state of mind. Gao Xingjian’s works explore a shadow-land, an interior landscape wreathed in delicate curtains of ink. They have a kind of inner vibration, making us feel there is a depth of meaning in these dim, soft-edged shapes. That meaning, however, is inseparable from the play of forms, the density of blacks, the starkness of the empty page. This is not an art that creates disciples, as it is too strongly rooted in Gao Xingjian’s own personality. However, emerging from the glittering junk heap that constitutes so much of contemporary Chinese art, there are artists who explore a different, but equally personal form of aesthetics. These artists do not constitute a school or a movement; they do not resemble each other in the slightest degree. They are artists of a new generation that has no memory of the Mao era and no psychic scars from the Cultural Revolution. They have never lived in a China without advertising and high-end retail. They are equally immune to the Disneyland novelty of the new marketplace, which has seen astute peasants become millionaires. There are many artists working in China today, who would sympathize with Gao Xingjian’s discussion of the ephemeral but crucial nature of creative freedom, and the need for the artist to begin by exploring the self. The White Rabbit collection in Sydney is one of the world’s largest private collections of contemporary Chinese art, including more than 400 works, all made after the year 2000. There are numerous artists and individual artworks in this collection that echo Gao’s distaste of politics, seeking universal relevance through a more concentrated focus on the self. To single out only a few, there is Chen Haiyan (b. 1955), who paints her dreams onto large sheets of plywood, in an expressionist manner (see fig. 1 a– c). She might also add a poem to the painting in emulation of brush-and-ink painters in the past. With a dry brush, Shi Zhiying (b. 1979) has created a large, black-andwhite painting called High Seas (2008) that invokes ideas of Buddhist contemplation. The panoramic nature of the work, and the restrained tones give this picture a mesmeric impact. The artist speaks of being influenced by learning that newborn babies are receptive to black-and-white, but not color. “What the baby perceives is the truest thing,” she says. Finally there is Bingyi (b. 1975), represented by the five-panel work, Six Accounts of a Floating Life (2008), and

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the large canvas, I Watch Myself Dying (2009). The former blends fantasy and autobiography, in a narrative loosely based on the eighteenth-century novel by Shen Fu (see fig. 2 a–e). The latter shows the artist on an operating table, after she had been badly burnt in an accident (see fig. 3). The style of painting is unlike most Chinese art, being reminiscent of a European artist such as James Ensor. However, the Chinese elements and the highly personal nature of the imagery give these paintings an extraordinary originality. Bingyi herself is a remarkable person, having obtained degrees from Yale and Harvard, and dividing her time between professorships in art history in Beijing and Buffalo. I mention these three artists, but could add many more to the list. The aim is merely to demonstrate that, over the past decade, Chinese contemporary art has continued to develop in ways that defy Gao Xingjian’s worst speculations about the subjugation of art by politics. While the overall field is still laden with political kitsch and Chinese “exotica” made for Western audiences, there is an ever-growing body of work by artists who find their subject matter within themselves, rather than the requirements of a marketplace. To work in this manner requires a consciousness of freedom that cannot be equated with simple political freedoms, issues of government control or censorship. It suggests instead that Chinese artists are now confident and secure enough in their own minds to pursue a private agenda without feeling the need to conform to the expectations of an allpowerful but capricious state or to willfully confront those expectations. In other words, there is no longer the same hard-and-fast division between conformists and radicals, between establishment and avant-garde. It may be too early to proclaim that art is “saved,” but for the time being, the apocalypse has been postponed.

Works Cited Gao, Xingjian. Return to Painting. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. Print. — The Case for Literature. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney: Harper Collins, 2006. Print. Guevara, Ernesto “Che.” Revolutionary & Icon. Exhibition. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. June 27 to August 28, 2006. Print. Kristeva, Julia. About Chinese Women. Trans. Anita Barrows. London: Boyars, 1977. Print. Mao, Zedong. “Talks at the Yenan Forum of Literature and Art.” Selected Works of Mao Tsetung. Vol. 3. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1965. Marxists.org. Web. 5 Mar. 2013. Shi, Zhiying. “Bio.” White Rabbit Contemporary Chinese Art Collection, 2011. Web. 5 Mar. 2013. McDonald, John. “Interpreting Nudes: Masters of the Brushstroke.” Australian Financial Review, 25 July 2002: 51. Print. Thorp, Nigel, ed. Whistler on Art: Selected Letters and Writings of James McNeill Whistler. Manchester: Carcanet, 1994. Print.

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Fig. 1a: Dream (2004) by Chen Haiyan.

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Fig. 1b: Dream (2004) by Chen Haiyan.

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Fig. 1c: Dream (2004) by Chen Haiyan.

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Fig. 2a: Six Accounts of a Floating Life (2008) by Bingyi.

Fig. 2b: Six Accounts of a Floating Life (2008) by Bingyi.

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Fig. 2c: Six Accounts of a Floating Life (2008) by Bingyi.

Fig. 2d: Six Accounts of a Floating Life (2008) by Bingyi.

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Fig. 2e: Six Accounts of a Floating Life (2008) by Bingyi.

Fig. 3: I Watch Myself Dying (2009) by Bingyi.

Antony Tatlow

The Silence of Buddha: Triangulating Gao Xingjian, Brecht, and Beckett Two weeks after Hitler took power, the Berlin police began investigating for high treason those involved in producing The Measures Taken. Two weeks later, the Reichstag burnt down, and the next day Brecht fled into exile. Friends and colleagues disappeared under Stalin. Brecht called him “the honored murderer of the people.”1 Returning from Ireland the day after France declared war on Germany, Beckett joined a resistance group and was nearly caught by the Gestapo. Escaping from Paris, and on the run for six weeks, he hid in a village in the south. De Gaulle awarded him the Croix de Guerre. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution caused havoc and millions of deaths. With another, treasonous, cultural history in mind, Gao Xingjian left a paranoid country that seemed to have driven itself mad. Fated to live in fateful times, and each variously threatened, these three artists meet that challenge in their art, whose common theme is survival in a terrifying world. Brecht’s work is an encyclopedia of not always successful survival strategies against overwhelming odds. The da capo second act of Waiting for Godot begins with a circular poem, “A dog came in the kitchen” (Beckett, Waiting for Godot 57) which Brecht had used, for the same reason, in his first performed play in 1922, “Drums in the Night” (Werke 1: 217). It articulates a never-ending cycle of death, birth, regeneration and execution from which there seems no escape. Living through a seemingly endless cycle of murderous purges, Gao Xingjian seeks self-preservation while telling the truth of individual experience. I am less concerned with the imponderables of “influence,” than with tracing their search for meaning in the face of such fateful challenges by looking beneath the pressing but evident political issues of freedom “from” and freedom “for,” in order to show compatibilities as well as distinctions in the philosophical underpinnings of their work, whose interrelationships critical misunderstanding sometimes obscures. Gao Xingjian woke up Beijing theater with his Brechtian-Beckettian Bus Stop and Alarm Signal. Three aesthetic proclivities infiltrated each other. In November 1983, The People’s Daily complained that some people were equating

1 In the poem, “The Czar has spoken to them” (Werke 15: 300), Brecht equates Stalin with the Czar, as Gao Xingjian would equate Chairman Mao and the Emperor. When confronting his countryman Hitler or what he considered Fascist proclivities, Brecht defended Stalin, otherwise his criticism is devastating.

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Fig. 4: Lin Zhaohua’s Production of Brecht’s Schweyk in the Second World War (I).

the socialist system with alienation, starting the “Campaign against Spiritual Pollution,” not the best time for alienation effects. However, in April 1985, the first Chinese Brecht seminar was held in Beijing and Shanghai, and included scenes from Lin Zhaohua’s innovative production of Brecht’s Schweyk in the Second World War, then in rehearsal. The Gestapo interrogation played under an enveloping rope net. Its topicality was unmistakable (see fig. 4 and 5). Gao Xingjian’s play, The Other Shore (1986), rehearsed with Lin Zhaohua and the People’s Art Theater, proved too much for the party censors. This politically critical work envisages the failure of escape to another shore in a supposedly changed society. Exploring longings and exploitative human relations, it shows the gulf between individual sensibility and mass behavior, which swings from desire for leadership to hatred and violence. A vision of life as alienation moves, with the location, “from the real world to the nonexistent other shore,” (Gao, The Other Shore 1) popularly identified with nirvana, where desires are extinguished. It begins as actors play with a rope, gradually revealing power relationships, physical, mental, and communal: “Just like a fly that’s fallen into a spider’s web” (4), the visual metaphor in Schweyk, caught in the ropes of a powerful bureaucracy. At the Beijing seminar, Gao Xingjian said: “Brecht was the first to make me understand, to my surprise, that theater could be like this; that the rules

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Fig. 5: Lin Zhaohua’s Production of Brecht’s Schweyk in the Second World War (II).

of this art could be reconstructed completely anew. And it is in this sense that in all the years since then he has been of decisive use in my searching in the art of theater.” Brecht showed him that “the rules of theater and acting could be completely different from those of Ibsen or Stanislavski, that this kind of theater did not make the highest principle out of putting on the stage a reenactment of life, exactly as it is,” (“Me and Bertolt Brecht”) something corroborated by that Schweyk production. A recurrent misunderstanding that inhibits deeper enquiry occurs when critics argue that Brecht had misjudged Chinese performance, when thinking its supposed “coldness” supported his own distancing of emotions. This supposition, however, stems from consulting John Willett’s translation of the essay, “Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting” (Willett 93). In fact, Brecht said that it only seems so in terms of Western conventions. He spoke of Durchkältung, a style that chills, cools down and understates, in the sense of “less is more” (Werke 22: 203). Far from diminishing, let alone freezing, this increases emotional effect. What matters is how emotions are shown. Brecht was struck by the difference in emotional excitation expressed by yelling and waving the arms or – in Chinese theater – symbolized, intensified by distancing, just as in the vivid and subtle yaofa, when the actor, for instance, bites through an imagined hair. Aware of the duality when playing

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Yang Guifei in The Drunken Concubine, Mei Lanfang, while apparently doing less, shows the discerning spectator more. Words are redundant. We see a silent figure riven by passion, and we also see how repression controls frustration. Such acting clarified Brecht’s intentions, externalizing complex events, gesture by gesture, step by step, sentence by sentence, scene by scene. His later aesthetic speaks of Grazie, gracefulness, in contrast to the unphysical German theater criticized in the “Short Organon” (Werke 23: 96). Abandoning an emotionalizing style intensifies the emotions. But if not complexly represented, they encourage an empathy that invites self-exculpation, when we project onto the characters what we hide from ourselves. Then, paradoxically, we both lose our self and sever ourselves from them. The interrelationship between audience and character, between reader and read, remains opaque, as we fail to realize how we are accomplices in our own victimization. Avoiding simple empathy does not de-psychologize the character, and it reproblematizes the spectator. Brecht rejected ego-psychology, not the unconscious. Asking if he really wanted to abolish “the space where the unconscious, half conscious, uncontrolled, ambiguous, multi-purposed could play itself out,” (Werke 22: 468) the unstated answer was obviously: No! The alienation effect suggests one method, though Brecht spoke of effects, and they may diverge: either explain and clarify, or question and explore, theory justifying estrangement, or estrangement questioning theory. The difference can be substantial. Like two sides of the same coin, Brecht’s social and Gao Xingjian’s psychological focus cannot be definitively separated. What is attributed to one is differently present within the other. Brecht distinguished thinking within from thinking about the dramatic paradigm (“Imflußdenken” and “Überdenflußdenken”) in order to encourage “complex seeing” and question everything that “is subjugated to one idea” (Werke 24: 58–9). If Gao Xingjian stresses calm observation through the acting and sees the nature of theater in visible action (The Other Shore xviii), not just words in conflict, there are equivalents throughout Brecht as, for example, in this rather Buddhist observation that a philosopher’s visible demeanor is more important than his words (“Weise am Weisen,” Werke 18: 13). The encounter with Brecht’s drama stimulated a deeper search for Chinese narrative forms and cultural traditions, validating not just a different approach to writing plays, no longer wholly dependent on the artifice of constructed dialogue, but also affecting the position of the audience. Narrative itself relativizes performance, and audiences must respond differently. Gao Xingjian mentions Beckett and Grotowski but, in his Beijing talk, says that Brecht was the true innovator, who first gave him the courage to experiment and develop his own style. Brecht made the audience “aware of themselves.” That takes us to the heart of the matter.

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Triangulating Because binaries seem hardwired into our brains, I triangulate. Yet Gao Xingjian and Beckett seem aligned opposite Brecht: their “cold” literature versus his “Change the world, it needs it” (Werke 14: 58); “no isms” versus ideological preference; psychological states versus coherent plots; stasis versus flux; almost, it seems, “feeling” against “reason,” the summarizing binary distinction Brecht subsequently removed between the dramatic and epic theater (Werke 24: 79). Both Gao Xingjian and Beckett also focus on the eternal moment. Where Beckett, who said he had no talent for happiness, is always void of meaning or consolation, Gao Xingjian at least offers the hope of alleviation. I quote, paraphrase, and gloss from One Man’s Bible: “your affliction had been your search for meaning” (410). But the source of your problems, “this consciousness of your self,” (446) is also what saves you, provided you abandon the attempt to ground or create it. All that is left is to live for the possibilities life offers, is living in “this instant of time” (121). There is no solution in conventional religion, whether Buddhist or Christian. Even “karma, just like frustration, is your creation” (438). What matters is “this instant that is full of life. What is eternal is this instant” (438). An ethic that preserves the self from destruction by others, but does not retreat into a self-defined self, merges with a painter’s aesthetic of the surface that seeks to capture what we may live by, while it lasts, an attitude very much in tune with Buddhist philosophy. Brecht also used the metaphor of life’s coldness, yet he has more in common than individual metaphors, as this dialogue shows: “What’s wrong with you?” – “Bronchitis. Nothing bad. A little inflammation. Nothing serious.” – “And you?” – “Stomach ulcers. Won’t kill me!” – “There’s something wrong with you too, I trust?” – “I’m mad.” The dialogue ends when a character says, “I don’t understand that,” and another answers, “Nothing is understood. But some things are felt. If one understands a story it’s just because it’s been told badly.” Brecht wrote this (Werke 1: 121–2), but it could have been Beckett. What Pinter once said, applies to them all: “beneath the spoken word lies a thing unknown and unspoken” (Pinter). Gao Xingjian searches for the meaning beyond words, Brecht looks to the events behind the events (Werke 22: 519–20), yet underneath any theoretically seemingly accepted certainties may lie, as we will see, a deeper counter discourse. There is a more directly political Beckett (Catastrophe, What Where, Rough for Radio II), but in Endgame Clov tells Hamm: “I use the words you taught me. If they don’t mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent” (32).

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Unstable Selves For Rimbaud: “Je est un autre” (Complete Works 374). Not stable, nor merely a literary or fictional construct, the ego is an existential and philosophical problem, and splitting personality becomes a representational demand and therapeutic necessity. All three authors devise stylistic innovations in order to come to grips with this phenomenon. Wittgenstein observed: “One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the word ‘I’” (Philosophical Remarks 88). Gao Xingjian’s novels consistently switch pronouns. The plays employ this device less coherently, but performance itself is intrinsically mendacious. Especially One Man’s Bible pursues the “chaotic self” as victim and accomplice. The separated “you” is not an exile longing to return, waiting to rectify wrongs done solely by others, both because of “his” own complicity and of the inherent impossibility of such a task. But the narrative is nevertheless written in a language and about a culture, which permeates “you” and that you, therefore, wherever you may be, can never not inhabit. It is not a question of dreaming of a return from exile, but of an emigrant’s attempt to find a way of continuing to live, while escaping from a nightmare that will not go away, because this you/he is inextricably caught within the configuration that caused it. How, under these circumstances, is it possible to ground a “self,” unless by seeking to comprehend, and perhaps thereby escape, its potential for schizophrenic disintegration? The “Campaign against Bourgeois Liberalization” symptomized the pressures that drove Gao Xingjian out of the country. Though these relatively shortlived campaigns were not taken that seriously by some intellectuals and may even have seemed a testimony to the weakening hold of the conservative faction within the Communist Party, they were in fact leading to the disaster of June 1989. Leaving for France in 1987, he brought with him all he needed to work creatively: an already exiled imagination, now forced to explore its own freedom instead of deploring the constraints of its fate. Coming to terms with this experience resulted in the two novels, largely written abroad, but preoccupied with the forces that shaped his relation to the country he had left. They soaked up many of the social and cultural preoccupations that had hitherto driven his plays, such that subsequent dramatic texts were freed from the need to engage with them directly. Furthermore, with no satisfactory income from his writing, he lived from his painting. The concentration and experience of this visual work, in turn, affected his writing. Before Wittgenstein, Brecht remarked: “‘I’ am not a person. I come into existence every moment but stay for none. I come into existence in the form

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of an answer. What is permanent in me answers to what itself is permanent” (Werke 21: 404). In other words, what is “permanent” within depends on what is “permanent” outside. Stability is not pre-given, it is relational. Following the Daodejing, Mother Courage remarks that bad generals need brave soldiers (Werke 6: 23). The individual, Brecht remarks, should rather be called the “dividual” (Werke 21: 359), it “splits into parts, runs out of breath. It changes into something else, it is nameless, it no longer recognizes blame, it flees from its expansion into the smallest size, from its superfluity into nothing – but in its smallest size it realizes breathing deeply its transition, its new and real indispensability in the whole” (Werke 21: 320). This seemingly Buddhist supposition holds that we must pass through the emptiness of nothing in order to recognize how we are defined by our relation to everything. Brecht associated a favorite saying – “the fate of man is man” (Werke 18: 71) – with the Chinese philosopher Mozi, who frequently expresses this thought when arguing that the Confucians used the concept “fate” as a means of control (Me Ti 376). 2 Perhaps even more topical today, people still accept as natural and unavoidable the disasters that are man-made, making us the authors of our own fate. Gao Xingjian’s initial experiences in a culture with little tolerance of public dissent explain this response to “fate” in Soul Mountain: The stories I have heard over the past few days of people dying in the mountains all transform into bouts of terror which envelop me. At this moment I am like a fish which has fallen into terror’s net, impaled upon this giant fish-spear. Futile to struggle while impaled upon the fish-spear: it will take a miracle to change my fate. But haven’t I been waiting for this or that sort of miracle all my life? (64)3

Not the result of accident or happenstance, of sheer and inexplicable bad luck or the whim of a malevolent God, your karma accrues from what is done by others, and you are therefore not accountable. Helpless within an overwhelmingly powerful and unforgiving social world, the individual has no inviolable identity or claim to special attention. Here fate is the consequence of a perverted system that exacts compliance where none is objectively justified. The fear of “chaos,” that the weakest link will collapse the whole, compels conformity to an internalized norm or, alternatively, drives people to self-destruction. To free oneself from such oppression is almost impossible. If fate sometimes works the other way, it appears miraculous. After a diagnosis of lung cancer proved faulty, the “I” of the novel tells how a school

2 Similar ideas occur in Feuerbach and Marx. 3 The metaphor, “terror’s net,” also recalls the Beijing Schweyk production.

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friend was sent, as a form of banishment, to Inner Mongolia for arguing with his supervisor and head of department. Finally gaining a position at Tangshan University, and returning to Han culture, he was denounced as anti-revolutionary and suffered the consequences for ten years. Transferred away again, ten days later the devastating Tangshan earthquake of 1976 killed those who had falsely accused him, when their building collapsed. Like Gao Xingjian’s pronouns and Brecht’s shape changers and double characters, Beckett’s writing is full of split selves. Hence their work is permeated by ghosts. Beckett’s inhabit Play, Ghost Trio, Footfalls, Ohio Impromptu. Not I is never me. Fox in Rough for Radio II, speaks of “my brother inside me, my old twin, ah to be he and he …” (Collected Shorter Plays 119). And Beckett once observed: “Gautama … said that one is mistaken in affirming that the self exists, but in affirming that it does not exist, one is no less mistaken” (Disjecta 146).4

Emptiness and the Flow of Things Brecht and Beckett both read Fritz Mauthner. In 1921, Brecht called The Last Death of Gautama Buddha “an excellent book” by “the great writer” (Werke 26: 227). His topics, suspicion of language and of the self, remain a counter discourse in Brecht’s texts. “Buddha’s self,” Mauthner writes, “was a transitory phenomenon in the flow of things” (4). At that time Brecht said his own face “was more changeable and without character than a landscape under passing clouds. That’s why people can’t remember [it].” His girlfriend added: “You have too many” (Werke 26: 230). This “flow of things,” a term also found in Nietzsche, is Brecht’s central metaphor. Mauthner argued that, caught up in the play of language, identity is fragile. He concluded: “only silence is not misleading” and, apart from silence, “ultimately, we can only laugh” (Weiler 295). Beckett read Mauthner’s Critique of Language to the nearly blind Joyce in the 1930s (Knowlson 267, 327), and the aporia between consciousness and language impotence lies at the dead center of Beckett’s writing, also the response of silence and laughter. Prompted by the thought that nothing is funnier than unhappiness, his laughter is, finally, the silent “risus purus, the laugh laughing at the laugh … the laugh that laughs – silence please – at that which is unhappy” (Beckett, Watt 47).

4 “Gautama … disait qu’on se trompe en affirmant que le moi existe, mais qu’en affirmant qu’il n’existe pas on ne se trompe pas moins.”

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Following Schopenhauer, Beckett equated the Buddhist nirvana with identity between atman and Brahman. This surely reveals an unconscious agenda: not just a Buddhist ablation of desire, but the Hindu cessation of consciousness, as soul, or mind, and universe become an undifferentiated One. Schopenhauer had called nirvana “denial of the will to live” (Essays 61). But since everything is an expression of Will and consciousness its highest form, “that which in us affirms itself as will-to-life, is also that which denies this will and thereby becomes free from existence and the sufferings thereof” (Manuscript Remains 376). Is the individual not thereby placed in an inescapable double bind, for if consciousness is an expression of the Will, let alone its highest form, it cannot deny itself, since the act of denying is an intervention of what is to be denied? Schopenhauer describes the consequent dilemma: “as soon as we try to … turn knowledge inwards to really reflect upon ourselves, we lose ourselves in a bottomless void, we are like a hollow sphere of glass out of which a voice speaks, but whose cause cannot be found inside it, and as we try to lay hold on ourselves, we grasp, shuddering, nothing but an insubstantial ghost” (Die Welt als Wille 327).5 We are fated to live within this double bind. Beckett turns the impossibility of escaping this dilemma into the form of his art. Biblical references are part of Brecht’s and Beckett’s cultural DNA. But if you open Brecht’s own Lutheran Bible, this is what you see: opposite the title page, he pasted a Song dynasty Bodhisattva (see fig. 6). Against the revealed and substantial written word with its promise of personal redemption, he sets aesthetic gesture and refusal of an absolute self; against belief in God the Father and a paternalistic state, a feature of Lutheranism, he sets relational thought and the flow of things. There can be no fullness without emptiness. In 1937, Brecht wrote these two poems: “The Doubter” (Werke 14: 376) and “The Buddha’s Parable of the Burning House” (Werke 12: 36). The latter has been read as desire for a Schopenhauerian-Buddhist “redemption from the burning will to live” (Heise 92), though that is not its instigation.6 Furthermore, Brecht’s narrative is in tune with Buddhist stories. Some students ask the Buddha about “the nothingness he called nirvana:” is it “a pleasant nothingness” or rather a “mere nothing, cold, void and senseless”? Buddha is silent, and then says: “there is no answer to your question.” After they had gone, he tells the others this parable: A roof is on fire, and he warns those inside the house. But all they do is ask: what’s it like outside, is it raining,

5 This striking passage in § 54 occurs in a footnote. My translation. 6 For further discussion of this issue see Tatlow 40.

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Fig. 6: Brecht’s Lutheran Bible.

can they go to another house? He continues: “Without answering I went out again. / These people here, I thought, need to burn to death before they stop asking questions.” The poem’s final lines warn, in 1937: if you do not act, you will be destroyed by war. For Nagarjuna’s Madhyamika or Middle Path Buddhism, nirvana is only found in samsara, and Brecht would have agreed. Buddha’s silence also tells us: you must learn to practice by yourself, I cannot teach you. Is that not why Huineng, in Gao’s Snow in August, replaces the patient waiting implied in the traditionalist Shenxiu’s verse with sudden illumination (16)? Estrangement questions theory. Like many intellectuals, Ba Jin admired the sixth Patriarch, Huineng (Ba 320). When he visited Hong Kong (on October 22, 1984), we talked for over an hour. I showed him Brecht’s painting by Gao Qipei (1660–1734), characterized by a spontaneity reminiscent of Zen, which hung in the privacy of his bedroom (see fig. 7). Brecht’s poem, “The Doubter,” describes looking at this blue-black ink picture in the vigorous finger-painting style, depicting a man on a bench whose shoulders are hunched in thought (Poems, 270–1). The poem in the painting, suggesting a Buddhist context, explores the relationship between

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Fig. 7: Painting by Gao Qipei (1660–1734).

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mind and universe, and the problem of distinguishing between good and evil men.7 I paraphrase the poem’s Chinese text: “The deep clarity of the empty mind / corresponds to the vast emptiness of the sky. / All these malicious and evil men / can be seen in the stillness of contemplation.” In the West, “empty” suggests a vacuum. “Kong,” in the painting’s poem, implies the opposite. The sky’s “emptiness,” in questioning univocal conceptual solidity, metaphorizes filiations, relationships. The “empty” mind, rejecting fixed meanings and absolute selves, hopes, through the clarity of such insight, to reach inner peace. Here, however, the ontological vision in the words is offset by the earthiness of the portrait. Text and picture qualify each other, suggesting fissures within the text and between it and the seated figure. No dignified visionary, as in Buddhist iconography, this man wrestles with a problem. Look at the position of the feet and the tension between them and the hunched shoulders. The gap between practice and theory is a Chinese theme, and this picture-poem suggests its ambiguity. Poem and painting are self-portraits. Brecht’s poetic self-portrait questions the “ontological” vision, the theory that cannot be taken for granted, that is seldom scientifically correct, as Stalin, an embodiment of nemesis, had decreed, that must always be tested through practice. We don’t know what Brecht knew about the Chinese painting. But the analogies do not come from nowhere. The other resonates within us and we glimpse the unconscious of a culture.8 Art, for Gao Xingjian, stands for the right not to be expropriated and put into service, and to explore forbidden experience, luminosity, dreams, sadness, solitude, illusions, guilt, and desires, the art buried deep within us. Given the pervasive social and cultural engineering visited on the People’s Republic after 1949, extending a traditional, authoritarian Confucianism, grotesquely parodied during the Cultural Revolution, Gao Xingjian turned to alternatives not assimilated to state philosophy, to the myths, legends, customs, song, dance and story-telling of the people, to dissenting, individualist Dao-

7 In a literal transcription: “deep, deep, things of the mind / empty, empty, vast affinities / a hundred of those evil-doers (demons) / all in silence (stillness) see.” 8 A high official, Gao Qipei was not a typical bureaucrat. His behaviour was considered eccentric and his painting is idiosyncratic. The seals definitely attribute this painting to him, though Hsio-Yen Shih (Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Hong Kong) suspected it might have been a later copy. I find it more interesting than what I have seen of his other work. Worried early on about finding his own style, he is said to have suffered from depression and often took to his bed through exhaustion. I am struck by the contrast between the demeanour of the portrait and the language of the poem. See also Capon, reviewing my book, Brechts Ost Asien. Wolfgang Kubin questions my reading of Gao Qipei’s painting, though does not supply his own.

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ism, and to psychotropic Buddhism. His writing seeks the self-affirmation of the individual’s freedom. For artists, the deepest critique is an aesthetic, not an ideological act, a version of Adorno’s argument about “truth content” in art, which is not measured from outside but contained in the work as crisis within the form, such that we appreciate, as in Gao Xingjian’s work, the contradictions and aporias of its day. Only resistance energizes the artist to this formal inventiveness. Adorno’s “shock” in the work of art is the moment of “the liquidation of the ego, which by way of [such aesthetic] shock becomes aware of its own constraints and finitude” (364).9 Brecht’s equivalent for this shock is the “horror that is necessary to understanding” (Werke 21: 280).

Double Binds Wittgenstein, who concluded his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with this sentence, “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen” (188), rendered into English as “About what cannot be spoken, we must remain silent,” also alludes to Schopenhauer: what cannot be said can be shown.10 For Gao Xingjian, the aim of painting is kongling, emptiness and spirituality, fulfillment in an eternal moment, the truth of the heart (Return to Painting 46). His theater also passes beyond language. If there is a double bind, and life is a double bind, it is between the utopian stillness of his paintings, living in the moment, a Buddhist ataraxia, and the dystopian paranoia in his plays. In his Proust essay, Beckett referred to “the Proustian stasis” (91) and “the exaltation of his brief eternity” (75), in these German words, “holder Wahnsinn” (91) – let’s say “beautiful madness.” Attracted by the “intellectual superiority of Buddhism over monotheistic religion” (Calder 43), he saw Buddhism, according to John Calder, his publisher, as the “sinking of personal consciousness into a transcendental whole” (6). Beckett also said, again in German, that he passed through “das Nichts,” in order to come out on the other side. Silence was his topic. His double bind was consciousness itself and, I suspect, a repressed desire for that madness of stasis, since he observed: “the mortal microcosm cannot forgive the relative immortality of the macrocosm” (Proust 21). There is a counter discourse in Brecht beneath public politics, anticipated in his comment on the brilliant Munich comic Karl Valentin, with whom he 9 My translation. 10 The famous last sentence is regularly quoted in this clumsy English version, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” The source for this allusion to Schopenhauer is Ulrich Pothast, who cites Wittgenstein’s Diaries for 1916 (386).

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worked and whom Beckett met and admired, namely that he showed “the inadequacy of all things, including ourselves” (Werke 21: 101). Another example is this remark that Chinese painting – about which he wrote little though most interestingly – does not impose one point of view, and therefore does not also accomplish “the thorough subjugation of the viewer” (Werke 22: 134). Brecht sought nirvana in samsara, not an essential but the relational self. His double bind is evident in this late poem: If we lasted forever Everything would change But since we don’t Many things stay the same11

As for prediction or prognostication: if Marx turned Hegel upside-down to stand him on his feet, Schopenhauer’s equally metaphysical model seems a better way of concentrating minds, since the future is what we must now avoid. Brecht had a copy of Alfred Forke’s translation of Mozi, Me Ti, in which he marked this passage: “If you tell bad people that Heaven acts justly, their character, even if capable of improvement, will not be changed. You must cheerfully announce to them that Heaven behaves badly” (505).

Works Cited Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund. Gesammelte Schriften Vol. 7: Ästhetische Theorie. Ed. Gretel Adorno. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970. Print. Ba, Jin. Selected Works of Ba Jin. Vol. IV: Earliest Memories and other Essays. Trans. Sidney Shapiro and Wang Mingjie. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2005. Print. Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. London: Faber and Faber, 1956. Print. — Endgame. London: Faber and Faber, 1958. Print. — Proust. London: Calder, 1965. Print. — Watt. London: Calder, 1976. Print. — Disjecta. Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment. London: Calder, 1983. Print. — Collected Shorter Plays. London: Faber & Faber, 1984. Print. Brecht, Bertolt. Poems 1913–1956. Ed. John Willett, Ralph Manheim, and Erich Fried. Trans. Lee Baxandall. London: Methuen, 1979. Print. — Werke. Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe. Ed. Werner Hecht. 31 vols. Berlin; Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1988–2000. Print. Calder, John. The Philosophy of Samuel Beckett. London: Calder, 2001. Print.

11 Dauerten wir unendlich / So wandelte sich alles / Da wir aber endlich sind / Bleibt vieles beim alten (Werke 15, 294).

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Capon, Edmund and Mae Anna Pang. Chinese Painting of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, 14– 20th Century. International Cultural Corporation of Australia, 1981. Print. Gao, Xingjian. “Me and Bertolt Brecht” [Wo yu Bulaixite]. Qingyi (1985), 52–6. Print. — The Other Shore. Plays by Gao Xingjian. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1999. Print. — Soul Mountain. Trans. Mabel Lee. London: Flamingo, 2001. Print. — One Man’s Bible. Trans. Mabel Lee. London: Flamingo, 2002. Print. — Return to Painting. Trans. Nadia Benabid. New York: Perennial, 2002. Print. — Snow in August. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2004. Print. Heise, Wolfgang, ed. Brecht 88. Anregungen zum Dialog über die Vernunft am Jahrtausendende. Berlin: Henschelverlag Kunst und Gesellschaft, 1987. Print. Knowlson, James. Damned to Fame. The Life of Samuel Beckett. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Print. Kubin, Wolfgang. Rev. of Brechts Ost Asien by Antony Tatlow. Orientierungen, Zeitschrift zur Kultur Asiens 1 (2001): 155–7. Print. Mauthner, Fritz. Der letzte Tod des Gautama Buddha. München; Leipzig: Georg Müller, 1913. Print. Mo Di. Me Ti, des Sozialethikers und seiner Schüler philosophische Werke. Trans. Alfred Forke. Berlin: Kommissionsverlag der Vereinigung wissenschaftlicher Verleger, 1922. Print. Pinter, Harold. Interview by Kirsty Wark. Newsnight Review. BBC Two. 23 June 2006. Television. Pothast, Ulrich. Die eigentlich metaphysische Tätigkeit. Über Schopenhauers Ästhetik und ihre Anwendung durch Samuel Beckett. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1982. Print. Rimbaud, Arthur. Complete Works, Selected Letters. A bilingual edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Print. Schopenhauer, Arthur. Essays and Aphorisms. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970. Print. — Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Sämtliche Werke. Mannheim: Brockhaus, 1988. Print. — Manuscript Remains. Trans. E. F. J. Payne, Vol. 3, Oxford: Berg, 1989. Print. Tatlow, Antony. Brechts Ost Asien. Berlin: Parthas, 1998. Print. Weiler, Gershon. Mauthner’s Critique of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Print. Willett, John. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. New York: Hill and Wang, 1964. Print. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1922. Print. — Philosophical Remarks. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975. Print.

Liu Zaifu

Gao Xingjian’s Notion of Freedom* On May 28, 2011, I gave a talk entitled “The Foundations of Gao Xingjian’s Thinking – New Ideas Gao Xingjian Has Given Mankind” at the international conference on Gao Xingjian held in Seoul. In the talk I outlined the main areas of his thinking: ending the obsession of the numerous ideologies of the twentieth century, and introducing the important idea of literature “without isms;” advocating a “cold” literature that is beyond political interests and the market; calling for the return of independence and autonomy of literature; getting rid of the utopian fantasy of using literature to change the world; restoring literature to its function of bearing witness to the human existential condition and to human nature; emphasizing truth as the ultimate criterion of literature; returning to real people with their weaknesses and imperfections, instead of the old humanist, abstract, perfect and preconceived image of “man” written with a capital M, not using atheism to deny religious sentiment, and instead emphasizing aesthetics; setting aside the new dogma of modernism, and refusing to use it as the label for the era; exploring traditional Chinese culture from an anthropological perspective and discovering its universal value; and also putting forward unique aesthetic views in regard to the novel, drama, painting, film and many other fields. That comprehensive overview, could only demonstrate the breadth of Gao Xingjian’s thinking. Here I address the topic of Gao Xingjian’s “Notion of Freedom” in order to indicate the depth of Gao Xingjian’s thinking. In 1998 when writing my afterword for the Chinese edition of One Man’s Bible, I read the manuscript for the first time and found a wonderful paragraph on “freedom” in Chapter 39. I quote it here from the English edition that was published in 2002: To be self-activated and to exist for yourself is a freedom that is not external to you. It is within you, and it depends on whether you are aware of it and consciously exercise it. Freedom is a look in the eyes, a tone of voice, and it can be actualized by you, so you are not destitute. Affirming this freedom is like affirming the existence of a thing, like a tree, a blade of grass or a dewdrop, and for you to exercise this freedom in life is just as authentic and irrefutable. Freedom is ephemeral; the instant of that look in your eyes and that tone of your voice springs from a psychological state, and it is that flash of freedom that you want to

* This essay was originally published in Chinese in Gao Xingjian yin lun (Dashan wenhua chubanshe, 2011). It was translated into English by Qian Yan (Macquarie University, Sydney), and adapted by Mabel Lee (University of Sydney).

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capture. To express this in language is to affirm freedom, even if what you write can’t last forever. In the process of writing, freedom is visible and audible, and at the instant of writing, reading, and listening, freedom exists in your mode of expression. To be able to obtain that small luxury of freedom of expression and expressive freedom is what it takes to make you happy. Freedom is not conferred, nor can it be bought, it is your own awareness of life. Such is the beauty of life, and, surely you savor this freedom just as you savor the ecstasy of sexual love with a wonderful woman. This freedom can tolerate neither God nor a dictator. To be either of these is not your goal, nor would such a goal be attainable, so rather than wasting the effort you may as well simply want this bit of freedom. Instead of saying that Buddha is in your heart, it would be better to say that freedom is in your heart. Freedom castigates others. To take into account the approval or appreciation of others, and, worse still, to pander to the masses, is to live according to the dictates of others. Thus it is they who are happy, but not you yourself, and that would be the end of this freedom of yours. Freedom takes no account of others, and has no need for acceptance by others. It can only be won by transcending restrictions imposed on you by others. Freedom of expression is also like this. Freedom can be manifested in suffering and grief, as long as one does not allow oneself to be crushed by it. Even while immersed in suffering and grief, one can still observe, so there can also be freedom in suffering and grief. You need the freedom to suffer and the freedom to grieve, so that life will be worth living. It is this freedom that brings you happiness and peace. (302–3)

These words in One Man’s Bible are both perceptive and rational. I have been thinking about these paragraphs and I regard them as a brief summary of Gao Xingjian’s notion of freedom. The following main ideas can be extrapolated: 1. Freedom is not external, but internal to the person. As noted in Chan Buddhism, Buddha is in your heart, not in the temples in the mountains. Freedom is linked to the individual, and is not an abstract concept or speculation. 2. Since freedom is internal, and not external, it is a choice made entirely by the individual himself. In other words, freedom is self-bestowed, and not bestowed by others, or by God. Freedom is decided by the individual, and not by the social collective. 3. Since freedom is decided by the individual himself, then what is crucial is whether you yourself are conscious of it. It is only when you are able to have a consciousness of freedom, that it will be possible for you to have freedom. If you are not able to have a consciousness of freedom, then you will not have freedom. In other words, freedom is a form of awareness in the individual’s life. It is only when there is an awareness of freedom that it is possible for freedom. Without awareness of it, one will never have freedom. If freedom is considered as a spiritual existence, then it can be said

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that awareness precedes existence. Without awareness, existence is the equivalent to non-existence. Without awareness, existence is meaningless. 4. Gao Xingjian compares freedom to “a look in the eyes” and “a tone of voice,” because these exist in an instant. The whole issue lies in whether it can be recognized and grasped in that instant. In this sense, freedom only exists in the instant the individual grasps it in life. Freedom is not “eternal.” Apart from the instant of awareness and from the extent of the individual’s ability to understand it, freedom is nothing more than an empty word. 5. Then where is this instant of freedom? Gao Xingjian’s response is that freedom lies in your listening, your writing and your reading, that is, while “expressing with freedom and having the freedom to express.” In other words, freedom only exists in an individual’s domain of purely spiritual activities, and is a luxury. In other domains, there is no real freedom. In the domains of politics, ethics, media, and public life or even in religion there is no freedom. In the latter domain, God gives us only love, and not freedom. Gao Xingjian attributes highest value to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. While respecting religion, he does not gravitate towards it, but only gravitates towards aesthetics. It is only the realm of aesthetics that affords the greatest freedom. 6. It is obvious that there is no freedom in politics. No politics, including democratic politics can change its inherent nature of “pursuing power” and “balancing interests.” Modern politics is even more about party politics and voter politics, and is inevitably controlled by party interests and the interests of the majority voters. Media always prides itself on being free, but modern media serves two masters: politics and the market. It is a servant of political propaganda and commercial advertisement. Where is freedom? Individuals in the public arena are even more so subject to the constraints of “public relationships.” The free will often dissolves under the pressure of relationships, and there is no freedom to speak of. 7. Gao Xingjian repeatedly reminds himself and others that writers and intellectuals cannot afford to entertain the illusion of being able to change the world and of playing the role of world saviors, the conscience of society, and “spokesperson of the people.” This is because he fully realizes that in political and public arenas, the individual does not have real freedom. He simply goes with the trend and acts according to the circumstances, but even so, if he makes a slight mistake, he can become a sacrificial offering. It is only when the individual refuses to play the deluded role of a prophet, a savior or a spokesperson, that he can obtain freedom, and have an independent voice that really belongs to him. This is the notion of freedom Gao Xingjian repeatedly emphasizes.

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Gao Xingjian’s notion of freedom is not only expressed through the characters and personal pronouns of his novels and plays, but also articulated in the theoretical discussions of his collections The Case for Literature, On Drama, and Aesthetics and Creation. Looking at both Gao Xingjian’s implicit and explicit views, it is possible to isolate some striking aspects in his notion on freedom. Firstly, Gao Xingjian’s notion of freedom is not pure philosophical speculation, but the exploration of the possibility of going beyond the dilemma of real human existential conditions. Therefore, his freedom is different from both Hayek’s true or false freedom and Isaiah Berlin’s negative and positive freedom. It is also different from the political martyr’s “death rather than no freedom.” It is a real individual who seeks the possibility of freedom of thought in a real existential condition. Secondly, Gao Xingjian believes that freedom is first of all a consciousness. That is, you will have to be aware of it in the first place. But he reiterates that understanding is limitless and one’s understanding of freedom is also limitless. In other words, from the epistemological perspective, freedom is limitless. When Gao Xingjian confirms this, his notion of freedom has evolved from “consciousness” to “method.” To be more specific, apart from “consciousness” (awareness and understanding), freedom also needs ways of realization. This is discovery and creation. Gao Xingjian’s notion of freedom is linked with discovery and creation. In other words, freedom in the realm of spiritual activities refers to an individual’s spiritual subjectivity not being forced into frameworks set by other people. Freedom means creation. It is not a matter of “being allowed or not being allowed.” It is a matter of breaking through or not breaking through. Creation refers to discovering the possibility of making new discoveries from the highest known spiritual levels. Thirdly, a defining characteristic of Gao Xingjian’s spiritual creation is not to overthrow the achievements of traditions established by predecessors, but rather to discover new potentials and possibilities from these existing achievements in order to make new expressions and manifestations. In his novels, he discovered using personal pronouns to replace characters, and psychological rhythms to replace the development of the plot. In drama, he transformed invisible states of mind into visible stage images, creating “plays of the inner mind.” In painting, he found a third possibility between the concrete and the abstract to create a new form of water-and-ink painting in black and white to show visual images of the inner mind. All these are a result of Gao Xingjian’s efforts to seek freedom in thinking and the creation of new methods. I would like to emphasize that Gao Xingjian can achieve freedom in methods and artistic expression because of his philosophical inclinations. He

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consciously breaks away from the established philosophical model of binary opposites and paradoxes, going from “two” to “three,” from three to infinity. Enlightened by Laozi, the great Chinese philosopher, and Huineng, the prodigious Chan Buddhist thinker, he found that their thinking gave up binary opposites long ago and that they went from two, to “not two,” to “three representing everything” and then to all phenomena. Gao Xingjian’s free state of mind challenges the “either or” and “both” way of thinking. As a result, in painting he creates new visual images using a third possibility that is neither figurative nor abstract. In drama, he discovered a third possibility that is neither Stanislavski nor Brecht: by introducing his concept of tripartite performance and the neutral actor, he created a new form of drama. He also created a new form of novel that used a form of narration that is neither characterdriven nor plot-driven, and that replaces characters with personal pronouns and plot with psychological rhythms. Gao Xingjian produced innovations in language, painting, and all areas of his creative endeavors, and when we use his notion of freedom to examine this phenomenon, it is possible to understand why.

Works Cited Gao, Xingjian. One Man’s Bible [Yigeren de shengjing]. Taipei: Lianjing, 1999. Print. — One Man’s Bible. Trans. Mabel Lee. New York; Sydney; London: HarperCollins, 2002. Print. — The Case for Literature. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; and New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. Print. — Aesthetics and Creation. Trans. Mabel Lee. Amherst NY: Cambria Press, 2012. Print. — and Gilbert C. F. Fong. On Drama [Lun xiju]. Taipei: Lianjing, 2010. Print.

Jessica Yeung

Reading Gao Xingjian’s Treatment of Freedom in Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible in the Sartrean Framework Freedom and Sartre in Gao’s Writings One of the prominent recurring motifs in Gao Xingjian’s writings is flight. In a number of his plays and novels the main dramatic action is constituted by the protagonists’ desire to break free from their situations or other people around them. This immediately suggests an association with Jean-Paul Sartre who also made freedom a central concern throughout his entire oeuvre. It would be rare in the field of literature to identify a third body of work that displays the same consistency and insistence on the theme of freedom as the respective outputs of these two writers. However, it is impossible to put the entire corpus of both writers under comparison in this short article. Therefore, a comparison of the idea of freedom in these two repertoires seems to present stimulating possibilities for a short study. Of course, the sheer magnitude of Sartre’s idea of freedom is remarkable and it would be impossible to deal with every aspect of it here. Moreover, the present volume concerns Gao Xingjian’s writings rather than Sartre’s. Therefore, I will restrict myself to attempting two things here: first, a reading of the theme of freedom in Gao’s two novels within the Sartrean framework; second, in the conclusion, a comparison of the two writers’ respective sets of novels: Sartre’s The Roads to Freedom and Gao’s Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible; the focus of discussion will be on Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible rather than on The Roads to Freedom. The latter will serve as a comparative reference point for illuminating significant aspects of Gao’s novels. Two explanations for the topic are thus necessary. One is for the connection made between Sartre’s idea of freedom and that expressed in Gao’s works. The second concerns my choice of texts selected for analysis. First, the connection between Sartre and Gao is partly justified, as mentioned above, by the shared predominance of the idea of freedom in the repertoires of the two writers. Another more important reason is the presence of Sartre in Gao’s early formative literary experience. Being a French major at university and then a professional translator and editor of French working for a government agency, Gao had gained exposure to Sartre’s writings before he embarked on a literary career. Even more telling of Sartre’s influence on Gao is that his earliest publi-

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cations include an essay on modern French writers among whom Sartre featured prominently, published in 1980 in Foreign Literature Studies, during the period when Gao was also publishing the series of essays that was later collected in his controversial A Preliminary Exploration of the Techniques of Modern Fiction. Obviously his study of modern French literature was playing a part in the formation and articulation of his experimental views on literature later manifested throughout Gao’s entire body of creative works. His first essay on French literature, entitled “The Agony of Modern French Literature,” presents an introduction to the most prominent modern French writers after the Second World War. Although the writers mentioned in this article range from Albert Camus and François Mauriac to Alain Robbe-Grillet, it is Sartre who is given most attention and described as “the pioneer of existentialist literature, the most influential literature after the War” (51). The study of Sartre was obviously an important formative factor in Gao’s own view on literature. A comparative view on their works should help understand Gao’s works. Second, my selection of texts for analysis is based on thematic significance. The choice of Sartre’s The Roads to Freedom is justified by its explicit concern with freedom. Including the fragments of the unfinished fourth novel, these texts make up a coherent literary investigation of Sartre’s philosophical idea of freedom. Although the choice of Gao’s novels is less obvious, there is good reason for selecting them. To be sure he has written other works, especially among his plays, which are more singularly concerned with freedom. Escape and The Other Shore are the most prominent examples. In Escape three protagonists are trapped in an enclosed space after the events in “the Square.” They are trying to escape from the police while at the same time debating the meaning of their actions. In The Other Shore the protagonist tries to get away from other people who are behaving towards him in a manner that is increasingly violent and offensive. In both plays the dramatic actions are highly focused. The situational immediacy faced by the protagonists is intense, but contextual details of their situations are stripped to a bare minimum. These two plays are powerful because the solo image of an individual striving to break free is presented clearly and unambiguously. The dramatic purpose is unequivocal; a relentless energy flows through the development of the play in the direction of escape. Yet the absence of contextual details of the protagonists’ situation renders the idea of freedom in these plays abstract and philosophical rather than imbued with human warmth and realities. Without putting into perspective the protagonists’ desire for freedom in relation to their contextual situations, such a desire is conceptual, and the plays function as statements about, rather than explorations of, the notion of freedom. This is a

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style similar to European modernist plays. They are written in the convention of Samuel Beckett’s various plays such as Endgame and Waiting for Godot. The genre of the novel, however, poses another set of requirements for creative expression. A novel needs a rich content to attract readers. The author has to exercise imagination to construct a world with abundant tangible details to render the text not only intellectually profound but also phenomenologically rich and engaging. Equally preoccupied with the protagonists’ anguish to break free, Gao’s novel Soul Mountain and its sequel One Man’s Bible have adopted an approach very different from his modernist plays in order to expound the protagonists’ desire for freedom. Soul Mountain’s protagonist travels in the mountains to run away from his unfavorable situation in the city and consequential psychological burdens. The protagonist in One Man’s Bible runs away from the shadow of his past life in China by paradoxically reconstructing the memories of it. Both novels are extensive in scale. The protagonists’ actions are firmly grounded in realistic situations. In each of the novels there is a plethora of subplots with details of equally realistic contextual situations serving as background. As a result, these novels offer a much more comprehensive view of the protagonists’ desire for freedom, and greater potential for a critical understanding of the idea of freedom than the author’s plays such as Escape and The Other Shore. Of course this should not lead to the simplistic conclusion that the novels are more interesting than the plays. Since the scale and scope of a play is customarily much more limited than a novel, and the mode of reception of a novel is much more accommodative than that of a theater performance, the respective genres are naturally chosen to fulfill different purposes of artistic expression.

Freedom in Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible Readers can easily discern a common project in the protagonist of the novels Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible, that is, his striving for freedom. This motivation permeates almost every single action and impulse of the protagonist characterization as constructed in the novels. In both novels, the protagonist obsessively looks for a meaning of the self as situated in their past, and tends to negate this self, which is seen as an obstacle to transcendence in Soul Mountain, or in the case of One Man’s Bible an evasion of the relationship between the self and his past. Interestingly, the kind of freedom that both protagonists strive for is very similar. Both want freedom without any constraints, an unconditional freedom, a freedom despite situations. In the Sartrean schema, it is absolute freedom. In Soul Mountain, the negation of the self

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and the possibility of absolute freedom are justified by the idea of Buddhist enlightenment. In One Man’s Bible, the protagonist approaches absolute freedom by celebrating his subjective feelings decontextualized from his situation, thereby eschewing any constraints that limit his liberty. Both protagonists pursue absolute freedom, one in the ontological sense and the other in the societal sense. In the following sections, the project of the protagonist in each of these novels will be read within the framework of Sartre’s conception of freedom. The following analysis will first explicate the connection between Sartre’s formulation of the notion of freedom and the freedom desired and pursued by Gao’s protagonists, and as a result provide textual evidence to illuminate the extent of Sartre’s influence on Gao.

Soul Mountain In Ink Dances in Limbo I have described the novel as displaying a tripartite structure (83–92). The novel begins with “I” undertaking a journey to the remote mountains. In order to ease his loneliness on the way, he creates an alternative ego, sometimes known as “you,” other times as “he.” This alternative ego undertakes a parallel journey, but “his” experience is much less realistic. It consists of the imagination generated by what “I” sees and experiences during the journey “I” undertakes in “reality.” Apart from imaginative experience, there are also dream sequences narrated in the perspective of this alternative ego “you” or “he.” Obviously these imaginary and dream sequences form a Freudian layer in the narrative that represents the protagonist’s psychological state. It foregrounds the protagonist’s intellectual and psychological actions of self-reflection, and self-reflection is indeed the very aim of the protagonist’s journey that is symbolically depicted as the search for “Soul Mountain.” On top of the “realistic” layer of the protagonist’s journey and his Freudian layer of imagination and dream sequences, there is also a third layer in the narrative. It operates on the level of meta-narration. This overriding, authorial voice consistently expresses skepticism first towards narration and language, then towards meaning and indeed everything. In Ink Dances in Limbo I have argued that this novel displays the structure of a Bildungsroman rather than a post-modernist novel, as it gradually conveys in the narrative the protagonist’s discovery of the futility of everything, including his search for meaning (92–8). At the end of the novel is a sweeping conclusion that negates everything: The fact of the matter is I comprehend nothing, I understand nothing. This is how it is. (506)

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Preceding this final conclusion there is a gradual prominence of the idea of Buddhist enlightenment from Chapter 63 onwards. There are a number of accented episodes describing the protagonist’s visits to temples and the conversations he conducts with Buddhist or Taoist monks. These episodes turn out to be of primary importance thematically since it is during these visits and conversations that the protagonist reaches his conclusion about the futility of meaning and his quest for it. This sweeping conclusion at the end of the novel denotes the protagonist’s wholesale negation of meaning, and of making sense of his past and his own self. Such an ending suggests not a resolution of his quest, but freedom from such a quest. As aptly pointed out by Christina Howells in her study of the idea of freedom in Sartre’s philosophical and literary writings, “freedom is the pivot of Sartre’s writings;” “freedom, its implications and its obstacles” (1) are the primary preoccupation throughout the repertoire the philosopher has produced. She chronicles his conception of freedom in both his early and later periods, revealing in his later works a shift from an uncomplicated concern with absolute freedom as an ontological condition to a more mature position showing more significant consideration of the weight of societal conditions on human freedom. Sartre was concerned from the outset with the relation between freedom and non-freedom, whether the latter be seen in terms of destiny or alienation or simply human finitude: the inescapable conditions of life, that is to say death, work, language. The early Sartre (for convenience, up to the mid-1950s) is concerned primarily with the individual, his situation and his facticity; the later Sartre with society, “pre-destination” and the “practico-inert” – in all cases it is against a background of inalienable ontological liberty that these limiting concepts operate. (1)

Howells understands one of Sartre’s main ideas formulated in The Transcendence of the Ego to be the differentiation between “ego” and “consciousness:” Sartre will argue that rather than innate, the self is an imaginary construct, outside consciousness, object not subject of consciousness, a continuous creation held in being by belief. The self or ego, the “I” and the “me,” are synthetic products of consciousness, unified not unifying, transcendent not immanent. (2)

In the textual world of Soul Mountain, this ego, the “I” or “me” identified by Howells, is also known as “you” or “he.” For the sake of continuity, I will use Howells’ terminology for a while: since “only consciousness is transcendental” and the ego is merely “transcendent,” any “desire to experience our characters as stable” is a kind of “psychological essentialism.” Our ego is forever lagging behind our consciousness. In Sartre’s own terminology, “being-for-itself,” the mode of existence generated by the ontological “being-in-itself,” is differenti-

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ated spatially, temporally, and exists only in relation to the latter. It can be recognized as a fixed entity with an essence only at and after death, since it is fleeting, transcendent, and constantly in the process of leaving the past and venturing into the future. If viewed within this framework, the attempt of Soul Mountain’s protagonist to self-coincidence is doomed to fail. When the self tries to recognize itself, it necessarily looks back on its past; but at the same time the same self is moving away from this past. The ego always lags behind consciousness. The “up-to-date” self is, to borrow Gao Xingjian’s words, always on the opposite shore. The attempt to grasp the self is like a puppy chasing after his own tail. To get out of such a situation, the protagonist resorts to Buddhist enlightenment. Instead of chasing after his self, he lets go of it. He no longer tries to essentialize his own self. If successfully looking for meaning is the basis for a meaningful way of life, giving up meaning therefore implies one giving up the belief in life being a meaningful event. “To live” is replaced by “to be.” The ontological state of absolute freedom in the Sartrean sense is brought to the foreground. The protagonist tries to be content with his existence as a beingin-itself, which is an undifferentiated phenomenon. In other words, he tries not to intimate his own being to himself. In such way, he might succeed in evading his ego, or his being-for-itself, to express it in Sartrean terminology again. However, whether this is possible at all as a way of life is highly suspect, and Buddhist enlightenment, after all, is a theoretical and at most a spiritual position, a subjective rather than an inter-subjective experience of inevitable societal life.

One Man’s Bible One Man’s Bible shares Soul Mountain’s thematic and structural features. In terms of time, the events in One Man’s Bible start before the events in Soul Mountain, but reach completion after those of Soul Mountain. The events narrated in One Man’s Bible stretch back to the time of the Cultural Revolution, although they also extend further into the future, that is, after the protagonist has taken residence in the West. Like Soul Mountain, One Man’s Bible shows an episodic structure and makes use of a very similar interchange in the use of personal pronoun as the narrating subject, according to the mode of psychological activities he is engaged in in that particular episode. Again, I have stated in Ink Dances in Limbo that like Soul Mountain, the reality constructed in One Man’s Bible is layered (126–8). The first level of reality depicts the bohemian life lived by the protagonist of the present “you.” He recalls his past

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of the Cultural Revolution days, and these fragmented narratives form a second level of reality. The two ways of life stand in stark contrast, and the factor that underlies such a contrast is the different degrees of freedom in the protagonist’s daily life allowed in and outside China, during and after the Cultural Revolution. In China, the protagonist lived under constant political pressure. Political issues and their consequences dominated and imposed constraints on every aspect of his life. Individual life was lived out in a permanent hypersensitive state. The novel has constructed an intimate correlation between the protagonist’s libidinal drive and social agency in the life lived under the totalitarian regime. It tells how seriously people are damaged by political coercion. Even the most private details of an individual’s life are overwhelmed by the situation of the public realm and intensively interact with public demands, and that part of the novel is deeply moving. In contrast, the protagonist’s present bohemian life is totally free of such demands. He enjoys freedom of speech, of mobility, of creativity, and in every aspect of life, almost in the absolute sense. However, this pleasant life of the present does not allow the protagonist to leave his unhappy past behind. Instead, it overshadows his present. Once he starts recalling his past, he cannot stop. This recalling, which is at first done to satisfy Margarethe’s curiosity, later turns into an individual obsession. The protagonist feels an innate need to relate to his self in the past rather than leaving it behind. Again, if viewed within the Sartrean framework, the being-for-itself is in the process of formation by attaching meaning to the being-in-itself. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre postulates that “There is only freedom in a situation, and there is a situation only through freedom” (489). This can be interpreted in two ways, one in the ontological sense, the other in the social sense. Ontologically, we are all confined by human finitude determined by death, language, and our body. Christian Daigle’s description of Sartre’s idea of “embodied consciousness” is lucid and helpful: “Consciousness is in a body, and this body is its anchoring point in the world” (46). Ontologically, human beings are necessarily confined by our physical conditions and our experiential modes. However, if we interpret Sartre’s above postulation in the social sense, we will get a more interesting picture because this will lead to Sartre’s later position concerning the social conditions in which human beings practice freedom. Again, to use Sartre’s own vocabulary, the “being-for-itself” is a project. It is only through our endeavor to transcend our situations that we express our choice, in other words, practice our freedom. Social conditions, including political coercion, are the most immediate situations; and it should be in this context that we understand his provocative remark: “We have never been as free as under the German occupation” (“The Republic,” 498). Those

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who are firmly engaged in their situations are most fervently practicing their freedom. It is for this reason that Sartre emphasizes commitment. One has to be committed in one’s situation in order to practice freedom (Daigle 45–8). The protagonist of One Man’s Bible experiences a change in his conditions of existence. In China during the Cultural Revolution he has no choice but to be intensively engaged with his situation. It is exactly under such conditions that he finds himself deeply committed in his situation, actively practicing his freedom within the very limited room for choice he has. His agency is not expressed by the range of choice he has, but his reaction to such a limited choice. It is also exactly because he has little space for freedom that he has to be more rigorous in his practice of it. He is not given freedom, but he practices freedom. On the contrary, after he has left China, as an exile from home and a foreigner in his host cities, he finds no compelling sense of engagement in his new situation. There is no necessity to practice freedom in an equally rigorous manner. For the sake of further comparison and clarification, I would like to bring in two texts in order to illuminate the relationship between commitment in one’s situation and freedom. These two texts both happen to be feminist, but my intention is broader than that. It is the situation of constraints and desire for freedom in these two texts that I want to focus on. The first one is Simone de Beauvoir’s introduction to The Second Sex. She dismisses the comfortable life lived by some women who forgo autonomy and submit to the position of the other in exchange for a life that is free of physical toil and existential angst: In particular those who are condemned to stagnation are often pronounced happy on the pretext that happiness consists in being at rest. This notion we reject, for our perspective is that of existentialist ethics. Every subject plays his part as such specifically through exploits or projects that serve as a mode of transcendence; he achieves liberty only through a continual reaching out towards other liberties. There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future. (xxxiv–xxxv)

The second text I would like to bring in is the figuration of the stagnant woman in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s gothic novella The Yellow Wallpaper. The woman in the story becomes increasingly sick as her husband forbids her to exert herself in her daily life. Her doctor and her husband, who is also a doctor, both prescribe rest-cure for her nerve problems. As she is confined to her room, she begins to feel even sicker. Her discontent with her situation grows but the guilt feelings in her also multiply. She feels guilty about herself not feeling appreciative for the comfortable and restful life given to her. She fears she is displaying her ingratitude. At the end of the story, she suffers a complete

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nervous breakdown and kills her authoritarian husband who has been simultaneously caring for her and oppressing her. This exploration of guilt feelings brings us back to One Man’s Bible. Having escaped the political pressure and purges in China and acquired a new life practicing his creativity in the West, the protagonist naturally finds life an improvement. But interestingly, the depiction of his present life in the West shows little commitment on the part of the protagonist in his present situation. The only focus of his present life constructed in the text is sex and reflection, and the content of his reflection is his life in the past when he had little freedom in the way he lived his daily life. There is no reason why he should not appreciate, or even feel grateful for, the bohemian life available to him now. Yet, without being committed to his present situation, he cannot practice freedom in the existentialist sense. His present freedom only acquires meaning when it is lived, and interpreted, as a consequence of transcendence from the previous stage of his life. Otherwise, his present situation, instead of meaning absolute freedom, would mean stagnation. This also explains the dominance of sexual encounter in the depiction of the protagonist’s present life. Sartre postulates existence as a phenomenological fact. Embodiment of consciousness is therefore of primary importance in his theory. If we continue on our existentialist reading of One Man’s Bible, sex will acquire a new importance. In the protagonist’s present life if he cannot find commitment in the social sense, he can only resort to commitment in the ontological sense of human existence. Sexual encounter is a way to invigorate his consciousness of his own body. Sex allows him to focus on his body that functions as an ontological constraint to his existence. Against this constraint, he can once again practice his freedom, even if only for a while. This might explain the obsession with sex that runs through the entire narrative. This brings us to a most interesting aspect of Gao Xingjian’s writings. Although most Chinese writers being read in the international book market live a cross-cultural cosmopolitan life, and many of them have cross-cultural backgrounds or life experiences, in none but Gao’s work is the idea of interculturalism placed right in the center of the text’s epistemological structure. In many overseas Chinese fictions, exile, or emigrated life, is a contingent situation that the protagonists have had to cope with, but in One Man’s Bible, it is the protagonist’s cross-cultural thinking and experience that provide resolution to his dramatic situation. The protagonist’s life in the West acquires full meaning only when it is lived out as a continuation and consequence of his past in China. The intercultural situation is a necessary epistemological foundation for his making sense of his present life. One Man’s Bible epitomizes this special brand of interculturalism in Gao Xingjian’s writings: China and the

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West need to be read dialectically. It is the movement between the two places that generates the most meaningful experience for the protagonist, and indeed for the reader. Yet this is not the end of the story in relation to One Man’s Bible. After the long recalling of the protagonist’s life in the past, there is a sense of exhaustion. In the penultimate chapter the protagonist decides to cast away the ghost of his past: Enough! he says. What do you mean? you ask. He says enough, put an end to him! Who are you talking about? Who is to put an end to whom? Him, that character you’re writing about, put an end to him. You say you are not the author. Then who is? Surely it’s clear, himself, of course! You are only his conscious mind. Then what will happen to you? If he is finished off, will you also be finished off? You say you can be a reader, you will be just like the audience watching a play. Then he and you in the book are not of any great significance. He says, you are really good at detaching yourself! Of course, you do not shoulder or acknowledge any responsibility – moral, ethical, or the like – toward him. (440)

Following this in the final chapter is a description of the protagonist’s present thoughts, and things he hears and sees. It gives the reader the feeling that he is enjoying the sensations of his present reality, and is no longer bothered by his past. It reads like a celebration of the severing of himself from his past. This detachment is so radical that he assumes no moral or ethical responsibility for this past. If this is freedom, it is a freedom that shirks one’s past; it is a sensation of freedom rather than a philosophy of freedom. As in Soul Mountain, this negation of any constraint is absolute, and radical. Yet it is more relevant to the subject who expresses it than to those who read about it.

Conclusion The following does not purport to be a study of Sartre’s The Roads to Freedom in any comprehensive degree. I will only highlight certain aspects of this triptych of novels in order to see them as comparative to Gao’s treatment of freedom in Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible. The Roads to Freedom consists of three complete novels and fragments of a fourth one. The Age of Reason was first published in 1945, The Reprieve in 1947, and Iron in the Soul in 1949. The

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fourth novel The Last Chance was never completed, and only two chapters of it were published in The Modern Times in 1949. A most comprehensive and concise analysis of Sartre’s philosophy of freedom in this series of novels is offered by Iris Murdoch: Les Chemins is a study of the various ways in which people assert or deny their freedom in that pursuit of stable fullness of being, or self-coincidence, which Sartre has said in L’Etre et le Néant to be characteristic of human consciousness and which he portrayed in La Nausée. Only whereas in La Nausée we are shown abstractly the empty form of the human project, Les Chemins attempts to show us concretely a variety of the ways in which different people try to realise it. Sartre studies at length what he considers to be three main types of consciousness, that of the ineffective intellectual (Mathieu), the pervert (Daniel), and the Communist (Brunet) … (24)

The three characters are firmly situated in French society around the time from before the Munich Agreement until the beginning of World War II. It is against this background that they make personal choices and carry out actions in their lives. By doing this they fulfill the “ultimate project” of their existence as Sartre would put it. However, Mathieu’s constant philosophizing of his own situation creates a sense of detachment rather than commitment to anything. Daniel’s extreme actions of self-torment, if viewed from a psychoanalytical point of view, as suggested by Murdoch, can only be interpreted as a means to seeking a reprieve for his feeling of guilt about his homosexuality (27). Brunet the Communist is the antithesis of Mathieu. His undoubting commitment to his political cause serves to disguise his willful abandonment of his metaphysical liberty. These three consciousnesses intercept one another as alternative ways to approach the men’s “ultimate project.” All three men demonstrate “bad faith.” What is most interesting about this novel is the relationship of these three consciousnesses. Although they intercept one another, in fact both Daniel and Brunet give advice to Mathieu, no single one of these consciousnesses is privileged over the others in philosophical terms. They never arrive at synthesis. Even the position of the character Mathieu, who embodies the strongest autobiographical association with the author, is not in any way represented as more valid than the other two. Even his final act of suicidal firing at the enemies in the bell tower without any cover is almost impulsive rather than premeditated. Throughout the three novels there is no attempt to criticize or glorify each of the three positions. These novels form a study, in Murdoch’s words, not providing a justification or a resolution. As discussed above, Gao’s Soul Mountain displays a typical structure of Bildungsroman in which the protagonist reaches his intellectual and spiritual inspiration in Buddhist enlightenment. Indeed this structure is also apparent in One Man’s Bible. After the long and agonizing recalling of his past, the

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protagonist declares himself free from it. Unlike Sartre’s The Roads to Freedom, in which the protagonists are in a way put under study and the authorial voice is detached and analytical, the authorial voice in Gao’s novels is both emotionally and cognitively identical to the protagonists. In both novels, the different narrative perspectives no longer matter in the dénouement when the tension created by the protagonists’ psychological activities is relieved at the discovery of the Buddhist truth and the severing of the past, respectively. In both cases, the relief of that tension creates a reading experience akin to the release of energy or the puncturing of a ball. Such endings provoke the readers’ emotional rather than intellectual response. The effect is vocative rather than inquisitive. It is the absolute opposite of the “cold” literature that Gao advocates elsewhere (“Cold Literature”). This lack of “coldness” is the most interesting literary quality of Gao’s novels, and indeed of many of his other works. However lucid and eloquent Gao’s prosaic exegesis of his aspirations for freedom and other human qualities may be, none of his fictional and dramatic characters appear in the form of a sage. His characters are always confused and anguished and seem to invite sympathy. It is precisely this need for sympathy that has endowed Gao’s characters with a very authentic human quality.

Works Cited Daigle, Christian. Jean-Paul Sartre. London; New York: Routledge, 2010. Print. De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Trans. H. M. Parshley. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Print. Gao, Xingjian. “The Agony of Modern French Literature” [Falanxi xiandai wenxue de tongku]. Foreign Literature Studies [Waiguo wenxue yanjiu] 1 (1980): 51–7. Print. — Soul Mountain. Trans. Mabel Lee. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. Print. — “Cold Literature.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Mabel Lee. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. 78–81. Print. — One Man’s Bible. Trans. Mabel Lee. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Print. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “The Yellow Wallpaper.” The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories. By Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Toronto: Dover Publications, 1997. 1–16. Print. Howells, Christina. Sartre: The Necessity of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Print. Murdoch, Iris. Sartre. London; Glasgow: Collins, 1969. Print. Sartre, Jean-Paul. “The Republic of Silence.” The Republic of Silence. Ed. Abbott Joseph Liebling. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1947. 498–500. Print. — Being and Nothingness: an Essay in Phenomenological Ontology. Trans. Hazel E. Barnes. London: Methuen, 1958. Print. — The Age of Reason. Trans. Eric Sutton. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1960. Print. — The Reprieve. Trans. Eric Sutton. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963. Print.

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Iron in the Soul. Trans. G. Hopkins and H. Hamilton. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963. Print. — The Last Chance: The Roads of Freedom IV. Trans. Craig Vasey. London; New York: Continuum, 2009. Print. Yeung, Jessica. Ink Dances in Limbo: Gao Xingjian’s Writing as Cultural Translation. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Press, 2008. Print.

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The Concept of Freedom in Gao Xingjian’s Novel One Man’s Bible

One Man’s Bible Gao Xingjian’s novel One Man’s Bible was published at the end of the 1990s, more than twenty years after the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). The novel tells the life story of a Chinese writer who goes into exile in Europe after surviving the disaster of the Cultural Revolution. Later, the protagonist travels to Hong Kong and encounters a Jewish woman named Margarethe, whom he once met in Beijing. They have a passionate love affair. Margarethe remembers how she met him in Beijing years before and wants to know more about his life. She also wants to talk with him about her family and the Holocaust. Unexpectedly, the protagonist is confronted with his past and reminded of his sufferings during the Cultural Revolution, but is reluctant to talk about those times. Margarethe urges him to write down his traumatic experiences. After they separate in Hong Kong, the protagonist tries to come to terms with his former life in China, and at the same time reflects on his present life in exile by writing his autobiography. Gao Xingjian constructs this story of a Chinese intellectual and individualist against the backdrop of the tremendous and cataclysmic social changes that occurred in twentieth-century China. He embeds the protagonist’s reflections in the context of modernity, with key characteristics such as ambiguity, intellectual dilemmas, fragility, and contingency. What we learn from this story may be understood as the contingency experiences of a Chinese intellectual in the twentieth century. As there are many obvious parallels between the biography of the author Gao Xingjian himself and the story of the protagonist, One Man’s Bible is without doubt an autobiographical novel. However, keeping in mind the definitions of literary genres, I prefer not to equate the author Gao Xingjian with the protagonist. The protagonist, who also takes the role of narrator in the novel, remains nameless throughout the story. When he refers to himself in the past, he uses the third person pronoun “he” in order to mark temporal, spatial, and emotional distance. In the present, the protagonist or narrator addresses himself as “you” to facilitate a dialogue with himself in exile.

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Individual Freedom in Exile In exile the protagonist has extricated himself from the political oppression and social ties of his life in China. Having removed the mask, he could not help feeling somewhat awkward. He was tense and didn’t know what to do, but, for better or worse, he had discarded hypocrisy, anxiety, and unnecessary restraint. He had no leader, because he was not controlled by the Party or some organization. He had no hometown, because his parents were dead. And he had no family. He had no responsibilities, he was alone, but he was free and easy, he could go wherever he wanted, he could drift on the wind. As long as others did not create problems for him, he would resolve his own problems, and if he could resolve his own problems, then everything else would be insignificant, everything else would be inconsequential. He no longer shouldered any burdens and had cancelled emotional debts by purging his past. (Gao 418–9)

Hereby the protagonist describes his present life in exile as an ultimate liberation from the political and social coercion of the past. He regards the freedom gained in exile as the absence of any encroachment by others upon his private life. Such a view of freedom obviously falls under the category of negative liberty as defined by the liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin: The nature of things does not madden us, only ill will does, said Rousseau. The criterion of oppression is the part that I believe to be played by other human beings, directly or indirectly, with or without the intention of doing so, in frustrating my wishes. By being free in this sense I mean not being interfered with by others. The wider the area of noninterference the wider my freedom. (170) We must preserve a minimum area of personal freedom if we are not to “degrade or deny our [human] nature.” … [L]iberty in this sense means from; absence of interference beyond the shifting, but always recognisable, frontier. “The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way,” said the most celebrated of its champions. (173–4)

According to Berlin the negative concept of liberty is a product of the “capitalistic civilization.” This notion presupposes an individualistic view of human nature and the autonomy of the individual vis-à-vis the state power and the authority of religious or other institutions. In this respect, Berlin terms liberty in the negative sense to be “personal” or “individual” freedom (176). Like Berlin, the protagonist of One Man’s Bible characterizes his freedom in exile as something belonging to his personal wealth that must be protected from interference from his social environment. Freedom can tolerate neither God nor a dictator. To be either of these is not your goal, nor would such a goal be attainable, so rather than wasting the effort you may as well simply want this bit of freedom …

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Freedom castigates others. To take into account the approval or appreciation of others, and, worse still, to pander to the masses, is to live according to the dictates of others. Thus it is they who are happy, but not you yourself, and that would be the end of this freedom of yours. Freedom takes no account of others and has no need for acceptance by others. It can only be won by transcending restrictions that are imposed on you by others. Freedom of expression is also like this. (Gao 302–3)

Denial of Collective Identity In order to defend his individual freedom, the protagonist rejects a collective identity, be it based on the Chinese nation or be it defined in respect of the Chinese culture. China is already so remote from you; moreover, you were expelled from the country long ago, and you do not need to bear that country’s label. You simply write in the Chinese language, and that’s all. (Gao 300) You will not go back. Not even in future? someone asks. No, it is not your country. It exists in your memory only, as a hidden spring gushing forth feelings that are hard to articulate. This China is possessed by you alone, and has nothing to do with the country. (Gao 443)

In the above, the protagonist speaks of China as a country and of the Chinese language. This indicates that he is not blind to the difference between the Chinese culture or tradition and the political institutions of China. But this distinction between the political and cultural aspects of the country does not enable the protagonist to accept a collective identity. He dismisses the collective identity both in the national and cultural sense. According to “the study of China” inspired by Max Weber, the Chinese collective identity is defined politically, but the cultural identity is inextricably bound to the political identity – both are like the two sides of the same coin. The conflation of these two aspects of the Chinese collective identity can be understood as resulting from the so-called this-worldly orientation of Chinese culture (Eisenstadt 388). Since the beginning of the Chinese civilization many poets, philosophers, and scholars have emerged. They associated themselves with the state and looked upon themselves as civil servants in charge of the welfare of the Chinese people. The self-understanding of Chinese intellectuals even in present times has been shaped and dominated by this politically defined collective identity. According to Wolfgang Bauer, the quest of Chinese intellectuals for an independent space and an individual identity has been hampered and thwarted by their repeated failure to strengthen the nation since the mid-nineteenth century, because

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both the self-discovery of the individual and the strengthening of the nation were considered two dependent aspects of the same process (592). The protagonist’s denial of any collective identity is, therefore, understandable in the face of the omnipresence of the political in China.

Repudiation of the Positive Notion of Freedom In his essay “Two Concepts of Liberty,” Isaiah Berlin – beside the negative notion – also elaborates on the positive notion of liberty. Instead of “freedom from,” the positive notion of liberty refers to freedom to – to lead one prescribed form of life – which the adherents of the “negative” notion represent as being, at times, no better than a specious disguise for brutal tyranny. (178)

Positive freedom is derived from the desire of the individual for self-mastery. As an active subject endowed with reason, the individual has the ability to think and act rationally and to strive for self-determination and self-realization. Positive freedom is a form of higher or creative freedom. According to Berlin, what positive freedom means concretely depends on what the self is conceived as. Berlin refers to the historical fact that throughout history the self has been split into the empirical self and the ideal or true self. From the viewpoint of positive freedom, self-determination means the determination by the ideal self; self-realization means the realization of the true self (181). Berlin calls attention to the historical fact that in the course of history the true or ideal self of an individual has frequently been conflated into a specific principle, a high-minded ideal, a community or an institution. Identifying totally with certain divine or rational laws, with an ideology, with a race, a culture, a nation, a social class, with a state or a church, etc., the individual strives for his self-determination and self-realization. In doing so, however, they might mistake collective aims for their own wishes and needs. In order to realize their positive and higher freedom within a collective framework, people might – as history has taught us – accept or even welcome a reduction of their negative or individual freedom. In the view of the historical experience, Berlin mentions the nationalist, fascist, communist, authoritarian, and totalitarian varieties of positive freedom (187–208). From the viewpoint of developmental psychology, Erich Fromm analyzes such doctrines of collective liberation and debunks them as the fear of isolation and the escape of modern man from individuation and responsibility for oneself (ch. 5–6).

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Drawing on his own experiences in a totalitarian system, Gao Xingjian’s protagonist is immune to any kind of positive freedom. For him true freedom deserving this name can only be individual freedom or negative freedom, as revealed by the absence of oppression of the individual by the state, the Party or the collective. The so-called liberation of China by the Communist Party has not brought the Chinese people any individual freedom. They do not enjoy individual freedom, just as they did not enjoy it in the past. In exile, the protagonist has radically broken with his homeland and severed his ties to the country of his origin. He has left behind his homeland as a source of inspiration for his writing. It is only in exile that he can overcome his self-alienation, live out, and enjoy his individuality without fear of coercion. It is only in exile that he can define and assert himself as a sophisticated artist as well as a virile lover. The protagonist declares triumphantly that he has finally regained “joy in living” (Gao 443).

Retreat to the Inner Citadel However, the euphoric feeling of the protagonist should be viewed in another light, for the protagonist reveals in Chapter 31 that his self-image described above represents his ideal self that he is eager to reach. You need a stark, white stage with bright lights, so that he and a woman, both naked, can roll about as everyone looks on … You need to couple with a she-wolf, put your heads up together and howl … You need a soprano voice using the highest pitch to narrate a forgotten story, like your childhood. (249)

These poetical lines indicate that his empirical self does not fully meet his ideal self that is constructed psychoanalytically. This self-image articulates the protagonist’s will to assert himself in exile: he strives to ensure the continuity of his individual identity and to realize himself as a virtuoso of language and a great lover. In this respect, the protagonist cannot be denied some sense of the positive notion of freedom. However, for the protagonist his self-assertion and self-realization should be based on his personal abilities and on his autarky vis-à-vis his social environment. He cultivates an attitude that Berlin calls the “retreat to the inner citadel.” With this term Berlin describes the traditional self-emancipation of Stoics, ascetics or Buddhist sages, who strive to restrain instinctual drives or eliminate unrealistic desires so that they can make themselves independent of the external world and be immune to any outside forces, which they are not able to control (181–7). While the protago-

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nist’s revulsion to “collective liberation” results from his experience with totalitarianism, we can look upon his “retreat to the inner citadel” as a virtue resulting from necessity. Facing the precarious situation in exile, namely his isolation and loneliness, his loss of roots and language, the threat to his memory and identity in exile, the protagonist is aware of the destructive aspect of individual freedom that poses a threat to his life in exile (388). He sees clearly that he has paid a high price for his individual freedom in exile. The protagonist is not so naive and blind that he can ignore the complexity of this issue. The protagonist conceives of freedom as ambivalent and complex, which stems from his consciousness of modernity.

Works Cited Bauer, Wolfgang. Das Antlitz Chinas. Die autobiographische Selbstdarstellung in der chinesischen Literatur von ihren Anfängen bis heute. München; Wien: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1990. Print. Berlin, Isaiah. Liberty. With an Essay on Berlin and His Critics by Ian Harris. Ed. Henry Hardy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print. Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. “Innerweltliche Transzendenz und die Strukturierung der Welt.” Max Webers Studie über Konfuzianismus und Taoismus. Interpretation und Kritik. Ed. Wolfgang Schluchter. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983. 363–411. Print. Fromm, Erich. Escape from Freedom. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1994. Print. Gao, Xingjian. One Man’s Bible. Trans. Mabel Lee. London: Flamingo, 2002. Print.

Noël Dutrait

Sex, Freedom, and Escape in Gao Xingjian’s One Man’s Bible From 1996 to 1998, when Gao Xingjian was writing his novel One Man’s Bible, he had already produced his great masterpiece Soul Mountain. It was published in Taiwan in 1990, and a French-language edition was issued in 1995. After Gao settled in France at the end of 1987, he wrote and published several dramas in French. Those plays are not associated with China in any way, and the characters in them are not Chinese. Soul Mountain enjoyed great success in France even before Gao Xingjian was awarded the Nobel prize for literature. In many interviews at that time, Gao asserted that Soul Mountain had put an end to his homesickness. So one could naturally have assumed that he would not write any more novels with Chinese settings. Then, unexpectedly, he did just the opposite by writing One Man’s Bible (published in Taiwan in 1999, and in translation in France in 2000). In it, Gao Xingjian travels back to his native land, unexpectedly revisiting a period of history he had experienced, specifically from his birth in 1940 to his departure from China in 1987. At an international conference on Gao Xingjian’s works held at Aix-enProvence in 2005, I conjectured that Gao’s plays and novels all have a strongly autobiographical flavor. In Soul Mountain, are the personal pronouns “I,” “you,” and “he” not all used to refer to the same protagonist? Compare that with the fact the many different female characters are referred to only by the personal pronoun “she.” With regard to One Man’s Bible, I am sure it is strongly autobiographical, because I am familiar with the writer’s own experiences, and in some of his essays and interviews he mentions various stages of his own life. Both Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible are multi-part, overlapping narratives, and when the narrator tells the story using the pronouns “you” and “he,” the pronoun “I” suddenly disappears. At the Aix-en-Provence conference, Zhang Yinde said “The use of personal pronouns is a way of indicating different degrees of estrangement. This technique suits viewing from a long distance. In recollecting past pain, the individual not only faces history directly, he also looks head-on at his own personal experiences” (61). The disappearance of the pronoun “I” certainly does not mean the novel is not autobiographical. Quite the opposite, it enables the narrator of that up-anddown struggle to reveal more secret, private subjects, such as his relationships with women. In fact, aspects of relations between the sexes, the narrator’s longing for such relations, and his many difficulties regarding love become a basic theme of the novel.

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But first of all I would like to talk about one of the topics of this volume, that is, fate, because the concept of fate leaps out at us as soon as we open the book. In Chapter 1, Gao Xingjian writes: “Since he was the eldest son and the eldest grandson, everyone in the family – including his maternal grandmother – had great expectations of him. However, his frequent bouts of illness from early childhood were a worry, and they had his fortune told many times …” (One Man’s Bible 7). When that old Buddhist monk told his fortune, it turned out to be true. At the time, “The Old Monk had warned in a loud voice: ‘This little one will suffer many disasters and hardships. It will be hard for him to survive.’ The old monk even slapped him hard on the forehead. It gave him a fright but he didn’t cry. He remembered this because he had always been spoiled and had never been slapped” (8). It seemed as if the narrator’s fate from childhood on had been fixed by that old monk: the narrator’s whole life was a bumpy road! And the whole of One Man’s Bible confirms that prediction of his fate. Another theme of the novel is freedom. The narrator sinks unstoppably into a double life: that period of the past before leaving China, and the present in which he has won a greater degree of freedom after his exile to the West. Exile is another important theme of Gao Xingjian’s work. Gao Xingjian wrote the two-act play Escape at the invitation of a theater in the United States. In the play, he defends the weak. An individual who is weak and alone finds that escape is the only way to save himself, the only way to avoid being oppressed by a totalitarian system. As it says in the play: “They can easily crush your so-called ‘people’ into minced meat, also in the name of ‘the people.’ So don’t talk to me about ‘the people,’ and don’t talk to me about ‘final victory’ either. Escape! Escape is what we have to face now! It’s destiny, yours and mine … To live is to escape, to run for your life all the time!” (14). In One Man’s Bible the narrator explains why he fled: “At the time he simply wanted to free himself, to leave the black shadow enveloping him, to be able to breathe happily for a while” (24). Very clearly, this does not count as escape in the true sense. But a few lines later, the novel says that when he was outbound passing through border controls at the airport and encountered all sorts of troublesome administrative checks, “A thought flashed through his mind: this was not his country” (24). At that moment, the narrator realizes he must leave China altogether, even change his nationality. The final section of Chapter 24 defines it this way: “You have written this book for yourself, this book of fleeing, your One Man’s Bible, you are your own God and follower, you do not sacrifice yourself for others, so you do not expect others to sacrifice themselves for you, and this is the epitome of fairness” (199).

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When he fled his native land, the protagonist – referred to as “he” – and a woman were having a passionate love affair. She was well aware of his decision. Gao Xingjian writes: The night he said good-bye to her, as she gave herself to him, she said over and over in his ear, ‘Elder Brother, don’t come back, don’t come back …’ Was this a premonition? Or was she thinking of him? Could she see things more clearly than he could? Or could she guess what was in his heart? At the time he said nothing, he still hadn’t the courage to make this decision. (25)

In the novel, the protagonist leaves his homeland for good. He begins a new life, and never sees this lover again. But the wrenching pain of saying farewell to this intoxicating, forbidden love continues in a later chapter of the novel, during a conversation in a hotel in Hong Kong, between the protagonist, referred to as “you” to represent the present, and a German Jewish woman named Margarethe. “You” met this blonde by chance in Beijing. At the time, there was certainly no love between the two of them. Margarethe presses the narrator to pursue his past, whether on the political level, such as the Cultural Revolution, or the sexual aspects of his personal life. Thus in Chapter 4 he begins to recall: “Warm and moist, writhing flesh. Memories start returning but you know it’s not her, that sensitive delicate body that had let you do anything you wanted. The big, robust body pressing hard on you with unrestrained lust and abandonment totally exhausts you” (26). The two remain in Hong Kong for four days. Under continuous prodding from Margarethe, the narrator tells of his past, and constructs the novel that the reader reads. For the narrator, writing down his innermost feelings is like shouting until his lungs burst, and there is not a shred of joy in it for him. Before long, there is no news whatsoever about Margarethe. “And how is Margarethe? She had dragged you into a quagmire with writing this damn book …” (180). But look at the opening sentence of Chapter 10: The lights are off, and you’re lying in the dark on a bed with a woman, your bodies close to one another, and you are telling her about the Cultural Revolution. Nothing could be more futile, and only a Jewish woman with a German mind, who has learned Chinese, could possibly be interested. (78)

After Margarethe leaves him, the narrator’s train of thought gets out of hand. He continues to track back through his days in China, and he reveals his fear of the Chinese Communist system. With all his heart, he hopes that disastrous history will not repeat itself. Nevertheless, the narrator is extremely pessimistic, and criticizes himself for how he acted at the time. “You vomit up the folly of politics, yet, at the same time, you manufacture another sort of lie in litera-

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ture, for literature is a lie that hides the writer’s ulterior motive for profit or fame” (196). The end of the relationship between Margarethe and the narrator is declared with a scene of intense lovemaking, in which the two display a sadistic tendency, making happiness and pain coexist during sex. In Chapter 16, Margarethe expresses her true feelings openly: On the last night, she got you to rape her. It was not sex play, she really had you tie her up, got you to tie up her hands, got you to beat her with a leather belt, got you to beat the body that she hated. What she wanted to convey to you was the feeling that after rape, the betrayed and alienated physical body no longer belonged to her. (134)

Finally, in Chapter 8, Gao Xingjian writes: “She needs to search for historical memories, and you need to forget them. She needs to burden herself with the sufferings of the Jews and the racial humiliation of the Turks [Germanic people], but you need to receive from her body a confirmation that you are living at this instant” (67). Escape, sex, and fate ultimately lead the narrator toward freedom. Nevertheless, for him, that freedom remains hard to define. Gradually, as the story line develops, the writer emphasizes the crucial importance of freedom in the course of development of human history. First of all, the narrator “you” wants to understand being “happy,” to retaliate against Margarethe, and to accuse her of making him endure “torment:” You must live happily and fully. Oh, Margarethe! You’re thinking of her again, it was she who got you to write this damn book that has made you so wretched and miserable. That slut has caused you excruciating pain, and you want to fuck her really hard, so that you will make her hurt like she wants to, that masochist. But even if you were to hurt her much more, you would still not be able to cry. (301)

After detaching from that, he again declares: “Now that you have a new life, you want to use it as you want to, and you want what’s left of your life to be lived more meaningfully. Most important of all, living has to bring happiness, and you must derive happiness from living for yourself. What others think is of no relevance whatsoever” (302). Having achieved a happy life, the narrator begins to define freedom: “Freedom is a look in the eyes, a tone of voice, and it can be actualized by you, so you are not destitute. Affirming this freedom is like affirming the existence of a thing, like a tree, a plant, or a dewdrop, and for you to exercise this freedom in life is just as authentic and irrefutable” (302). He goes on to answer the question of from whence that freedom comes: To be self-activated and to exist for yourself is a freedom that is not external to you. It is within you, and it depends on whether you are aware of it and consciously exercise it …

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Freedom is not conferred, nor can it be bought, it is your own awareness of life. Such is the beauty of life, and, surely, you savor this freedom just as you savor the ecstasy of sexual love with a wonderful woman. (302)

Finally, in Chapter 39, Gao Xingjian gives a precise definition of freedom, from an individual point of view: “Freedom takes no account of others and has no need for acceptance by others. It can only be won by transcending restrictions that are imposed on you by others. Freedom of expression is also like this” (303).

Concluding Remarks The theme of sexual love in Gao Xingjian’s works has already been pointed out and stressed by the Swedish Academy, and in the press release of the award is the commendation, “Erotic themes give his texts feverish excitement, and many of them have the choreography of seduction as their basic pattern. In this way he is one of the few male writers who gives the same weight to the truth of women as to his own.” “Love and passion” in One Man’s Bible was the genesis of the work, because it was written under Margarethe’s persistence. The narrator wants to embrace freedom as an opportunity to forget the past, but his female companion insists that she will continue to share the joy of making love with him only if he relates his ups and downs and listens attentively to her own telling of Jewish women’s stories. Daring to describe lovemaking undoubtedly makes clear the freedom with which Gao Xingjian writes. He also wants to use those descriptions to shock the reader. In the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen incident, he decided not to go back to his motherland again, and he also obtained this creative freedom. Lastly, please permit me to summarize the present paper by citing the last part of the preface I wrote for the 1999 edition of One Man’s Bible, and the last part of Liu Zaifu’s afterword: It is fortunate that Gao Xingjian first fled from China and then roaming the world, fortunate that he immersed himself deeply in the practice of art and literature, while at the same time categorically rejecting those big principles and grand ideologies which led the world to the brink of an abyss in this century which is about to end. For only by so doing did he create such a bewildering and fascinating work as this. The world has finally obtained this great work of end-of-century Chinese fiction, which from beginning to end never abandons the most audacious literary method, and shines a bright light on this part of the world. (Dutrait 4) This novel is a book about escape. It is about the freedom of pain and delight of an end-of-century world wanderer with no homeland, no ideology, and no guise whatsoever.

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The book tells people stories, but it also describes a kind of philosophy: a person must seize life’s moments, enjoy the present to the fullest, and not sink into shadows, illusions, thoughts, and nightmares, whether made by others or by oneself. To escape all that is freedom. (Liu 456)

Works Cited Dutrait, Noël. “Preface.” One Man’s Bible [Yi ge ren de shengjing]. By Gao Xingjian. Taipei: Lianjing, 1999. 1–4. Print. Gao, Xingjian. One Man’s Bible. Trans. Mabel Lee. London: Flamingo, 2002. Print. — Escape and The Man Who Questions Death. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2007. Print. Liu, Zaifu. “Afterword.” One Man’s Bible [Yi ge ren de shengjing]. By Gao Xingjian. Taipei: Lianjing, 1999. 451–6. Print. Swedish Academy. “Nobel Prize for Literature 2000 – Press Release.” Nobelprize.org. 12 Oct 2000. Web. 18 Jul 2012. Zhang, Yinde. “Gao Xingjian et Jorge Semprun: Mémoire et Fiction Identitaire.” L’Ecriture Romanesque et Théâtrale de Gao Xingjian. Ed. by Noël Dutrait. Paris: Seuil, 2006. 47–69. Print.

Gilbert C. F. Fong

Wild Man and the Idea of Freedom In 1983 Gao Xingjian went on a trek of more than 15,000 kilometers along the Yangtze River on a self-imposed exile to run away from the threat of political persecution brought on by the “Anti-Spiritual-Pollution Campaign.” He traveled through eight provinces, and visited seven nature reserves and a number of national minority districts. During the trip, he came into close contact with indigenous folk culture and Chan Buddhist ideas, which served as the inspiration for his masterpiece Soul Mountain (1990), heralding a change in Gao’s style of creation and its gradual maturity. Upon his return to Beijing, he wrote Wild Man (1985) in just ten days (Gao, “Wild Man and Me,” 137). It was natural that he, after spending so much time in remote areas of rural China away from Beijing, became keenly aware of the dichotomy between the old and the new, the center and the periphery, and civilization and the wilderness. All of these have been incorporated into the play. Gao was told by the then director of the Beijing People Art’s Theater Yu Shizhi to write a play that would placate the authorities’ suspicions about the theater company and Gao’s political intentions. He could not afford to be blatantly anti-government. Thus the play is characterized by tentativeness and perhaps compromise, especially in political ideology. In fact, it was the only one of Gao’s plays to be officially sanctioned and publicly performed in China. Other plays such as Bus Stop (1983) and Alarm Signal (1982) were played to selected audiences for in-house viewing only, and The Other Shore (1986) was banned at rehearsal. Wild Man is a difficult play to read and perform, the reason being that it is loose not only in structure but also in content and theme. But the looseness is on purpose and by design, and is a statement of Gao’s philosophy of life and his then new theory on theater. There is in Gao a predilection for thing primordial, pre-civilized, and unspoiled, and as such there is no apparent pattern or organization. All appears haphazard to the point that there seems to be the motivation on the part of the playwright to bemuse his audience. But as always with Gao Xingjian, there is more to what emerges on the surface. Especially in the early period, Gao had the tendency to think in a binary mode. He was trying to break free from the yoke of tradition as defined and shaped by centuries of totalizing Confucianism. Thus one cannot avoid to notice the conflict between the old and the new in the play, and the old has to be examined carefully, for it has to “retreat” all the way back to the source. In the play, the old is manifested in the ancient song and dance, the presence of which also helps to subvert the realistic elements. There is a strong feeling

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of restlessness to be experimental and innovative, signaling the modernist non-narrative and other changes in Gao’s dramaturgy by the following year when he wrote The Other Shore. Wild Man features a complex plot with multiple storylines that appear to be separate, but are in fact complementary. We can identify at least four different storylines: 1. The Ecologist’s love relationships with Fang and Little Sister; 2. Deforestation and its disastrous aftermath of flooding in the city; 3. Old Singer and the song of “The Story of Darkness;” 4. The Wild Man saga.

Ecologist’s Story Ecologist’s story weaves through many of the episodes. He is successful in his effort to stop the logging, thus preserving the forests from being completely destroyed. But while spending most of his time in the mountains, he has been ignoring his wife Fang and shirking his duties as a husband. He is alienated from his nature as a man, and according to Gao, this is exactly the quagmire in which modern man finds himself, because reality has caused him to lose his natural bearing (“Night Talk,” 191). In the end Ecologist manages to wreck his marriage and ends up divorcing his wife. Ecologist’s relationship with the country girl Little Sister is no different. She literally throws herself at him, and he flirts with her, but he cannot convince himself to accept her love. Again he fails to follow his heart and instead lets his “civilized” thinking get in the way of his being a man, and he willingly loses his freedom to conform to the ways of the world and the restrictions brought on by civilized society.

Environment Subplot The subplot of environmental protection is the most straightforward and didactic among all the subplots. At the beginning of the play, the actor playing Ecologist leaves his role and resumes his status as an actor to offer his comments on the state of the environment. In fact, the actor here takes on another role as narrator: “Where can we find a forest, a magnificent and peaceful forest, which hasn’t been disturbed, cut, trampled, burned, pillaged or stripped, and still remains pure and primeval?” (Wild Man 21). Presumably it is part of Gao’s dramaturgy that an actor should be able to enter into and exit from his role easily and at will. Of course, being a commentator on stage

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means taking on another role. An actor could hardly be himself during a performance. Perception-wise, from the audience’s point of view, the words of an actor as himself are less “written” or fabricated than his dialogue, and thus become more credible. Officials like Director Lin and Secretary Chen are portrayed as inept bureaucrats who are only concerned with their own interests and indifferent to the dwindling forest. Despite Gao’s contempt for the official world, he could not afford to paint a totally negative picture of the cadres, thus he creates a rather unbelievable figure in Captain Liang who chastises the mercenary timber buyers and feels for the trees and the environment: I’m also in the business of cutting down trees, but I’m not like you, because I love them trees! My heart cries for them. I don’t think you’d understand; I might as well talk to the logs. But the trees, they are human. If you don’t believe me, just go to the forest, where they grow so densely that they’ve blocked out the sun and the sky, and you’ll hear the trees talking, every one of them … (52)

Captain Liang’s romanticism is out of place in the hard-headedness of the forestry storyline; even Ecologist’s idealism springs from pragmatic concerns for the environment. His characterization is another compromise with the predominant literary tenet of combining romanticism and realism of the time. Probably due to the official line, his play had to be didactic and to acquiesce so that it could be staged. It is quite obvious that Gao’s experimental zest had to be hidden behind the safety of official sanctions, which explains why he felt obliged to include the compromising gestures of realism and the goodness of officials and official policy in the play. The consequence of deforestation is flooding during torrential rain. The entire city is thrown into chaos, and citizens are urged to leave their dwellings for the safety of the mounds in the park. The confusion and the threat of danger (for instance, a baby is seen floating precariously on the rushing water) add to the urgency of environmental protection.

“The Story of Darkness” Theme The third storyline is that of the feeling for the past, the origin from which the Chinese race and all humanity come. And it is here that the various storylines find their unifying common ground. There is celebration, such as the Old Singer and his helpers singing and dancing in the opening and concluding scenes, the shamanistic rituals, and “The Ten Sisters’ Wedding Song.” There is also lament and a sense of loss, in the persecution of Old Singer during the

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Cultural Revolution for practicing his shamanistic rituals, and in the loss of the “Story of Darkness,” which sings of the creation of the universe and the beginning of the Chinese race. The song, fortunately, is recorded and salvaged by Sun, the school teacher. For thousands of years it has been ignored and forgotten, and because of this, it is still raw and untainted by mainstream civilization and Confucianism. Gao said that in Wild Man he showcases the Yangtze River culture, the southern, primordial non-literati tradition, which is different from the Confucian literati culture of rationalism in the northern part of China (“Night Talk,” 177).1 The northern literati tradition has been a constant threat to the southern non-literati tradition’s survival, being regarded as the orthodoxy and revered as almost the national religion for two thousand years by the ruling class.

The Wild Man Subplot The Wild Man in the play does not appear on stage until the very end, but has a haunting presence. Many people want to use the Wild Man for their own purposes. Reporter Wang wishes to do a special write-up on the Wild Man; Wild Man Expert tries to coax Little Mao into attesting to the Wild Man’s existence; scientists and scholars like Dr. Robert, Professor Thompson, and French Geologist are all engaged in a kind of pseudo-scientific discourse to show off their learning; the Wild Man Research Team resorts to military discipline and precision in an attempt to catch the Wild Man; and ordinary people in the mountains strive to lay their hands on a piece of Wild Man hair to get reward money. Amidst all of this, Wild Man is hunted down, mauled, and reported to have been skinned and eaten. But except for the capacity to speak, it is human-like, capable of laughing and making friends, and when it is trapped, it cries and begs for help, showing that, like humans, it also possesses emotions. When asked whether or not the Wild Man is a symbol of nature, Gao replied: “Do you mean the Wild Man appearing in Little Mao’s dream, the Wild Man being hunted down and authenticated, or the Wild Man in the title of the play?” (“Night Talk,” 192). Maybe Gao is being evasive here, but in his refusal to be pinned down on the symbolism of the Wild Man, Gao is leaving the door open for his audience to go beyond the obvious and the simplistic. Wild Man is victimized and persecuted, a symbol of man’s destruction of nature, and of how man destroys what 1 Being a southerner himself, Gao says he is naturally drawn to southern culture and sympathetic to it.

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is his own ancestor, that is, his own origin. This is what Gao Xingjian refers to as “the Wild Man in the title of the play,” a more sublimated perception of the Wild Man who appears in Little Mao’s dream than a mere symbol of environmental protection.

The Polyphonic Structure The fact that the play has four storylines but no main plot testifies to its nonstructure. Ecologist could be regarded as the main character, but he has nothing to do with the hunt for the Wild Man, nor is he very much involved in the effort to rescue “The Story of Darkness” from oblivion. There are loose ends and dangling episodes that are put together as if at random. At times this creates confusion for the audience, but apparently the goal is to achieve a breakthrough, by turning away from the dominance of illusionism so prevalent on the Chinese stage in the early 1980s. Thus actors playing the characters are asked to extract themselves from the performance and become narrators, and by reminding the audience that they are watching a performance, the theatricality of the play is highlighted. Gao said that he likened the composition of Wild Man to that of a symphony, where different and counterpointing parts are blended into a harmonious whole. The buzzword polyphony (fudiao) has been used to describe the play (Wild Man 162–3), because different characters speak at the same time, and various scenes are performed simultaneously on the stage. This deliberate juxtaposition serves to contrast or parallel, and to provide commentary or metaphor. The so-called polyphony was of course not new to the Western stage, but it was a groundbreaking technique in the conservative Chinese theater scene of the 1980s. That is why in a new edition of the play,2 the number of “polyphonic” scenes was cut down; at the same time, the didacticism and environmental rhetoric was toned down as well. Harmony in the play could not be presupposed, and connectedness between the diverse scenes or elements could only, if at all, be realized, in the perception of the audience. For Gao, harmony is not a designated goal or a prerequisite to understanding or enjoying the play. With at least four different themes, which roughly correspond with the four storylines discussed above, it is not surprising that some parts of the play 2 Gao revised the original Wild Man (written in 1985) when it was published in the series in Taipei in 2001 together with his other plays.

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appear thin and rather desultory. The design is one of structure through nonstructuring. Gao is very careful when it comes to dramaturgy, and in Wild Man, the apparent lack of structural links is deliberate. Through juxtaposition, the storylines and their episodes are put together as if haphazardly for maximal dramatic impact. Unlike a paratactic construction, which depends on the association of meaning or connection by logic, the juxtaposition in Wild Man actually defies connection by logic. In fact, there is a tendency to be illogical and to cast doubts on the validity of a meta-structure as proposed by Stanislavskian theater that dominated the Chinese stage of the time. But the divide among the various storylines is not total, the episodes are related in some way; they share some commonalities, but are not woven seamlessly, so to speak, to make up a tightly knitted whole. The strategy is to engage, yet not to completely engage the episodes, in a kind of yin-and-yang fuzzy logic. Harmony is not the end; moreover, Gao would rather let the rough edges stand as they are. Through the use of the technique of polyphony, Gao insists he is able to accommodate different themes that could be counterpointing, independent, and yet interwoven together (“Me and Bertolt Brecht,” 138–9). The idea, as suggested by Gao and Lin Zhaohua, is to combine the Ecologist’s two kinds of consciousnesses, that is, his feelings as a flesh-and-blood human being and his thoughts on man and nature as a scientist. Thus the play touches on the fate and emotional life of modern man as well as reflects on the history and primordial culture of the Chinese race (“Me and Bertolt Brecht,” 139). Perhaps the play, contrary to what most critics think, aims not merely to promote environmentalism and protection of the ecology, nor is it a lament on the depressing fate of the Wild Man. Whatever is wanting in thematic profundity is more than compensated by the overwhelming physicality on the stage, the songs and dances, the shamanistic rituals, the noises of the city and of tree felling, the chaos during the flood, etc. Gao has said that he is willing to promote environmentalism, but he also does not wish to be overtly didactic and bore his audience. Therefore he introduces song and dance routines into the play. Together with the use of masks and puppetry, overlapping and multilayered visual images are added onto the polyphony of sounds and dialogues (“Me and Bertolt Brecht,” 138). Lin Zhaohua also had the actors speaking in a dialect full of rhythms and cadences, which further added to the musicality of the scenes. All these combined make up an audio-visual “polyphony” that assaults the senses from all directions. From the viewpoint of ideology, one could possibly say that Gao uses polyphony as theater, as a counter-discourse of pluralism against the monolithicism of realistic theater, and as a counter-discourse and a metaphor for his

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dissatisfaction with the totalitarian rule of the Communist Party. Contemporary Chinese drama, according to Chen Xiaomei, is characterized by the emergence of a “counter-discourse,” which serves as a powerful metaphor to protect itself from ideological oppression. Interestingly, while this counter-discourse appropriates Western theatrical experimentalism, what Chen calls occidentalism, the official discourse also essentializes the West to support the promotion of nationalism as a means of suppressing the people. In this manner, Chinese occidentalism is at once a discourse of oppression and a discourse of liberation (Chen 3–6). However, at this juncture in Gao’s life, he was more concerned with dramatic form than with politics, at least in the writings he published. In the preface to In Pursuit of Modern Drama in 1988, he said that he had planned to write a book entitled “Preliminary Explorations into the Techniques of Modern Drama” as a complement to his earlier Preliminary Explorations into the Techniques of Modern Fiction (1981) (“Preface,” 1). In 1985, he wrote a paper entitled “Me and Bertolt Brecht,” in which he talked about his kinship with the East German playwright, especially his ideas on narration in the theater. According to Gao, Brecht reaffirmed the actor as narrator, and with this the Ibsenite method of realism was abandoned, and a new way of playwriting emerged in theater (“Wild Man and Me,” 54). Obviously Gao Xingjian was concerned with how to present characters and actions on the stage, and narration has to do with the ways of telling a story. For him, realistic theater with its many conventions and restrictions was too confining, a form of theatrical totalitarianism hampering freedom of expression, and ways had to be developed to free the theater from the yoke of realism. For Gao, narration in the theater is entirely possible, just as in classical Chinese theater, where an omniscient narrator functions like a storyteller (“Night Talk,” 190). The difference is between showing and telling. There is not a narrator present on stage, but the performance tends to “tell” a story to the audience. What Gao likely means is that there is the presence of a narrator, given the control of the narrative and other narrative devices such as asides and the characters’ self-introduction. Of course in traditional storytelling such as pingtan, the narrator can enter into and extract himself from the story at any time. And Brecht, seizing upon the feeling of alienation on the Chinese stage, places both the narrator and the narrated simultaneously on stage. This strategy is usually seen in the use of a chorus or having an actor extract himself from the role in order to narrate (Gao, “Night Talk,” 190). Gao aspires to create theater that like in fiction the narrator can freely tell and comment on the action (“Me and Bertolt Brecht,” 54). In Alarm Signal and Bus Stop, he experimented with polyphony by having different characters

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speaking simultaneously in separate conversations unrelated to one another. In Wild Man, Gao went further by mixing different sounds and noises and adding various forms of performing arts, breaking away from the monopoly of words in so-called spoken drama. In “Wild Man and Me,” Gao lays out his narration strategy in Wild Man: on the first level, there are characters talking about ecological issues while at the same time playing out their own personal drama; and on the second level there are the shamans such as Old Singer singing about ancient history and creation. These two levels of narration combined make up a contrast, offering a look at history and reality from the perspective of modern man. There is yet another level of latent narration, which consists of the consciousness of a specific character (Ecologist), and as such, the various storylines could be considered his thoughts on human society and nature as well as on history and the original culture of the Chinese race (“Wild Man and Me,” 139). The evaluation of such psychological activities could be shown in the other levels such as the Dance of the Lumberjacks and the epic poems sung by the shamans (“Me and Bertolt Brecht,” 55). Gao succeeded in using the narrative mode of fiction in Wild Man. The audience is “reading” a story on the stage, where there is an omniscient narrator who reveals selectively the consciousness of the hero (Ecologist) while telling his story. The director of the play, Lin Zhaohua, who worked closely with Gao on the production of the play, said that he wanted to treat the diverse episodes and storylines as happenings in the flow of Ecologist’s consciousness (Lin 356). The presence of a narrator is also implicitly felt in the earlier Alarm Signal, and later reappears as the Story Teller in Of Mountains and Seas (1993). This is of course quite different from the first-person narration (through the various guises of “you,” “he,” and “she”) in his “French” plays Between Life and Death (1991), Dialogue and Rebuttal (1992), Nocturnal Wanderer (1993), and Weekend Quartet (1995), culminating in the splitting of self in This Man and That Man in The Man Who Questions Death (2000). Gao has a grand design for Wild Man. The four subplots and their elements make up a collage, represented by clusters and constituent parts of personal, national, and human issues. The idea is to at once broaden the coverage of the narration and deepen it by juxtaposing the individual, the collective, and the universal, a sublimation process that has the effect of alienating the audience from the plot and projecting it onto the planes of the aesthetic and the existential. As collage, the parts are not restricted or constrained by causal or temporal relations, thus allowing ample freedom for the movement of the narrative, which can be linear, intersecting, or random. There are appositions of reality and psychology, and, more importantly, the diachronic and synchronic narrations of the present, the past and the remote past, thus giving the

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play a wide sweep in terms of time and history. Gao calls the play a modern epic, distinguishing it from the epics in classical literature that relate the heroic deeds of historical figures. His modern epic starts with the fate of the individual, the personal stories of marriage and love, and then broadens to the exploitation and destruction of nature, drought, flood, and the Wild Man. In this manner, the play is able to encompass history and to present the tragedy, comedy and farce of mankind to the audience. Brecht, according to Gao, has reclaimed the narrative function of the theater in his plays, but Gao wants to go further and create a brand new theatrical form that he calls “modern epic drama” (“Night Talk,” 171–2).

The Environment and Other Themes There is a discernible pattern shared by all four subplots. The ecologist, though he loves his wife, has to abandon her to fulfill his mission as a scientist. The conflict is between nature, represented by Fang’s demand for love as a woman, and science, a product of man-made endeavor used to conquer or transform nature. The same conflict is repeated in the Little Sister subplot. Her bathing nude in the river is a symbol of sexuality as well as innocence; she is revealed in her naturalness, without the cover of clothing, a habit of civilization. She calls Ecologist a coward for failing to heed his instinctive desire to love her. In the end, Little Sister becomes a victim of the custom of prearranged marriage. Old Singer suffered persecution during the Cultural Revolution that symbolized the destruction of tradition with its call to “destroy the old and establish the new.” He continues to be punished by the officials for his singing and ritualistic practices. The fact that he is able to let “The Story of Darkness” be recorded by School Teacher provides some hope and deliverance from bureaucratic bungling and intervention. Gao appears to have attached a high degree of significance to “The Story of Darkness” as the soul of the Chinese nation, but the theme is not thoroughly developed in the play. And the triumphant singing of “The Ten Sisters’ Wedding Song” and the persistence of shamanistic rituals are fortunately unsullied by the onset of modern culture. The logging of trees is another symbol of human destruction due to greed and bureaucratic incompetence. The flood scenes indirectly point to the disaster brought on by deforestation practices. At the time of writing, Gao naturally could not point his finger at government-sanctioned logging. Towards the end of the play, the government issues orders to stop logging, a measure of seemingly good governance.

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Wild Man, the titular character, only appears once in the play in Little Mao’s dream during the last scene. As the ultimate symbol of conservation and freedom, his character is not fully developed, but instead shrouded in mystery. He is a victim of persecution, a prey in the eyes of human society. We learn that Wild Man has been killed and carried down the hill. Reporter wants a description of the Wild Man so that he can write up a news item with sensational headlines. Scientists and experts put up a reward for proof of the existence of the Wild Man that they can use as evidence for their theories. And villagers all want a piece of the Wild Man for monetary gain. Under the circumstances, Wild Man has been deprived of his habitat and the freedom to roam for fear of being discovered and captured. Only Little Mao, the innocent child, has sympathy for the Wild Man and is allowed to come into contact with him. He says that he found Wild Man trapped in the forest and had freed him. At the end of the play Little Mao has a dream in which he dances with the Wild Man, showing that a human and the Wild Man can be together in harmony, and thus suggesting an optimistic ending to the story. However, both Gao and Lin Zhaohua have pointed out that such harmony could only happen in a dream, and is hardly probable in real life. It is but a false harmony, a kind of wishful thinking (Lin 360; Gao, “Night Talk,” 191). Generally there exists a feeling of victimization in the four storylines: Ecologist and Fang are victims of science, the adoration of cold hard facts at the expense of love; the Wild Man is persecuted by civilization and science; the trees represent the casualties of human greed and progress; and folk culture suffers by the hand of the dominant Confucian orthodoxy. On the other hand, while Ecologist’s personal life is a failure, he manages to secure an official restraining order to stop deforestation, and if the Wild Man’s dance at the end of the play is “false harmony,” and the Wild Man itself is on the brink of extinction, “The Story of Darkness” manages to be preserved after years of neglect and oblivion. But then again the play does not celebrate the total victory of folk culture, as Little Sister becomes the victim of the old custom of arranged marriage. So there are parallels and divergences. It is as if Gao deliberately steers away from a neat pattern; while this would indicate greater authenticity and a center, it would be anathema to diversity, and thus freedom. Spontaneity is not a factor here, because the different storylines are very much a matter of design. The polyphonic composition of Wild Man, says Gao, conveniently allows the play to accommodate several themes at the same time, which may be independent yet interwoven by crisscrossing one another. Even though he does not advocate form over content, he is, when exploring new themes, always searching for new forms to accommodate them (“Wild Man and Me,” 138–9).

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Freedom to Be Left Alone Isaiah Berlin propounded the idea of two concepts of freedom: negative freedom and positive freedom (Berlin; Carter).3 Negative freedom is the absence of prohibitions, obstacles, barriers, or constraints. It concerns the options that are open to the agent, and the opportunities he has with no external impediments preventing him to act. Positive freedom presupposes the presence of something – self-determination and realization. Actions are executed for the agent’s own purposes and according to his free will, i.e., he goes through the right doors for the right reasons as he sees them. There is the presence of (internal) control on the part of the agent. The former is “freedom from” things that are not doable; the latter is “freedom to” do whatever one considers doable. In Wild Man the characters are thwarted in their actions by external factors, which are blunders that come with civilization such as morality, human greed, misguided government policy, and the arrival of science. All these are destructive forces that ruin the lives of Ecologist and Little Sister, threaten the cultural legacy of the Chinese race, and by damaging the environment, deprive Wild Man of his natural habitat. But Wild Man is not all pessimistic. At the end of the play, the felling of trees is stopped by a government ordinance, “The Story of Darkness” has been preserved through the efforts of Old Singer and School Teacher, and Little Mao dances with Wild Man in a dream that seems to signify the happy coexistence of man and nature. However, one cannot but feel that these hopeful outcomes in the play are compromises Gao had to make in order for the play to be publicly staged. After all Wild Man had been assigned by Yu Shizhi, then director of the Beijing People’s Art Theater, specifically to “restore” the company and Gao himself to the good graces of the censorship bureau. As a result, the play could not be too critical and pessimistic. As the play is ideologically ambivalent, the pursuit of freedom is neither active nor vigorous. The drama of free will, if any at all, is played out externally, in the social sphere. Gao’s turn towards the individual and his freedom only started with The Other Shore, where man is engaged in a tug of war with the crowd and portrayed internally through the character of his Shadow. If we conceive of freedom as a triadic relationship, that is, of subject (or agent), purpose (or goal), and obstacle (or barrier), then we may ask the question how the characters in Wild Man attempt to overcome the obstacle or barrier to realize their goal or purpose. Even if they to some extent succeed (for example, Ecologist is able to stop the logging), they are not aware of any 3 Berlin used the term “liberty.”

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impending threat that they might encounter in future. From this point of view, it could be said that the obstacles remain, although the characters are not conscious of the need to take further action. There is the feeling of resignation or acceptance of things as they are and trying to accommodate to the circumstances, adverse or discomforting as they are. Thus a pattern is established in which obstacles remain for the characters. The only exception is Old Singer, who is at once the personification of the wise old man, hunter, and inheritor of tradition, and who in his bid for survival, is also cunning and evasive, and thus given a more lively characterization. Interestingly the characters do not fight to be rid of the barriers, or they do not know how to or there is no desire to. Only Little Sister attempts to persuade Ecologist to love her, but fails in the end. There is a pervading feeling of passivity, though it is not necessarily in a derogatory sense. In his China period, Gao Xingjian, because of his background and the political control of the time, was concerned with the “opportunity” concept of freedom. He longed for a range of possibilities of doing things in a society devoid of constraints. He was not unaware of the notion of the self, but for obvious reasons he did not advocate striving for freedom, thus rejecting the individualistic self-centered notion and the “exercise” concept of positive freedom. Even in his later works, self-actualization, in the sense that one should engage in struggle to realize certain purposes, was not a goal. The important thing for Gao was to be free, not to be prevented from doing or not doing anything that he wanted to, and as nobody can save other people, to engage in self-salvation. How does one then save oneself? The most important thing is to be master of one’s self. In his China period, Gao tended to think that hell was other people, as in Wild Man and especially The Other Shore, where the individual is always persecuted by the masses. During and after his Soul Mountain journey in 1983, he was inspired and enlightened. And it was at this time that Gao formulated his idea of escape, away from the center to the margins, and moving from the phenomenal to the spiritual. Thus began Gao’s inward turn and a liberalist view of freedom away from the distinction between the ideas of negative and positive of freedom, the absence of any kind of constraints in the realization of one’s true self. But for Gao, nothing is absolute, nor is anything or any idea worthy of permanent attachment. There is in his worldview a degree of spontaneity and contingency. His inward turn is relative to the outside and is built upon the basis of the external world, especially one made up of other people. His idea of freedom is not the “Übermensch”-like rejection of all that society represents and prescribes. He aspires to achieve freedom on his own terms within and without the confines of external factors that he acknowledges and lives with:

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there is no need for antagonism or subversion. And it was in real life and later in his play Escape (1990) that he realized that he had to “escape” to be free. Nonetheless, one is constantly mindful of the place from which one seeks to escape. The problem with many people, according to Gao, is that they want to be God and a hero; the Nietzschean “Übermensch” has no place in Gao’s scheme. As he rejected the heroic freedom of the West, he chose to return to the quiet solitude of Chan Buddhism, even though he claimed not to be a believer, protecting himself from the hustle and bustle of human society, and secluding himself in the real or imagined landscape of purity and simplicity, be it Soul Mountain, the primitive forests, or in unspoiled folk art and traditions. But one cannot be self-conscious on one’s own; one can, metaphorically, look at oneself in the mirror. This is an act of otherizing, regarding the self as the other or looking at the self from the other’s point of view. The frequent shifts in points of view are otherizing attempts at being self-conscious, in which “I” as “you,” “he,” or “she” takes a look back at the self. Or in his paintings we often find reference to a third eye that observes the self and the artwork as if in an act of self-examination. His first otherizing attempt was in The Other Shore (1986), in which Man is split into his double as Shadow playing out the drama of inner struggle. This is also evident in the novels Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible (1999), and his French plays, and culminating in the split personalities of This Man and That Man in The Man Who Questions Death. As in his search for artistic freedom, Gao is aware of the limitations of the human situation. As he demonstrates in Escape, one can escape from society and politics, but one cannot escape from oneself. Thus otherizing is an act of being self-conscious and free from the trap of the inherent nature of being human. Gao Xingjian is highly concerned about conservation, that is, the preservation of things as they were in the beginning, in their original state. He feels more at home with the unadulterated and the uncorrupted, including human nature, with its good and bad qualities, and with sex impulses that are innate and instinctive. It is also human nature to seek self-expression, thus any intervention, political, commercial or otherwise, is regarded as anathema and contrary to human nature. “Purity of origin” (Fong) is one of the recurrent themes in Gao’s writings and art. In The Other Shore, Man struggles to follow his heart; in Hades, Zhuang’s Wife follows her sexual instinct, and that gets her into trouble; even in the later Snow in August, Huineng’s illiteracy is an indication of his untainted knowledge of life and human nature. The pattern of victimization in Wild Man is evidently the negative manifestation of human intervention and corruption. Cutting down trees is an act against nature, which brings about the disaster of flooding in the city. The

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persecution of Old Singer and the censure and neglect of folk art by the government are described with a degree of indignation and sadness. And the hunt for Wild Man by the press, scientists and other parties is not short of predatory. The perpetration of these crimes against nature represents the harmful consequences of civilization, and a distortion of the original design of nature. The fact that in the end tree logging has been halted and “The Story of Darkness” is preserved bestows upon the play a certain degree of hopefulness of things to come. The dance of Little Mao and Wild Man in the last scene is also an optimistic sign of nature being restored, but because this happens in a dream, it casts doubts upon it ever becoming a reality. The desire for restoring things as they were is also evident in Gao’s longing for a return to the theaters of old. He talks about Greek theater, Artaud’s advocacy of Balinese theater, the narration techniques of the troubadours in ancient times, and the freedom in the deployment of space and time in classical Chinese theater, something that had been adopted by Bertolt Brecht. He also claims that there is a wonderland in folk art, which, like the primitive state in the unspoiled areas of nature reserves, is capable of becoming a treasure trove for the development of modern literature and art (“My View on Drama,” 176). Of course his aim is to accomplish a revival of the theater by going back to the old tradition of theatricality (180–1), but in the remembrance of things past he also mourns their passing and destruction, and that they were not allowed to develop according to their inherent natures and rules.

Concluding Remarks In 1985 when Wild Man was written, external intervention was very much on Gao Xingjian’s mind. On the one hand he had to acquiesce to the official requirements for literature and the arts, and on the other he must have felt discomfort in being forced to comply. External factors were an important factor in his pursuit of creative freedom, but it was short of trying to eradicate them through political means. This makes his yearning somewhat akin to Berlin’s “negative freedom.” However, he was more concerned with being left alone, that is, to have the freedom to be himself without outside interference, just like the forest and Wild Man in the play. As for the individual as an agent actively seeking freedom, this had to wait until Gao’s later plays starting with The Other Shore and culminating in Snow in August and The Man Who Questions Death. Even then it has to be an extremely personal and inner kind of freedom that paid no heed to external obstructions.

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Chan Buddhism considers freedom as the integration of the mind and the body-object; thus there is no differentiation. And in this way one’s understanding of one’s self-nature is complete and total, and one’s actions are spontaneous, and the body acts freely as it is accustomed to act without the command of the mind. The word “freedom” in Chinese is ziyou, and means: “originating in the self.” It is also “freedom expressive of the original human nature,” and a thing-event, which is a here-and-now reality, is “no other than an expression of suchness, i.e., it is such that it is showing its primordial mode of being” (Nagatomo). The insistence on getting back to the source has always been one of the central themes of Gao Xingjian’s ideas on art, literature, and the theater. This belief in the purity of origin has exerted tremendous influence on his thinking and outlook on life. Frequently in Gao’s career, he would revert to the fount, be it an original text, legend, theater, or what he considers primordial human nature, as inspiration for his work or as a refuge from the encroachment of politics and commercialism in the modern world, a world that has been corrupted and deprived of purity and innocence (Fong xv). The conflict in Wild Man is essentially between artifice and naturalness; destructive civilization and pre-civilization’s (mythical) authenticity; and between rationality and truth. In the case of Wild Man, the compulsion to go back to the origin and let nature develop according to its own rules is paramount.

Works Cited Berlin, Isaiah. “Two Concepts of Liberty.” Four Concepts of Liberty. By Isaiah Berlin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969. Print. Carter, Ian. “Positive and Negative Liberty.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. 2012. Web. . Chen, Xiaomei. Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in Contemporary China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2001. Print. Fong, Gilbert C. F. “Purity of Origin.” Of Mountains and Seas: A Tragicomedy of the Gods in Three Acts. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2008. vii–xvii. Print. Gao, Xingjian. Preliminary Explorations into the Techniques of Modern Fiction [Xiandai xiaoshuo jiqiao chutan]. Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe, 1981. Print. — “Me and Bertolt Brecht” [Wo yu Bulaixite]. In Search of Modern Theater [Dui yizhong xiandai xiju de zhuiqiu]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1988, 52–6. Print. — “Wild Man and Me” [Yeren he wo]. In Search of Modern Theater [Dui yizhong xiandai xiju de zhuiqiu]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1988. 137–9. Print. — “Night Talk at the Capital” [Jinghua yetan]. In Search of Modern Theater [Dui yizhong xiandai xiju de zhuiqiu]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1988. 152–242. Print.

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“Preface” [Zixu]. In Search of Modern Theater [Dui yizhong xiandai xiju de zhuiqiu]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1988. 1–3. Print. — Wild Man [Yeren]. Taipei: Lianhe wenxue, 2001. Print. — “My View on Drama” [Wo de xijuguan]. Wild Man [Yeren]. Taipei: Lianhe wenxue, 2001. 167–81. Print. Lin, Zhaohua, ed. Lin Zhaohua‘s Art of Directing [Lin Zhaohua de daoyan yishu]. Harbin: Beifang wenyi chubanshe, 1992. Print. Nagatomo, Shigenori. “Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2010 Edition). Ed. Edward N. Zalta. 2010. Web. .

Lin Gang

Toward an Aesthetics of Freedom As the twentieth century drew to a close, Gao Xingjian used the term “without isms” to bid farewell to modern Chinese literature’s situation of being flooded with the “isms” of that century. In 1996, he published his essays on literary and art creation as a collection, naming it Without Isms after the lead essay, “Without Isms.” 1 “Without Isms” is not a high-sounding manifesto of the sort commonly found in intellectual discourse of that time. Instead it is the crystallization of Gao Xingjian’s profound thinking about a society filled with “isms” and its implications for the individual and in particular the individual’s creative activities. His treatise is not aimed at sparking off a new trend or “ism” in literary and art circles, but merely seeks to state his views both as an individual and as a writer and artist about how “isms” have been manipulated by politics and turned into a contemporary social malaise to the detriment of the creative arts. Of particular importance is how he ties escape and freedom together closely, regarding freedom as the first essential for creative work, and escape as the only way of securing freedom. With that he opens up a path for an aesthetics that is premised on freedom. His thinking is grounded in his critical assessment of intellectual and literary trends in China since late-Qing times and the New Literature Movement of the early Republican era, as well as exploring the creative aesthetics contained in Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhist texts. He finds it imperative for Chinese intellectuals to reject their blind faith in “isms,” as well as re-examining China’s past cultural heritage.

Without Isms Starting in the late Qing, and then promoted and carried forward by the May Fourth New Literature Movement, democracy and the reinvigoration of the national spirit became closely linked with literature. Writers came to be regarded as buglers and drummers of the revolutionary movement, and their works flowed with the current of politics. Writing and social movements relied heavily on each other, accommodated each other, and went on to be essential to each other, and this has been the main stream of modern and contemporary Chinese literature. It should be noted that during those tumultuous hundred 1 Gao Xingjian’s critiques on literature and art are also collected in his Aesthetics and Creation and On Theater.

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years, as the political and social circumstances changed, the specific relationship between literature and political currents and social movements was not always the same, but constantly changed. At the beginning, literature took the initiative to draw close to politics, hoping to play a positive role in undertakings they mutually approved. But as political intervention deepened, it was a fundamental trend that politics took control of literature, and as a result literature gradually evolved into “a party activity.” This meant that a smaller and narrower space remained for writers to be creative, until the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, when political control became so extreme in all areas of life that literature was suffocated. Literature in those years could only serve as a footman and maidservant to politics. For modern Chinese literature, the previous century was one of circling around “isms.” Literary thinking also revolved around that axis of “isms” and politics. An “ism” was a conductor’s baton, and literature was a performer who danced under the direction of that baton. “Isms” changed depending on the time and the place. When the “ism” elicited a surge of passion, literature also enjoyed vitality, and urged everyone to advance bravely. When the “ism” became rigid and atrophied, literature became dull and inflexible. When the “ism” bared its fangs and brandished its claws, literature became a sham of hollow clamoring. Unfortunately, in the course of modern history, “isms” certainly failed to keep literature fresh and full of life. Literature degenerated into ideology’s dead dogma, into rope binding writers’ spirits and constraining their freedom of thought. The “ism” attached itself to literature, and then dragged it to an abyss from which there was no return. The twentieth century was a century of literary and political entanglement, and that entanglement ultimately headed down a blind alley. Gao Xingjian’s “without isms” is an attempt to steer a way out of that blind alley. From the early 1990s, Gao Xingjian began publishing his reflections on China’s twentieth century literary tradition, and these were published in his collection Without Isms.2 He appended “ism” to the negation “no,” or “being without,” a formulation contrary to the logic of the usual formulation. Since the 1950s, under the relentless harassment of campaigns and “isms,” the individual no longer had the ability to resist. What was not black was white, what was not a donkey was a horse, passivity was resistance, to remain silent was

2 Gao Xingjian’s literary philosophy shows a progressive course. The foundations of “without isms” can first be seen in his 1989 play Escape. His dramatis personae says: “Let me tell you, I don’t subscribe to any ism, I don’t need to. I’m a living human being.” (29). His ideas quickly matured, and in 1993 he published the treatise “Without Isms” that forms the lead essay in his collection Without Isms published in 1996.

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not an option. By that logic, to be “without isms” or not to take a political stance was also a kind of politics, and “without isms” is of course also a kind of “ism.” Gao Xingjian chose the term “without ism” probably thinking that he would not be spared the ridicule of being tagged with as a promoter of some new “ism,” so he took preemptive action by producing his own definition and interpretation. He said that “to be without” is a verb, so “without isms” is thus the elimination or absence of any ideology; that is, it has the sense of “no isms.” “Without isms” is not another ideology or “ism” (“Author’s Preface,” 25). The essence of “without isms” is rejection, the rejection of the authority of the writer and literature being subverted by any “ism.” “Without isms” is not dialectics, but instead the breaking with dialectics. He has none of the wild ambitions typical of those who set out to construct an ideology: he does not seek to replace the “isms” of others with his own “ism.” Rather, he wants to use his treatise to confirm the truth of the idea that refusing to let any “ism” erode, invade, or occupy one’s standpoint is the stance a writer ought to take. The constraints on thinking that ideology and politics imposed on twentieth-century Chinese literature and the disastrous effect on writer’s lives was painfully familiar to Gao Xingjian: Chinese literature in the twentieth century was worn out time and again, and indeed almost suffocated, because it was manipulated by politics. The revolution in literature and revolutionary literature alike passed death sentences on literature and the individual. The attack on China’s traditional culture in the name of revolution led to the public prohibition and burning of books. Countless writers have been shot, imprisoned, exiled or punished with hard labour over the past hundred years. Such measures were carried to greater extremes than during any imperial dynasty in China’s history, and created enormous difficulties for writings in the Chinese language and even more difficulties for discussions about creative freedom. (“The Case for Literature,” 33–4)

No matter how many explanations are advanced for China’s decades of literary mediocrity and the traumatic experiences authors, artists, and critics have suffered, the most important and definite one is of course that at the time ideology controlled popular feeling and politics dominated the fate of individuals. This ideology and politics left only painful memories for Gao Xingjian who had a visceral need to give aesthetic articulation to his creative impulses. Gao Xingjian’s experimental plays Bus Stop and Absolute Signal, and his book Preliminary Explorations into the Art of Modern Fiction were subjected to severe political censure in the early 1980s, and his play The Other Shore was prohibited after a few rehearsals during the “Campaign Against Bourgeois Liberalization” (1986). For many months he was forced to withdraw from literary circles.

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At first he was silent, but finally he could not accept the silence and chose to flee. If literature is considered a tool of politics, and the writer willingly agrees to serve as a tool, then he will simply embrace the required “ism” and be like a fish in water in his surroundings. But Gao Xingjian is uncompromising in his stance that literature is the expression of the thoughts and feelings of the individual writer, and cannot be coopted for any “great undertaking,” even if it is a “party undertaking.” Literature is the creation of the individual writer, and cannot and should not metamorphose into “the voice of the people,” nor can it represent society’s “conscience.” He puts it very clearly in the following passage: Literature basically has nothing to do with politics, but is purely a matter for the individual. It is the gratification of the intellect, together with an observation, a review of experiences, reminiscences and feelings, or the portrayal of a state of mind … The so-called writer is nothing more than an individual speaking or writing, and whether he is listened to or read is for others to choose. The writer is not a hero acting on the orders of the people, nor is he worthy of worship as an idol, but he is certainly not a criminal or an enemy of the people. At times he and his writings will encounter problems simply because of the need of others. When authorities need to manufacture a few enemies to divert people’s attention, writers become sacrifices. Worse still, writers who have been duped actually think it is a great honour to be sacrificed. (“Cold Literature,” 78)

The word “basically” is used well here. To say “literature basically has nothing to do with politics” implies that in some other situation literature did develop a relationship with politics, but that development was a departure from the essential nature of literature. In the original sense, literature can only be “purely a matter for the individual.” And the writer cannot be a “spokesperson,” nor can he get involved in so-called “great undertakings.” So what is the positive value of literature? Gao Xingjian believes that “literature testifies to human existence” (“Literature as Testimony,” 46). The testimony is that of a spectator. The witness is not a character, but rather an observer. The observer can only record what he sees and hears, and convey that to others. If the observer hates being neglected and jumps up on the stage to dance around waving a sword or a club, then he abandons the inherent quality of an observer and becomes a character. The highest duty of a witness is to record faithfully, not distort, and not omit anything. The testimony only has value if it is a faithful record. The value of literature lies in truth. For Gao Xingjian “truth has always been the most fundamental criterion of literature” (“Literature as Testimony,” 49). The world has many “isms.” Generally speaking there are two kinds, either associated with the ideology of the left or the ideology of the right. But Gao

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Xingjian does not approve of literature embracing any ideology. Once literature becomes entangled with ideology and politics, literature is sure to become the victim. Such entanglements may appear to enhance literature’s prestige, power, and social influence, but in fact deprives literature of its inherent nature, and forces literature to become a vassal of ideology and politics, whether that be bombastic ideology or low-key ideology, politics of the left or politics of the right. It is in this sense that Gao Xingjian criticizes Sartre. Sartre was a well-known postwar left-wing author who used his pen as a banner, expounding his theories in writing on behalf of the people, and even going so far as to take it to the streets. He became a symbol of protest against rightwing capitalism in that era. But Gao does not agree with the literary choice Sartre made, and believes that it is precisely because Sartre embraced leftwing politics in his writings that created obvious weak points in his literature. Gao Xingjian said: Sartre famously said, “Others are hell.” He called out for literature to engage in social criticism, but he forgot to look back upon humanity itself. Undoubtedly, for him the self too was hell. When revolutionaries and rebels overthrew the old world, they did not have time to recreate themselves so disasters stemming from the unlimited bloating of the self has plagued modern society. (“The Position of the Writer,” 11)

Gao’s warning expressed amid his criticism is profound. Protest-type literary concepts and ways of thinking were very popular during the past century, on both the left and the right. But born out of protest is another unboundedly inflated self. That self also did harm to literature. Gao Xingjian criticizes the left-wing Sartre, and he also criticizes the right-wing Solzhenitsyn. He is uncannily perceptive in his assessment of the Russian writer Solzhenitsyn, who received the Nobel Prize for literature thirty years before Gao did: Most of his books are political protest, and in his later years he once again participated in politics. Politics was what he cared about. It surpassed his identity as a writer … He sacrificed his career as a writer, and spent so many years on writing lengthy exposés of Soviet totalitarianism. But as soon as the regime collapsed, the archives could all be made public, so such works did not have such great significance any more. His life as a writer had been squandered. (“Of Writing Literature,” 53)

An individual’s choice of a political standpoint is of course irreproachable, but if a writer uses his literature to promote his political standpoint, his writing will not develop, but instead degenerate. The writer’s freedom to write will have been usurped by politics. For Gao Xingjian protest writings are not true literature, but merely the mouthpiece for ideology. The twentieth century was one in which ideology was all the rage, and writers made a mad scramble to embrace an ideology. To do so conferred

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on the writer fine sounding “titles,” such as “engineer of the human spirit,” “conscience of society,” “spokesman of the people,” etc. Enticed by such illusions, writers showed little clear-headedness. If they became popular, they would have a light and airy feeling and think they were a celestial being, and they would enjoy both fame and fortune. If they were persecuted, they would become tragic heroes who believed that they had suffered for the people, and were playing an important part in determining the course of history. This perception of themselves as tragic heroes confused writers, and as a result literature was sacrificed. Gao Xingjian is amongst a small number of writers who have a clear understanding that this is the case. He does not regard himself as a tragic figure even though his literary career had suffered in China. That literature has been construed as something so powerful has to do with the “Übermensch” esteemed by Nietzsche. The legacy of Nietzsche’s “Übermensch” lives on, with numerous followers, but Gao Xingjian has taken a clear stand against Nietzsche: In the last century, Nietzsche proclaimed that God is dead, and what he revered instead was the self. Literature in today’s China need not use that self to replace God. And besides, after Kafka, that self is dead too. This is an era in which old value systems are quickly dying. I think, rather than our literature being like that intoxicated Western god of wine Bacchus, we would do better to seek a clear understanding of the self and literature. That includes not overestimating the value of literature, for literature is just a representation of culture. As soon as we eliminate from literature the inappropriate self-awareness of those sorts of heroic and tragic leading roles, we can have an unpretentious, genuine literature. (“The Belated Arrival,” 102)

In the history of modern literary thought, whether Chinese or otherwise, since Nietzsche appeared on the scene, people have swarmed around him. But not so long ago, one after the other, those “Übermenschen” and “selves” changed into bodies with no flesh and blood, into “pseudo-Übermenschen” and “false selves.” Nietzsche had elevated the “self” to the status of a deity, whereas Gao Xingjian spurns the self-deification of people of letters. He restores writers and artists to their original state of ordinary people, “people who bear original sin.” It should be said that Gao’s understanding does not disparage the idea of literature or writers. However, while he does not flatter writers, he is unambiguous in his stance on the dignity of writers and the nature of literature.

Escape and Freedom A writer can be “without isms,” but when “isms” present themselves to a writer, what does he do? A writer pursues the freedom to write, but when

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political forces do not allow that, then what? A writer wants to be free and easy, doing whatever he pleases, but how does a writer cope with political and commercial enticement? Gao Xingjian’s answer is to combine freedom with escape. For him, freedom is life, as well as the most highly valued goal of writing, while escape is the way to attain these. Gao Xingjian clearly does not subscribe to the “wherever there is oppression there will be resistance” logic of struggle. Apart from resistance to persecution, he basically does not consider the question of whether or not resistance is the right and proper thing to do. What oppression provokes in him is not active resistance, but rather passive shrinking back and fleeing. Gao’s view seems to be at odds with conventional reasoning, but in fact stems from his strongly perceived mission in writing. A writer has a role to play in society, and his mission is to write. When there is the persecution of writers, if one follows the logic of struggle, and rises in resistance, then one becomes entangled and unable to extricate oneself. In that inescapable entanglement, whether one is on the winning side or the losing side, writing itself is certainly the loser, as writing will certainly be the prey that is ensnared. A writer using his pen as a banner, drumming and shouting on behalf of the people, and even taking it to the streets in protest, may in the process win fame and admiration, and even be conferred the title of “standard bearer.” But without exception, what is sacrificed is always his writing. Within the logic of struggle, a writer’s role actually changes. No longer is he a writer, but a fighter. Writing is abandoned, and sacrificed. If he hopes to preserve a slim chance of survival for his writing, and sustain his literature’s lifeline, then his only choice is to abandon the struggle logic and escape. It is for precisely this reason that Gao Xingjian advises that “it is best for a writer to stay on the margins of society” and “keep to his own role” (“The Belated Arrival,” 68–9). In his understanding, a writer is actually a “marginalized person” in society. Here, “marginalized” is meant in the sense of not having allegiance to any ideological, political, or commercial interests. This is because only by not participating in resistance, struggle, or entanglement can the writer succeed in playing his own role well. That he chose to escape shows that Gao Xingjian has reflected deeply on the course of modern literature. His distancing himself from ideology, politics, and the market was not out of fear, and certainly not an abandonment of his responsibility to literature. Instead it was out of a desire to secure freedom. Freedom is not obtained only through engagement in struggle. It is obtained by continual escape. Gao Xingjian has said: If the writer sought to win intellectual freedom, he could either fall silent or flee. Because the writer relies on language, not to speak for a prolonged period is the same as commit-

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ting suicide. If he sought to avoid committing suicide or being silenced, and to express himself in his own voice, he had no option but to go into exile. Surveying the history of literature in both the East and the West, this has always been so: from Qu Yuan to Dante, Joyce, Thomas Mann, Solzhenitsyn and the large numbers of Chinese intellectuals who went into exile after the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989. This is the inevitable fate of the poet or writer who sets out to preserve his own voice. (“The Case for Literature,” 34)

Writers are always categorized as an isolated and weak group, and if they are persecuted, they have only two choices: to stay silent or to escape. Staying silent equates to the end of a writer’s life, so the only choice is to flee. Yet, escape is not the ultimate goal. It is just that in a world in which without escape one will not find freedom, escape and freedom are tied together closely. For Gao Xingjian, freedom is a word with several layers of meaning, a word which coincides in places with freedom in the commonly used sense – an inalienable right – but in other places the two do not coincide. Freedom implies rights an individual possesses, and Gao concurs with that point. Much of the time, the escape of which he speaks refers to action taken in circumstances purporting to the infringement and deprivation of an individual’s rights by political forces. China’s modern literary history has many examples of this, including his own escape from China to France. Instead of remaining in China to pursue the path of political action to secure his right to freedom of expression as a writer, he chose alienation and withdrawal to achieve this right. To regard freedom as Gao Xingjian understands it as being merely part of an individual’s rights in society, would be far from adequate. The freedom that he doggedly pursues also encompasses a profound philosophical dimension, and cannot be explained in terms of individual rights. His understanding of freedom refers to developing “the self” in a philosophical sense, and implies relying on oneself and not on others, what is called being leisurely and carefree, like a heavenly steed soaring across the skies, free and unfettered and beyond any laws. Freedom in that sense means that rather than breaking the bonds imposed by external powers it would be better to break the bonds of internal confusion and obstacles. In terms of a person’s entire life, that freedom is a process without limits, like a bird soaring through the sky, and never even momentarily stopping. Only in that sense does freedom truly exist. For him what constrains freedom are less forces external to the self, but rather the enticements emanating from the self. Such enticements are innate, exist until death, and constitute a formidable enemy to freedom in one’s lifetime. To contend with these enticements requires a lifetime of asceticism and enlightenment. Only then can one achieve development of the self, and reach the realm of freedom. Since freedom for Gao Xingjian has this sort of nature, escape cannot be a single episode. To obtain freedom in the sense of rights, one could

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in general say that a person obtains freedom by escaping from a totalitarian regime to the “free world.” But obtaining “free world” freedom does not equate to obtaining existential freedom. “Free world” freedom can be realized in one step, while existential freedom requires a lifetime of searching. It is in this sense that Gao Xingjian speaks through a character in one of his plays: “It’s in a man’s destiny to escape” (Escape 27). Since it is fate, it accompanies a person through his entire life. So long as one passionately loves that freedom, one will passionately seek to escape, for it is only by escaping that one reaches that pure realm of freedom which Gao Xingjian relentlessly pursues. Gao Xingjian relocated to Paris at the end of the 1980s. But he certainly did not stop pondering about freedom simply because he was in the “free world.” On the contrary, he found numerous challenges to freedom in that “free world.” There too, “isms,” politics, and ideology prevailed alongside omnipresent market and commercial forces. Gao Xingjian observed: The humanism of the Enlightenment treated freedom as a person’s natural right at birth, and this was an appeal for reason. But although the liberalism of modern times had humanism as its starting point, it utilized freedom and human rights as banners and was an ideology, instead of indicating the true situation of human existence in present times. Freedom has to be fought for by people themselves, and even in democratic societies it is not conferred without cost, especially in the case of freedom of thought. When confronted by practical advantages and the laws of the market, freedom and human rights are often reduced to so much empty rhetoric. (“Freedom and Literature,” 229–30)

Today, after centuries of fighting for freedom in Western societies, freedom certainly has not changed into something that can be enjoyed and taken lightly. Freedom has become an issue more than in any era of the past. In the modern age, both political and market forces aggressively erode the individual’s freedom. The market is like an “invisible hand,” and what it seizes is money, and what is lost is freedom. The situation today is as Gao Xingjian describes it: … the market economy has become pervasive and books have likewise become commodities. There are huge undiscriminating markets everywhere. Not just individual writers but even the literary groups and movements of the past are floundering. If the writer does not bend to market pressures and refuses to stoop to the manufacturing of cultural products by writing to satisfy fashions and trends, then he must make a living by some other means. Literature is not a bestselling book or one on a ranked list, and authors promoted on television are engaged in advertising rather than writing. (“The Case for Literature,” 46)

Fundamentally speaking, “isms” and ideology are common to all human societies, regardless of the socio-political organization of that society. Of course the

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impact of “isms” and ideology on the writer will depend on the specific nature of the “isms” and ideology, as well as other factors, such as to what extent these are imposed and then enforced. A writer must recognize that once he decides to pick up a pen, freedom becomes a problem he must face. Open threats and thinly veiled persecution may come knocking at his door, and the lure of profit and the attraction of monetary gain are present everywhere. An openly brandished spear can be blocked, but a knife in the back is impossible to fend off. Persecution is easy to identify, while enticement is something one may want to resist but for whatever reason find it hard to do so. The freedom to write is thus full of paradox and perplexity. At times, a writer feels he has escaped the Devil’s clutches, and assumes that he holds freedom in his hands. Who could know that freedom does not really exist, that it is only an illusion? With writers who choose to escape, some flee beyond the control of political forces, yet cannot escape the lure of profit, and even less so can they escape self-delusion and self-made obstacles. Such situations take shape because these writers have only a shallow understanding of what it means to escape, and their pursuit of freedom has stopped too soon. As far as writing is concerned, freedom is not static, and escape therefore is a process without end. It is in that sense that Gao Xingjian sees escape as humanity’s fate. His escape encompasses two meanings, the body’s escape and the mind’s escape. Physical escape is easily accomplished, while mental escape is not. The physical body can cross oceans and seas, escaping a proverbial 10,000 miles, but if the mind remains back where it started, then the escape is superficial and in vain. The mind’s escape requires the purification of thought and spirit. Gao Xingjian himself went through those two kinds of escape, because he sees escape as fate, and he sees escape as liberation. Liberation means emancipation of body and mind, being free, unfettered, and at ease, and being one’s own master. Through escape, attain liberation of body and mind; through escape, attain freedom of expression in writing, or other forms of expression. Gao Xingjian said, “To be without isms is a great liberation. Intellectual freedom means not being shackled by isms and thus being able to roam the cosmos like the Heavenly Horse, to come and to go as one will” (“Author’s Preface,” 30). The fetters of ideology are embodied not only in political control and manipulation, but also embodied in captivity by the power of thought. By escaping physically one can escape political control and manipulation, but not necessarily escape captivity by the power of thought. Ideological concepts may have laid down their arms and surrendered, but imperceptibly, no matter where a person physically is, he can be a slave to ideology. Gao Xingjian practices what he preaches; not only expounding on

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the nature of escape, but also undertaking escape in practice. What he thinks and what he does are the same. Liu Zaifu summarizes this as “a Gao Xingjian state.” Because a state of escape is a state of freedom, for those who actually pick up a pen and write, the literary state is a state of freedom. Gao Xingjian’s understanding of the nature of literature and the proposition he put forth about escape has resulted in what he calls “cold literature.” His plays and novels are rare examples of “cold literature” in contemporary Chinese-language writing. In his words, “cold literature entails fleeing in order to survive; it is literature that refuses to be strangled by society in its quest for spiritual salvation” (“Cold Literature,” 81). The proliferation of ideologies in the twentieth century made literature burn with intense emotional fervor: writers posed as saviors, and were proud of being spokespersons for the people. Gao Xingjian did the very opposite, and created cold literature “without isms.” His literature is grave, stern, and profound, straightforwardly exploring the difficulties of modern human existence. It brims with wisdom, and is full of human warmth. It is literary testimony seldom encountered in this era.

Opening up Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism in the Contemporary Era Combining freedom with the “negative” life orientation of escape, isolation, and self-marginalization is actually an Eastern tradition with a long history. It is substantively different from the concepts of Western thinkers who have probed freedom in the general framework of political and legal systems. Both use the word “freedom” or words of similar meaning. But there are identical, similar, and different connotations in what is called freedom in Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhist texts on the one hand and the term “freedom” in Western discourse dealing with individual rights on the other hand. This is an issue that still awaits investigation in comparative intellectual history. Isaiah Berlin differentiated between positive freedom and negative freedom, but what he called negative freedom is undifferentiated from an ordinary discussion of rights within political and legal systems.3 But what is called freedom in Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhist texts is never discussed in the context of rights. It is not freedom in the sense of a political and legal system. Of course, freedom may

3 According to Isaiah Berlin, negative freedom “is involved in the answer to the question ‘What is the area within which the subject – a person or group of persons – is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?’” (169).

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relate to political and legal systems, but more importantly it points to existential issues of real individuals in life. By Zhuangzi’s time, moral concepts and social relationships, as well as social and political institutions, were already seen as shackles that strangled an individual’s freedom. The strangulation was not due to inherent evil in these, but due to the fact that, by nature, moral concepts, political and social institutions, and social relationships are incompatible with freedom. The sayings “When the Great Dao (Way or Method) ceased to be observed, benevolence and righteousness came into vogue” and “When the states and clans fell into disorder, loyal ministers appeared” (Legge 61), found in chapter 18 of the Daodejing, refer to that situation. The degeneration of human nature had resulted in the emergence of political and social institutions that put an end to the Great Dao, and these institutions continually eroded, and expropriated and hindered the freedom of the individual. It is from this understanding that the King of Chu invited Zhuangzi to take an official post. Zhuangzi used the sacred tortoise shell enshrined in a temple as an analogy in his chapter “Autumn Floods,” saying that the tortoise did not seek to “be dead and have its bones preserved as objects of veneration” (164), but only sought a life “dragging its tail through the mud” (164). In the chapter “Ultimate Joy,” Zhuangzi’s wife had died, and at first he was very sad. Then he banged on an upturned basin and sang, to break free of grief and return to the Great Dao, considering himself lucky despite his wife’s death (168–9). In Zhuangzi’s view, social institutions and the practices they generate are “things” which restrict the free spirit; and these “things” turn people into servants, depriving them of their freedom. In the chapter “On the Equality of Things,” Zhuangzi says: In our strife and friction with other things, we gallop forward on our course unable to stop. Is this not sad? We toil our whole life without seeing any results. We deplete ourselves with wearisome labor, but don’t know what it all adds up to. Isn’t this lamentable? (14)

As long as these “things” exist, freedom cannot be manifested. Only by casting off these things from one’s physical reality, can one move free and unfettered like a roc leaping into the sky and soaring for 10,000 miles. Zhuangzi does not use the word “freedom,” but his term “free and unfettered” accurately conveys the meaning of what we call freedom here. Whether Zhuangzi himself retired from public life to spend his time among forests and streams is something we have no way of knowing, but he certainly did escape throughout his life. In Sima Qian’s eyes, Zhuangzi’s “words billowed and swirled without restraint, to please himself, and so from kings and dukes down, the great men could not utilize him” (24). He had a well-known way of comparing a life

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involved in politics, the state, and human relationships in his chapter “The Great Ancestral Teacher” with a life distanced from those things: “When springs dry up, fish huddle together on the land. They blow moisture on each other and keep each other wet with their slime. But it would be better if they could forget themselves in the rivers and lakes” (53). For Zhuangzi, swimming freely in rivers and lakes was freedom. Buddhism was imported from India to the central plains of China, and, gradually mingling with the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi, Chan Buddhism came into being. In contrast to the study of Laozi and Zhuangzi, Chan Buddhism did not have as its aim returning to “nature” or “achieving the Dao.” Instead its aim was to bring into play the “Buddha nature” that everyone has. Nevertheless, both devote effort to breaking free of worldly shackles, enabling the individual to attain mental and physical freedom and release. Chan has two main points. One is that by purification of the mind, everyone can become a Buddha. The second is, self-nature guides itself, seeking no external help. The Sixth Patriarch of Chan, Huineng, said, “Good friends, bodhi is the wisdom of prajñā. People of this world possess it fundamentally and naturally. It is only because your minds are deluded that you are unable to become enlightened yourselves” (McRae 28). The source of all of the confusion and worries of the stupid people in the world lies in their own misconceptions and lack of understanding. Our minds are like the sun and the moon, emanating their own radiance; but they cannot shine brightly because of obscuring clouds. And the clouds blocking the light of the sun and moon are people’s stupidity, confusion, and worries. As soon as the clouds are swept away, radiance illuminates everything. That is the original meaning of the verse in the legend of the Fifth Patriarch passing on the light of Buddha, which reads, “Fundamentally there is not a single thing – Where could any dust be attracted?” (McRae 22). It is because Buddha nature is within oneself that relying on any power external to the self, no matter what god or Buddha that might be, to sweep away the obstruction of stupidity, confusion, and worries, will always be to no avail, one can only rely on oneself. Huineng said it very clearly, Good friends, why don’t we all say [simply] “sentient beings are limitless, and we vow to save them all”? How should we say it? Certainly it’s not me who’s doing the saving! Good friends, the “sentient beings of our own minds” are the mental states of delusion, confusion, immorality, jealousy, and evil. All these are sentient beings, and we must all [undergo] automatic salvation of the self-nature. This is called true salvation. What is “automatic salvation of the self-nature”? It is to use correct views to save the sentient beings of false views, afflictions, and stupidity within our own minds. Having correct views, we may use the wisdom of prajñā to destroy the sentient beings of stupidity and delusion, automatically saving each and every one of them. (McRae 48)

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Huineng’s “self-crossing” is self-salvation. An individual’s worldly salvation does not come from gods, Buddhas, or other saviors. An individual can only save himself. The various names for saviors used in the world are in themselves confusion that blocks wisdom, and should be on the discard list. Gao Xingjian endorses Chan Buddhist thinking. He considers Huineng a great thinker, and says Chan wisdom deserves to be well understood by people in general. Chan, a way of thinking that emerged in China in the seventh and eighth centuries, is unfamiliar in contemporary China. In the previous century, the entire Chinese population was enveloped by the passionate demand to “save the nation.” The “save the nation” drive eased, but then there was apprehension about “being stripped of global citizenship,” so everyone was constantly busy with saving the people, saving the country, saving the world, seeking external help, and worshipping ideology. “Self-rescue” had long since been discarded in a forgotten corner. At the end of the century, Gao Xingjian retrieved it, and although he did not take the stance of issuing a clarion call, he did propose “self-rescue” for literature and for writers, undoubtedly as a sharp warning. His aesthetic preferences and mental state form a single continuous line with Chan. In the turbulent contemporary world, Gao takes Chan’s original intent of purification and its notion of relying on oneself and not others and brings these into relevance for present times. For example, Chan says that people have the Buddha nature in themselves, while Gao Xingjian says “People are born without isms, but after birth various types of isms are foisted upon them, so that if they try to get rid of them later it is not a simple matter. People can change from one sort of ism to another, but they are not permitted to be without isms. The world is strange like this” (“Author’s Preface,” 29). A writer should understand what is inherently spontaneous in his original self, and realize that people are not born with ideologies and other externally imposed constraints. Perhaps people were overwhelmed by imaginary fears, or lost their way and strayed from the original path. By adopting ideologies and the like, writers stifled their own literary and artistic freedom. The urgent task for the writer at present is “to be one’s own master” and to do this one “must first cleanse oneself of other people’s isms” (“Author’s Preface,” 29). By eliminating ideologies the writer restores what is inherently spontaneous in his original self, and this is revealed in his writings. Another example is that Chan advocates “the self-nature guiding itself,” and this requires first of all “self-salvation.” Gao Xingjian believes that, In saving the nation and saving the people, if the individual is not saved first, then ultimately it will all be a lie, or at least empty talk. What is important is still for the individual to save himself. In such a big nation and country, if the individual cannot save himself, then how is the nation and the country to be saved? So nothing is more immediate than self-salvation. (“Noted in Paris,” 21)

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Self-salvation is tightly bound up with a true writer’s artistic life. Creative freedom is merely beautiful wording, or perhaps an attractive slogan. That sort of freedom never comes from other people, that is to say no one confers it, nor can it be won, it comes only from the writer himself. You gain spiritual freedom only if you first save yourself. (“Noted in Paris,” 22)

A writer who hopes to have a good understanding of things must first of all not wrongly assume that freedom is bestowed, or retained without constant struggle. Freedom is a product of the inner spiritual realm that is manifested by an awareness of that need for inner freedom. Still another example: Chan proposes an existence that is distanced from the mundane world; Gao Xingjian denotes this as escape. He says, In ancient times resorting to living as a recluse or feigning madness in order to save one’s life may be categorized as escape. Modern society is not necessarily more civilized. Killings continue, and there are more ways of killing. So-called self-criticism is one of these. If you refuse to submit to the self-criticism or to comply with requirements, then the only option is to remain silent. But remaining silent is a form of suicide, a form of spiritual suicide. A person who refuses to being killed or to killing himself can only flee. Escape is actually the only way of self-salvation, both in past and present times. (“Noted in Paris,” 21)

From the foregoing, it can be seen how Gao Xingjian’s understanding of freedom is embedded in Daoist and Chan Buddhist thinking. However, what is important is that he has applied this understanding of freedom to probe existential problems for the individual in contemporary times. As a writer who is intent on exploring all aspects of literary creation, this understanding of freedom manifests itself both in his creative works and in his analytical essays critiquing the creative process.

Concluding Remarks Gao Xingjian focused on China’s modern literary tradition that began to take shape in an era of patriotic fervor to “save the nation.” His notion of “without isms” openly challenges that literary tradition, and draws on the wisdom of Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism. The need to “save the nation” has receded into the past, but the freedom of the writer is still compromised by state ideology, and must furthermore contend with manipulation by market forces. So how can a person break free from these layers of encirclement, and attain freedom? A serious writer has no choice but to seek answers. In a fundamental sense,

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there is no difference between that and the stupidity, confusion, and worries Huineng had confronted in his time. In this sense, the conflicts engendered as people directly face existence are eternal, constant, and unchanging, and it is the same with freedom. Like Huineng’s journeying north to Huangmei in search of enlightenment, Gao Xingjian made a long and difficult journey to Soul Mountain. The enlightenment Gao Xingjian attained was escape, escape from ideology, escape from politics, escape from the country, escape from the marketplace, escape from commerce, and escape from the self. Gao’s notion of escape bears no trace of the emotional or the tragic, but has profound connotations. Because freedom is premised on escape, freedom and escape are contiguous: at the moment when freedom is renounced, escape simultaneously vanishes. Moreover, escape is not a single, but a lifelong pursuit. His explanation of “without isms” contains no profound mysteries, yet while understanding it is easy, putting it into practice is hard. There is an ancient saying that “A few scaly things become dragons and fly away; the frogs remain with protruding eyes.” Only a few know the root of wisdom and will cultivate themselves according to the Dao; most people remain stupid or strive in vain. Everyone originally had the Dao, but confusion and obstacles proliferated and obscured it. Escape is easy to explain, but difficult for one to accomplish. Without doubt, the “without isms” Gao expounds does not purport to be something that all should follow, or imply that this is the way to self-nature. Nonetheless in the world of written language, thoughts are inevitably communicated, and it is likely that Gao Xingjian’s proposal of “without isms” will provoke prolonged reverberations in serious writers and critics.

Works Cited Berlin, Isaiah. Liberty. Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty. Ed. Henry Hardy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Print. Gao, Xingjian. Without Isms [Meiyou zhuyi]. Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu youxian gongsi, 2000. Print. — “Noted in Paris” [Bai Suibi]. Without Isms [Meiyou zhuyi]. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu youxian gongsi, 2000. 21–8. Print. — “Of Writing Literature” [Lun wenxue xiezuo]. Without Isms [Meiyou zhuyi]. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu youxian gongsi, 2000. 29–85. Print. — “The Belated Arrival of Modernism and Contemporary Chinese Literature” [Chidao de xiandaizhuyi yu dangjin zhongguo wenxue]. Without Isms. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu youxian gongsi, 2000. 98–107. Print. — The Case for Literature [Wenxue de liyou]. Hong Kong: Mingbao chubanshe, 2001. Print. — Escape & The Man Who Questions Death. Trans. Gilbert Fong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2007. Print.

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The Case for Literature. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; and New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. Print. — “Author’s Preface to Without Isms.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; and New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. 25–31. Print. — “Literature as Testimony: The Search for Truth.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; and New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2006. 49–63. Print. — “Cold Literature.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; and New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2006. 78–81. Print. — “The Case for Literature.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; and New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2006. 32–48. Print. — Aesthetics and Creation [Lun chuangzuo]. Taipei: Lianjing, 2008. Print. — Aesthetics and Creation. Trans. Mabel Lee. Amherst, NY: Cambria, 2012. Print. — “The Position of the Writer.” Aesthetics and Creation. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Mabel Lee. Amherst NY: Cambria, 2012. 1–19. Print. — “Freedom and Literature.” Aesthetics and Creation. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Mabel Lee. Amherst NY: Cambria, 2012. 227–35. Print. — and Gilbert C. F. Fong. On Theater [Lun xiju]. Taipei: Lianjing, 2010. Print. Legge, James, trans. The Sacred Books of China. The Texts of Taoism, Part I. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968. Print. Liu, Zaifu. Gao Xingjian’s Stance [Lun Gao Xingjian zhuangtai]. Hong Kong: Mingbao, 2000. Print. McRae, John R., ed. The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. Trans. John R. McRae. Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2000. Print. Sima, Qian [Ssu-ma, Chi’en]. The Grand Scribe’s Records. Ed. by William H. Nienhauser, Jr. Trans. Tsai-fa Cheng et al. Vol. VII: The Memoirs of Pre-Han China. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994. Print. Zhuangzi [Chuang Tzu]. Wandering on the Way. Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu. Trans. Victor H. Mair. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1994. Print.

Zhang Yinde

Gao Xingjian Carefree: Of Mountains and Seas and Carefree as a Bird The discussion here is drawn from Carefree Roaming, the well-known opening section of the Zhuangzi, mainly because Gao Xingjian uses the word “carefree” in many places in his writings. When he speaks of freedom, he employs the idea of freedom, yet he also uses the word “carefree.” France celebrated the Year of Gao Xingjian in Marseilles in 2003, and he wrote a long poem in French titled L’Errance de l’oiseau especially for an exhibition of his art. The poem was subsequently used in part by its author as off-screen narration in the movie Silhouette/Shadow. Interestingly, Gao Xingjian himself translated the poem into Chinese, and chose for its title “Xiao Yao Ru Niao” (“carefree as a bird”). Thus it would seem that a discussion of the theme of freedom in Gao Xingjian’s works is a good place to start. Gao Xingjian indeed devotes much attention to the subject of individual freedom, believing as he does that the source of modern man’s predicament lies in various political and environmental factors. Striving for individual freedom while breathing the same air as the rest of the world has become a fundamental orientation of Gao Xingjian’s creative works. Combining existentialism with the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi led him to abandon the ontology of freedom, cast off the constraints of the current knowledge system and rational discourse, and adopt phenomenological aesthetics, putting the liberation of individual awareness firmly in experience of the world, in its corporal apprehension. Gao Xingjian’s rewriting of China’s ancient mythology provides a key for investigating this theme. The drama Of Mountains and Seas and the long poem “Carefree as a Bird” encapsulate a series of images in that regard, and constitute multi-dimensional metaphors and symbols of the pursuit of freedom. This discussion strives to review the creation of themes with mythological factors, and revolves mainly around three aspects. First, we examine the myth of Hou Yi shooting the suns, using the ambiguous relationship between the hero and the suns to reflect on actions that fetter internal and external motivation. Second, our focus is on the images of the fabulous roc spreading its wings and taking flight, and the heavenly steed soaring across the sky, because these images provide a wealth of space in which to discuss visualizations such as the individual breaking through time and space, rising above the ordinary, and sailing freely through the cosmos. The third and final aspect concerns the author’s depiction of the mythical Kunlun Mountain and his revision of it: the

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sacred mountain towers in the center, stillness amidst movement, setting up a dialectic with the idea of being free and easy. From that we can see the individual identify the center and concentrate his attention, shift from external roaming to internal roaming, and change journeys of form and structure into journeys of the spirit. But this is absolutely not a triumphal return of the ego; instead it is a representation of self-evanescence. Kunlun Mountain is an analogy for primal chaos, and the individual is returned to primeval chaos, with heaven and earth spinning, and the individual being as one with nature. In brief, all these images and metaphors have caused Gao Xingjian to transform individual predestination into fate.

Heroic Myth and Freedom of Action Of Mountains and Seas spurns the dramatization of royal lives and Confucian moral judgment. Mainly based on Yuan Ke’s philological investigations, the play uses artistic forms in seeking to restore the original appearance of the various gods of ancient times (Liu 4). This approach by Gao Xingjian helps us get close to the original form of the myths. At the same time, it sets up a kind of metaphorical relationship between that and the fate of the characters, and thereby explores paired phrases and interaction between the drama Of Mountains and Seas and the poem “Carefree as a Bird.” The character Hou Yi serves as an example. This half-human, half-divine hero is given a mission by Tian Jun, to descend to the human world and shoot down nine suns in order to save humankind from calamity. But as a consequence he is banished from heaven, and later deserted by his wife Chang’e. Ultimately he dies from a beating at the hands of a cudgel-wielding mob. The unspoken but obvious implication of what happened to the pitiable and ridiculous “hero” Hou Yi is not hard to understand: in the face of great power, the individual has no freedom of which to speak. Any supposed choice is in reality always an illusion, and it is always impossible to avoid heading into a dead end. Hou Yi assumes that his descending to the world of mortals to rescue humankind is a task for which he has volunteered, a heavy responsibility that he has taken upon himself. Little does he realize that from the start he has merely been “ordained” to “obey an order” from the Celestial Emperor. By the time Hou Yi suffers his fate of being beaten to death, all this is nothing more than an extension of what has been arranged by the will of heaven. Gao Xingjian portrays a course of action leading to death’s door, beyond that he keeps a tight grip on the invisible clues in the original version of the myth, so as to make known the deep psychology of the characters. At first

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look, Hou Yi’s shooting of the suns seems to be a case in which the suns are set up as adversaries. Hou Yi was expelled by Di Jun, and perished by the will of heaven, as would be expected of a victim crushed by power. But this explanation ought not make us overlook the multi-stranded relationship between Hou Yi and that power. First of all, Hou Yi did not abdicate his divine nature by descending to the world of mortals. Tracing this to its source, Hou Yi was originally a part of the divine system of the suns. In the story it could be asserted that another factor to be considered might be that the younger Hou Yi was trying to seize power from his elders. The character “hou” in Hou Yi’s name is similar to the word in the term Huang Tian Hou Tu (“heaven and earth,” in which “hou tu” is literally “monarch-land”); it is a tag for his regal status. In that same vein, the character “shoot” means to let loose an arrow, and perhaps it also hints at the suns radiating all around, and a similarity between Hou Yi and the suns that suggests he is complicit in a power struggle. So looking back over his expedition to the world of mortals, it seems it was not undertaken entirely as an assigned task. Hou Yi’s goal of being a hero and his motivation to do so must not be overlooked. Leaving aside the course of his actions, and looking closely at the pattern of his conduct, one can see that he is not without an air of arrogance, and considers himself to be a “Hercules.” He shows off his boundless divine powers everywhere. His success in exterminating evil things and savage beasts cannot go unnoticed, but he goes on to murder He Bo, and to attempt to conquer Mi Fei, the nymph desperately sought in Qu Yuan’s Encountering Sorrow at Parting and celebrated throughout the ages in Cao Zhi’s Ode to the Goddess of the River Luo. These actions seem difficult to justify, and moreover somewhat overstep his mission. What Hou Yi reveals here is his martial prowess as the archer god, sweeping away all enemies before him, and displaying his stunning domination in archery. Nevertheless, this illusion of supremacy in archery is not enough to alter the fate heaven has decreed for him. It is not until his life is almost at an end that the hero finally realizes the error of his ways and admits that he has been a puppet to power all along. The dramatist uses the voice of the gods Li and Chong to ridicule Hou Yi for overestimating his strength and for his vain attempt to take over the world by striving to outdo others in everything (Of Mountains and Seas 82). In the end, Hou Yi himself realizes that no one is a hero who delivers “salvation,” and that no one can establish an “immortal track record of great feats.” He laments being someone “rejected by Heaven, earth and men” (67), and that his life has been that of a “hero for nothing” (67). Hou Yi’s awakening to reality is accompanied by his suffering. He seems to want to tell ordinary people that he is both someone harmed by authority and the prey of authority, and a victim of his own ambiguous relationship with authority.

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The depiction of individual freedom of action in myth in Of Mountains and Seas is replicated in other of Gao’s dramatic works, such as Escape and Snow in August. But it is the interplay with his novels that best illustrate how myth and reality reflect each other. The draft of Of Mountains and Seas was completed in 1989, and went to press almost simultaneously with his novel Soul Mountain. The source material for both of them either was or at least reflects back upon the ancient Classic of Mountains and Seas; also, more importantly, escape, seclusion, and (Buddhist/Daoist) wandering constitute themes common to both works. The protagonist stays far from the capital, deep in wild, mountainous country, where the clamor of politics is replaced by witchcraft and folk songs, and the narrative in the works is about a dual exile, both forced and self-imposed. One Man’s Bible, written ten years later, uses the language of a novel even more to intensify and rewrite the theme of a hero’s self-reflection. The protagonist somewhat regrets being hot-headed during the Cultural Revolution, depicting his urge to make revolution and rebel in those years as an “apostolic” passion, and vowing never again to be toyed with by any “savior.” He places his fate in his own hands, saying that if he must be an apostle, then he will be his own (238).

Carefree Roaming The shattering of heroic myth exudes the longing to roam free and unfettered. That theme is manifested and developed in Of Mountains and Seas and “Carefree as a Bird.” Of Mountains and Seas depicts a series of events in which Hou Yi is banished, and then wanders about free and unfettered (44). Hou Yi and He Bo’s wife, Mi Fei, meet by chance, and he persuades her to accompany him to faraway places, to the “edge of the sky and the end of the world” (47) to enjoy themselves to the full, free and unfettered! He fearlessly travels alone, climbing mountains and fording rivers to arrive at Mount Yu, that is, the Kunlun Mountain, for an audience with Xi Wangmu, the Queen Mother of the West, to obtain an elixir of immortality (50). Hou Yi’s unjust death is certainly not the coda to his roaming to faraway places. The script arranges a successor character for Hou Yi, that is, Shou Ma, thus giving him a kind of rebirth. Judging by where Shou Ma goes, he can indeed be called a reincarnation of Hou Yi. As a spirit “his eyes and his nose … [being] one” with “no distinction” (73), Shou Ma does not “belong anywhere … [but] just wander[s] all over the world” (74). From performing artists who speak and sing we learn that Shou

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Ma is free to “come and go without a trace” (74), and that “even the Heavenly Emperor himself can’t restrain [him]” (74). For Hou Yi to change into this fantastic spirit is not strange, because Hou Yi carries the genes of a free and unfettered bird. According to the explanation of the character Yi in the Han Dynasty dictionary Shuowen jiezi, “Yi, yu zhi yi feng,” “yi” means “on the whirlwind made by a bird spreading its wings.” Duan Yucai, an annotator of the Shuowen, adds, “Meaning the state of rising due to wind.” Such a dynamic etymology for Hou Yi’s name provides evidence of his close relationship to a free and unfettered bird, and it serves as a transition and foreshadowing of Gao Xingjian’s freely roaming bird revision. And in the long poem “Carefree as a Bird,” see how he makes the idea of freedom generate taking flight: If you are a bird Nothing more than a bird You rise with the wind You fly as you please With your eyes wide open You look at the world below This big mass of chaos You fly across the muddy swamp Above all the troubles At ease and carefree

The poem must be called a direct reference to and rewriting of the Zhuangzi’s fable of the roc (Chen 1: 1–3). Gao Xingjian uses a terse modern language poem to change the artistic concept of the roc beating its wings and leaping into the air to roam a proverbial thousand miles, while at the same time pointing out the importance of the theme of “roaming” in his works. His novels and his paintings alike often show a sharp contrast with Hou Yi’s so-called freedom of action. Soul Mountain emphasizes, “humans are basically free-flying birds” (465), and that he wants “to be carefree and happy” (465). Also many of his ink paintings depict images of “bird men,” “walkers,” or “sleepwalkers” (Another Kind of Aesthetics 118). Although Gao Xingjian does not hesitate when wielding pen and ink, and has produced many depictions of roaming, expressing the idea of breaking free of political and material fetters and delighting in loafing in faraway places, what he wants to emphasize is a kind of game which rises above the ordinary, roaming in the Daoist doctrine of inaction with no purpose whatsoever, that is, roaming free and unfettered in the true sense. This is a direct response to the end of the first part of the Zhuangzi’s “Carefree Wandering:” “The ultimate man has no self, the spiritual person has no accomplishment, and the sage has no name” (5–6).

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This sort of Daoist inaction of wandering is actually a kind of game. From the perspective of creative work, it is often manifested as textual games, a leisurely tour of perfect agreement between theme and form. The size of Gao Xingjian’s 81-chapter masterpiece, Soul Mountain, is not accidental, and makes the dual journey of the protagonist’s actual location and his innermost being a possibility; the number of chapters is carefully calculated. Although the writer says that Chapter 72 “can be read or skipped,” he does not assert that “it could be written or not.” He had written the novel following his heart’s desire, completely without restraint, in other words, dancing while wearing only his own shackles – the novel unexpectedly encounters the Divine Classic of South China, alias Dao De Jing, a Daoist treatise of 5,000 words, and like Soul Mountain consisting of 81 chapters. The journey of seeking in Soul Mountain symbolizes the Nine Nines great ordeals encountered in the Journey to the West to acquire the Buddhist scriptures.

Great Freedom It should be pointed out that Zhuangzi’s roc, moving unhindered north and south, and rushing headlong over heaven and earth, will inevitably stop to rest. The latter half of Gao’s long poem is about a bird that “after a lifetime of leisurely roaming” begins looking for a bit of clean and unpolluted land (jing tu; Buddhism: Pure Land, Paradise of the West), for a refuge: such a resting place does in fact match and complement a life spent roaming to the ends of the earth. Many of Gao’s paintings repeat the title “Great Freedom” (da zizai; a Buddhist concept), and illustrate how without freedom there is no “carefree” of which to speak. The final sentence of the first section of Gao’s poem, “At ease and carefree,” is precisely that finishing touch. The conjunction “and” in “At ease and carefree” indicates not only that the two things coexist and are indispensable to each other, beyond that it illustrates the dialectic between setting out on a trip and stillness, that in movement is stillness, and that movement and stillness coexist. The Kunlun Mountain in Of Mountains and Seas draws our attention in that regard, because Mount Kunlun is the center of the universe. It is by the same reasoning that in many of Gao’s paintings, the figure of a person or the trunk of a tree is placed right in the center of the painting. At the same time, Mount Kunlun towers right in the middle, and that signifies the author returning to himself, just like Hou Yi releasing an arrow, and the verb “to hit the target,” here a substitute of the substantive “middle,” relates, perhaps, to oneself. The thematic construction of this complementarity of freedom and being carefree is mainly embodied in the two aspects of the

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individual identifying the center and concentrating his attention, embarking on an internal journey, and the individual returning to the start of the primeval chaos. As everyone knows, the geographical setting of Soul Mountain is Mount Kunlun. The protagonist in the novel is “looking for a fine horse using only a picture,” traveling over a great distance, but what he seeks he cannot find. Every reply is invariably the same: the mountain is nearby, but it is always on the other side. The novel’s morale is clear: Soul Mountain is not in some foreign land, but is deep within the self. Thus the protagonist reiterates (in Chapter 52) that the physical journey and the internal journey take place in tandem with each other. Such roaming within oneself is actually a spiritual journey, which is called “internal observation” in the chapter on Confucius in Liezi (Zhang 138–9). Gao Xingjian calls it “looking at the innermost image,” and it is a cornerstone of the aesthetics of his novels and paintings. That sort of spiritual journey generates “light on the innermost being.” It generates intangible but visible, fantastic landscapes (Gao, Another Kind 32–3). So the long poem “Carefree as a Bird” reads: The horizon below Far off and unreachable Vanishes in an instant Scenes of wonder suddenly emerge One after another

But the self-contemplation elicited by Mount Kunlun and the hypertrophy of the self must not be mentioned in the same breath. This self-contemplation is even less so the triumph of the ego. The freedom attained by the individual from his internal journey transforms into self-effacement, into selflessness, into a fusion with nature. A close examination clarifies the reasoning behind the complementarity of Mount Kunlun and primal chaos, as well as the paired phrases and their extension. From the angle of phonetic and semantic meaning, many experts point out that the words Kunlun and primal chaos have been used interchangeably from ancient times. Kunlun Mountain is the objectivized form of primal chaos, while primal chaos is a semantic annotation of Kunlun (Wu 64). As we have seen above, in Of Mountains and Seas the most free and unfettered is none other than Shou Ma. And that spirit “with undifferentiated eyes, ears, or nose,” as depicted in the ancient Classic of Mountains and Seas, “cast no shadow as it stood and made no sound when it shouted” (Yuan 410). From that it can be seen that Shou Ma is free of cares or worries, is an entity living freely, coming and going without a trace, with unformed facial features, and the fact that the

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“seven apertures” of its head are indistinguishable is closely bound up with its lack of cares or worries. The representation of the original state of Shou Ma’s life is that not a hair can be disturbed, or else disaster in the form of drowning will result. The death of the primal chaos in the end of the inner chapters of the Zhuangzi is clear proof: originally the emperor of the central region, Hun Dun, did not have the seven apertures of the head, and with good intentions Emperor Shu of the South Sea and Emperor Hu of the North Sea “drilled one hole every day, but on the seventh day Emperor Hun Dun died” (Chen 1: 228). Gao Xingjian has scrupulously abided by the primal chaos principle in his life. Primal chaos is the foundation of freedom and life, so by modern reasoning, to destroy the primal chaos is to harm life. Chapter 58 of Soul Mountain hits the nail on the head, in pointing out that the search for Soul Mountain means to abandon the thinking of the emperors Shu and Hu, and to realize the danger of using reason in seeking to attain the optimal state of “primal chaos.” And the curtain falls in the novel when the protagonist and a frog look at each other in dismay, speechless and uncomprehending. This seemingly incredible ending is in fact full of profound meaning. It sums up the true essence of the novel. To maintain the primal chaos is “mental cultivation,” enabling life to return to the original ignorance and a state of self-emergence and self-development. It is just as the Zhuangzi chapter on Tolerance says, that the cloud of primeval chaos roaming everywhere will be shown by the way of Hun Dun: Ah! … Nourish your mind. Merely situate yourself in nonaction, and things will evolve of themselves. Slough off your bodily form, dim your intelligence. Forget all relationships and things; join in the great commonality of boundlessness. Release your mind, free your spirit; be impassively soulless. The myriad things abound, yet each returns to its roots. Each returns to its roots without being aware that it is doing so. In a state of turbid chaos, they do not leave it their whole life. If they are aware of their return, that means they have left it. Do not ask its name; do not spy out its characteristics. Things will assuredly come to life by themselves. (99)

It is here that Zhuangzi identifies the key to mental cultivation, that it lies in forgetting oneself (“Slough off your bodily form,” and even “dim your intelligence”). In Chapter 77 of Soul Mountain, a snowy scene over a lake can be regarded as “eliminating the self.” Here, with no distinction between the objective world and the self, the character begins to realize great harmony with everything, just as the tides of the ocean easily come in and go out, of vanishing together with external objects, of mixing together as one with the original vital breath of nature. At this moment, through the practice of internal cultivation, the individual looks back to the fountainhead of unbounded vitality, and

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along with the cosmos opens up the original state of creation, and forms a unity with it (Ye 144). Gao Xingjian’s striving beyond worldly affairs to the primeval chaos is because it symbolizes freedom of life, while containing the transformation of life to death, and hence generating limitless mysterious principles. This is the foundation of his aesthetic viewpoint. He stresses looking at the innermost image and returning to the beginning, by showing “an abyss splitting open, a womb twitching,” because he views the cosmos and nature and looking at the innermost image as sprouting from a common source. It has always been that “there is no well-thought-out plan,” and “seeing the wording and intent of what is written comes gradually.” In other words, everything is “an integral whole” (Gao, Another Kind 33–45). His aesthetics of life may be defined as an aesthetics of generation, or an aesthetics of process. It is both static and dynamic, charged with energy, and self-determined and self-revolving. In Of Mountains and Seas, Shou Ma spins in one place, and in Gao’s poem “Carefree as a Bird,” the roaming bird circles around in the air, responding to the rotation of heaven and earth, and ice and fire accommodate each other, in accordance with the logic of there being no distinction between internal and external. This movement in life is perhaps a manifestation of Gao’s own particular “fate,” because he has rewritten fate so as to make the roc beat its wings and fly a “sea fortune”1 kind of fate. It is no longer possible to separate “roaming” from “playing,” and has already surpassed the rational postulate. The personal pronouns “I,” “you,” and “he” become variable, and overlap and join together, like some form of pronominal cubism. Taking, for instance, the identity of someone like Shou Ma, do people see it more clearly, or less clearly? As the saying goes, what looks like a ridge when viewed horizontally becomes a peak when viewed from the side of the mountain. The key is that everything becomes “endlessly fascinating” (Gao, Another Kind 47), henceforth the self is no longer fettered, no longer mono-dimensional, things are colorful and multifaceted. The freedom and delight depicted in these creative works change cognition into perception, helping people to succeed in reaching the ultimate free and unfettered state, in sublimating the tease of predestination and toying with life.

1 The expression “sea fortune” refers to haiyun as applied in Zhuangzi’s chapter “Carefree Wandering,” where it means “sea movement.” Due to its latter part yun, however, it could also invoke the idea of “fate” or “fortune,” moving like waves in the sea.

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Works Cited Chen, Guying. New Annotation and Translation of the Zhuangzi [Zhuangzi jin zhu jin yi]. 2 volumes. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007. Print. Duan, Yucai. Annotations of the Shuowen jiezi [Shuowen jiezi zhu]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1981. Print. Gao, Xingjian. Another Kind of Aesthetics [Ling yi zhong meixue]. Taipei: Lianjing chubanshe, 2001. Print. — Soul Mountain. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney; New York: HarperCollins, 2000. Print. — One Man’s Bible. Trans. Mabel Lee. New York; Sydney; London: HarperCollins, 2002. Print. — Of Mountains and Seas: A Tragicomedy of the Gods in Three Acts. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2008. Print. — “Carefree as a Bird – Translation of the French Poem in the Film ‘Silhouette/Shadow’” [Xiaoyao ru niao – yingpian ‘ceying huo yingzi’ zhong de fawenshi de yiwen]. Unitas [Lianhe wenxue] 5 (2008): n. pag. Print. — “Carefree as a Bird.” Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Michigan Quarterly Review XLVII.2 (2008): n. pag. Web. 4 July 2012. Liu, Zaifu. “Preface” [Xu]. Of Mountains and Seas [Shan hai jing zhuan]. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Tiandi tushu youxian gongsi, 2000. 1–10. Print. Wu, Zeshun. “On Chaos and its Relationship with the God Ancestors of the Tribe of the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan” [Huangdi xuanyuan shixi hundun zhi shen kao]. Dongyue luncong 6 (1991): 63–5. Print. Xu, Shen. Explaining Depictions of Reality and Analyzing Graphs of Words [Shuowen jiezi]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1981. Print. Ye, Shuxian. An Analysis of Zhuangzi’s Culture [Zhuangzi de wenhua jiexi]. Xi’an: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 2005. Print. Yuan, Ke. Of Mountains and Seas. A Critical Edition by Yuan Ke [Shan hai jing jiao zhu]. Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 1991. Print. Zhang, Yinde. “Wandering the World in a State of Emptiness – Gao Xingjian and the Zhuangzi” [Xu ji yi you shi – Gao Xingjian yu Zhuangzi]. Hong Kong Drama Review [Xianggang xiju xuekan] 8 (2009): 135–46. Print. Zhuangzi [Chuang Tzu]. Wandering on the Way. Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu. Trans. Victor H. Mair. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1994. Print.

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Tradition and Freedom: The Artistic World of Gao Xingjian and His Play Hades Choosing Freedom to Save His Creative Life In the early 1980s, Gao Xingjian formally staged only three plays. His Absolute Signal, which debuted at the Beijing People’s Art Theater, was a great success. However, immediately afterwards, his play Bus Stop, which had been staged for an internal audience, was subjected to political criticism (Gao, Aesthetics and Creation 262). His play Wild Man – written after his return to Beijing following his 15,000 kilometers journey through the Yangtze river basin – again created a controversy, and all his plays, including his new play The Other Shore, which was already in rehearsal, were halted for good. Nevertheless, Gao Xingjian has left an indelible mark on the history of Chinese theater, and dramatic circles acknowledge him as the most prominent experimental playwright of modern Chinese drama. Because the performance of his plays was repeatedly prohibited, he left China in 1987 in response to an invitation to go to Germany. He said he did so “to save his creative life” (Aesthetics and Creation 201). He felt that if he were to lose the freedom to think and to create, he would not be able to go on living. But he paid a heavy price for fleeing. He lost the warmth of his family and the familiarity of his native place. He also lost his readership and his audience, and this seems to have had a great influence on his literary viewpoint. Having lost his readers and viewers and being aware that he had a visceral need to write, he has consistently argued that his literary creations are for himself alone: The so-called writer is nothing more than an individual speaking or writing, and whether he is listened to or read is for others to choose … the relationship between the author and the reader … is always one of spiritual communication through written works … in which the reader and the writer are engaged of their own volition. (The Case for Literature 38) When I write, I am first of all engaged in an exchange with myself, and I aim to do so to the fullest extent possible, because those are the only sort of words which are true, and only then does one feel truly alive … Literature should be the individual challenging the environment in which he lives, as well as a kind of challenge to death, even though it is just a very small bit of posturing which cannot change this world, nor change oneself. But in the end it is a kind of challenge. (“Why Write,” 180)

He further said, “To achieve resonance and understanding with others can only be called a blessing, but when I write I’m certainly not pursuing such a

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reward” (“Why Write,” 177). He has repeatedly stressed that he writes “for himself:” his stance on literary creativity is unwaveringly independent, and not subject to any constraints or compulsion (Liu 208). Writing is a kind of lifestyle to him, something like an old habit, and indispensable as a challenge to existence. He had lost readers and audiences in China, but even before relocating to Europe, his plays were already being published and performed in translation. He subsequently began writing some plays first in French and then rewriting them in Chinese. From the early 1990s, his fiction and non-fiction also came to be translated into other languages. This should suffice to show the transnational, universal value of his literature. His creative attitude, rejecting all constraints and pursuing absolute freedom, has also received recognition. His newfound creative freedom gave him greater scope for realizing his artistic vision. By examining the world and humankind, and by choosing to save his creative life, he attained a clear perception of the essential nature of things including Chinese dramatic tradition. This paper addresses his free spirit and goes on to analyze how he established his dramatic viewpoint by both accepting and breaking out of tradition. It focuses mainly on the play Hades and its staging, because, first of all, Wild Man, Of Mountains and Seas, Hades, and Snow in August are all dramatic works drawn from traditional Chinese culture. They are, however, not constrained by traditional repertoires, but also deal with social taboos. Hades comprises those two issues in a single play, so it is most appropriate to explore. Secondly, the first performance of Hades took place in Seoul on June 1, 2011, during the Gao Xingjian Dramatic Festival. Fourteen performances were staged in the small, 100-seat Arco Arts Theater, where it was welcomed enthusiastically and highly commended by experts.1 This paper begins with the play and its debut in Korea, and further explores Gao Xingjian’s dramatic theory and his artistic world, investigating how he produced such a stunning dramatic work by ritualizing suffering, and how he achieved it through artistic creativity. The second part of this paper first discusses how he inherited and discovered ideas from traditional aesthet-

1 Because the Korean debut version was assessed very highly, the production received support from the Seoul Cultural Foundation, and staged the play once again starting on February 16, 2012, with fourteen performances in the 540-seat large hall at the Daehangno Arts Theater. The performance changed with the scale of the theater. There were some enhancements in the stage decoration and lighting effects, with slightly less cohesiveness than in a small theater. Yet the overall spirit and presentation was largely the same as the debut performance version. The discussion in this essay is mainly based on the debut, which attracted a great number of Korean theater critics and international scholars including Gao Xingjian himself, Liu Zaifu, Mabel Lee, etc.

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ics of Eastern drama, and broke through and transcended them. The third part looks specifically at Hades and analyzes Gao Xingjian’s attitude toward tradition and freedom and his artistic world.

Inheriting and Breaking Away from Eastern Dramatic Traditions Gao Xingjian clearly stated that an exploration of modern dramatic art should begin with one’s own dramatic tradition (In Search of Modern Theater 2). If the tangible and intangible cultural content and its spirit handed down by a people or a cultural area can be summed up as tradition, then his dramatic theory took shape and matured through discovering and breaking away from tradition. Although he began by writing plays about reality, he went on to discover the essential nature of drama from the aesthetics of traditional Chinese opera. This led him to break away from the aesthetic frameworks of both realism and Chinese opera. Instead he sought after a form of modern Eastern drama, and by rediscovering the rich content of folk culture, he went on to establish an omnipotent dramatic theory characterized by ritual and entertainment. This rejected the socialist-realist philosophy embedded in China’s creative arts, and clashed with the basic socialist framework of materialism, atheism, and “destroying the four olds.” He took folk rituals such as Nuo folk opera, popular storytelling, and the subject of supernatural beings, and incorporated them into modern drama. This was certainly not an easy task, but it was during this initial exploration that he set the course of his dramatic viewpoint. In that process we can see how his free spirit is not confined by any constraints. We can see him breaking the boundary between Western style drama and traditional opera, breaking free of conventional frameworks and prohibited themes, and then rediscovering and breaking through tradition.

The Aesthetics of Traditional Chinese Opera Rediscovered From early childhood Gao Xingjian developed an understanding of traditional Chinese theater (Gao, In Search of Modern Theater 231), but it was through the attention major Western playwrights paid to Eastern theater that he gained an objective awareness of the characteristics and the strong points of Chinese

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opera. People from Konstantin Stanislavski to Bertolt Brecht were enlightened by the performance art of Mei Lanfang’s Peking Opera. Antonin Artaud and Jerzy Grotowski created their dramatic concepts and methods, on the basis of their research on Eastern traditional theater (2). And it was from Eastern theater that Brecht formulated his notion of narrative drama. Grotowski considered the essential nature of drama to be an interaction between actor and audience. Artaud encountered Balinese ritualistic theater and came up with the idea of omnipotent theater, advocating the use of singing, recitation, acting, and acrobatics (43). From such pursuits by Western playwrights he realized that Eastern traditional theater retained dramatic qualities modern Western theater had lost but was striving to restore. His pursuit of the essential nature of drama led him to forge a new path in modern Eastern drama. Possibly his ideas on theater had already achieved a certain degree of clarity, but they could only be put into practice after the end of the Cultural Revolution, in 1982 and 1983, with the staging of his first two plays (1–41). With regard to the characteristic form of Chinese opera art, some discussion began as long ago as the new versus old drama debate in the early twentieth century. In the Chinese opera textbook General Theory of Chinese Opera, Zhang Geng and Guo Hancheng name four characteristics: the integration of singing, dancing, and music; rhythmicality; suppositionality; and formulaic nature (ch. 3).2 Even Chen Baichen and Dong Jian, in the preface to their History of Modern Chinese Drama (1899–49), note that Chinese classical operas are characterized by their suppositional and formulaic natures (2). As the suppositional and formulaic natures are universally recognized aesthetic features “manifested” in traditional Chinese opera, Gao Xingjian uses supposition to outline, and then pays attention to theatricality and playfulness. For him, these three together form the essence of drama. Everything on the empty stage emerges as supposition. Time and space transform freely, a virtual and spontaneous performance is generated, and the audience’s space for imagination is very broad. In Eastern theater both the performer and the audience are familiar with the “virtual reality” of the empty stage, and are capable of employing imagination to interpret the setting. Dramatists of old such as Huang Zuolin and Jiao Juyin all paid attention to Chinese opera’s suppositionality and impressionistic style, and established an impressionistic view of drama. However, whereas on stage in live performances the impressionistic presentation depended much on the director’s technique, Gao

2 Chen Duo explains the characteristics slightly differently by saying “all voicing is singing and all movement is dancing; moving people with sentiment; impressionistic style; beautiful form” (ch. 3–7).

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Xingjian regarded this as the foundation of both the structure and the spirit of the dramatic work itself. Gao had already applied the technique of multiple time and space from traditional Chinese opera in his writing of Absolute Signal and Bus Stop. However, in his writing of Wild Man and The Other Shore this technique is used more extensively. In Wild Man, for example, he also employs within the confines of the stage various performance methods (including singing, folksongs, multi-part group singing, and modern dance) in a number of different temporal and spatial situations that range from ancient to contemporary times, and from primeval forests to the metropolis. Wild Man also effectively demonstrates several types of narrative structures, in addition to complex ideas and states of mind. The Other Shore is an empty stage, with few props. Actor performance and the structure of the stage words (mostly disjointed, fragmentary comments) together create images and depict the individual finding himself, and transporting himself from this shore to that shore. Gao Xingjian also paid special attention to a dramatic feature that film, television, and other media cannot duplicate, which is the merged, on-stage/ off-stage atmosphere that takes place as performers and the audience interact directly. Although Chinese opera is now also performed on a proscenium arch stage, the audience can applaud and cheer, and that shows the lingering appeal of on-site interaction. His emphasis on theatricality and the topics and spirit expressed in his plays are closely connected, because he feels he must surpass ordinary imagination to lead the audience into a deeper realm of life.

Chinese Folk Culture Rediscovered Gao Xingjian’s journey along the Yangtze in the early 1980s provided him with the opportunity for several months of intense contact with Chinese folk culture, during which he deepened his understanding of its dramatic essence, specifically its ritualistic and entertainment aspects. As long ago as the early twentieth century, in the first chapter of “On Chinese Opera During the Song and Yuan Dynasties,” Wang Guowei puts forward the idea that “shamans” and “actors” are the source of Chinese drama.3 In fact, “shamans” and “actors” not only embody the essence of Chinese drama, they also represent the principal performing agents of Chinese drama (Oh, “The Influence”).4 In folk drama, the two are facets of a single entity. 3 Wang Guowei’s view of the history of theater was influenced by the British writer Harrison and his theory on the origin of ritual (Harrison). 4 Sun Chongtao and Xu Hongtu begin with a discussion of “shamans” and “actors,” but limit their analysis to ancient times.

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Since antiquity, China has been a polytheistic nation. Thus a large number of plays involving religion and sacrifices to gods, or ritualistic plays, survive from ancient times to today. Various places in China have countless deities, and countless temples. Later, the practice of installing “10,000-year stages” for performances in temples was also very widespread. Ritualistic drama had two main goals (Oh, “The Two Main Axles”). One goal was praying for help in spring and repayment in autumn, that is, rituals appealing for a bountiful harvest and offering thanks for it. In China’s agrarian society, which is thousands of years old, people still practice spring and autumn sacrifices as well as periodic sacrifices to gods, the god of the land or local land gods. The other goal was to drive out demons, which included Nuo folk drama of various form and scale. Because people believed that disasters or epidemics were all caused by evil spirits,5 they felt the need to propitiate evil spirits with sacrifices to drive them away. That is the original meaning of the term “nuo.” Nuo was practiced in the court of the Zhou dynasty, but also in the countryside, both traditions going back to the idea of driving out demons and evil spirits.6 Nuo as practiced in the court was perpetuated as Exorcism Ritual (nuo li). The spread to folk culture started in the Tang and Song dynasties and broadened to become a kind of festival. In the Ming dynasty, Hongwu Emperor stipulated in his system of rites that sacrifices to gods and seasonal offerings were to be made periodically (Oh, “Research of the Environment”). In the belief system of Chinese folk culture, driving out evil was more important than praying for a good harvest. Folk ritual drama included various kinds of folk legends, folk songs, spoken and sung performance, dance, witchcraft, and masks. The combination of singing, dancing, and music sometimes involved stunts performed by Buddhist or Daoist masters. In the play Wild Man, “The Story of Darkness,” which involves pounding on a drum and singing, was discovered by Gao Xingjian in the Shennongjia forest region. In Hades, the scene of a group of pilgrims is

5 “Evil spirits” refers to supernatural beings that cause disasters if sacrifices are not made to them. See the annotated edition of Duan Yucai’s Shuowen jiezi: “Li yang means ferocious ghosts and evil spirits” (8). See also the Yueling chapter in the Book of Rites: “Orders are given for the ceremonies against pestilence throughout the city; at the nine gates (also) animals are torn in pieces in deprecation (of the danger): to secure the full development of the (healthy) airs of the spring.” (Legge 266). Further: “He issues orders to the proper officers to institute on a great scale all ceremonies against pestilence, to have (animals) torn in pieces on all sides …” (Legge 307). 6 In the chapter “Almanac for the Third Month of Winter” of the Annals of Lü Buwei, it says: “He commands his various officers to institute the grand exorcism, ripping open victims on every side and sending forth the earthen ox to carry away the cold ethers” (Lü 258).

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another realistic depiction of the beliefs, customs, and nature of the Chinese people; and the various scenes in hell and the images of devils come from Mulian opera and Ghost theater of the Yangtze basin. The numerous images of gods in Of Mountains and Seas all stem from ritualistic folk plays in Guizhou and other places.7 Gao Xingjian’s encounter with folk drama not only led to his incorporation of its form, content, and material such as ceremonies of the devout, masks substituting for gods, etc., but he also experienced the spirit of dramatized sacrifices to gods in exaggerated and comical performances and all sorts of acrobatics. In such ritual drama that functioned to amuse gods and people alike, Gao discovered, on the one hand, both divinity and veracity, and on the other hand, playfulness and amusement. From that, his pursuit of omnipotent theater that combined ritual and entertainment took shape. Folk beliefs and rituals have been prohibited since the founding of New China in 1949. Even though there was a wave in the early 1980s of searching for roots and appeals to human nature, it was nevertheless dangerous to encroach upon this restricted area in the arena of the arts. Ritual has virtually vanished from Chinese opera because of the socialist ideology present in China, but it has remained universal in Eastern folk drama. Dramatic measures rich in the singing, recitation, acting, acrobatics, and magic of folk drama make an entire performance as amusing as playing a game. It offers a lot of things that make it worth seeing, which is just the sort of ethnic format ordinary people like to watch. This is the foundation of Gao Xingjian’s pursuit of omnipotent drama.

Breaking Away From Traditional Frameworks Gao Xingjian became aware of the essentially hypothetical, theatrical, and playful nature of drama from the aesthetics of traditional drama. Having encountered numerous ritualistic folk dramas during his travels along the Yangtze, he recognized drama’s ritual and entertainment nature, and established his theory of omnipotent drama. In fact, his drama did not just remain

7 Of Mountains and Seas was staged for the Hong Kong Arts Festival in February 2012. Yin Guangzhong, who had participated in arranging visual effects for the original staging of the Beijing performance in 1985 of Wild Man, partook once again, portraying the images of numerous gods employing masks used in Guizhou Nuo drama. From that one can see how he combined the images in Of Mountains and Seas, which have been used for a long time in folk theater, in the portrayal of many gods.

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with the writing of truth or the framework of traditional Chinese opera. In Gao Xingjian’s mind, drama was still a matter of using all sorts of performance methods in an empty space to allow omnipotent drama to “manifest” itself. Because the hypothetical nature of theater afforded great freedom on the stage, he believed that Chinese opera’s “manifestation” would facilitate the presentation of his ideal. But if constrained by a prescribed framework, it would not be possible to freely employ the many performance methods he wanted to use. Thus liberation from prescribed frameworks was essential if modern, omnipotent drama with singing, recitation, acting, and acrobatics was to be achieved (Gao, In Search of Modern Theater 208). As early as “Modern One-Act Opera” (1984), Gao had already experimented with this sort of concept and method of Chinese opera aesthetics. In the two plays Of Mountains and Seas and Hades, all the settings, from heaven to hell, are imagined in blank space. Writing realistically would have been impossible, and would cause the imagination to run amok: the situation could only be resolved by omnipotent drama. Of Mountains and Seas brings together many ancient Chinese legends. More than 70 deities appear in this big play. If all were realistically recreated, the play would be complex. Of Mountains and Seas as directed by Hardy Sik Cheong Tsoi in Hong Kong in 2008 employed a variety of imaginative strategies in an interesting treatment of complicated scenes. For example, it used nine model heads as stage props made from paper to represent the nine suns of the Emperor of Heaven. When Yi shot them dead one by one, the paper balls were just thrown away. Hades is a play even more omnipotent with singing, recitation, acting, and acrobatics. Drawing on Peking Opera’s Splitting the Coffin Open and other works, Gao mocks reality and dissects life. The drama about Zhuang’s wife forced to kill herself becomes a preposterous farce with the cacophonous content even more complicated and the implications more profound. Gao emphasizes the fact that in his play, words and form are equally important. And when explaining the work, he mentions restoring entertainment to the play. It is a modern play adapted from a traditional repertoire, and retains the performance strategies of singing, recitation, acting, and acrobatics, but discards formulaic staging. Instead he uses a new style of actor performance involving his notion of the “neutral actor” in which the actors each psychologically distances himself from the role (Gao, Hades 66). Snow in August is all the more a major assemblage of modern Eastern drama. With Chan Buddhism as its ideological foundation, the characters embody a realm independent of words. Formulaic staging represents both the performance experience accumulated over many generations, as well as the stage language acquired by Chinese opera performers through many years of training. But Gao had to break

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away from that framework if he was to reach a freer realm of performance. All of these plays with Chinese topics are plays with singing, recitation, acting, and acrobatics, yet Gao has said they are not constrained by a formula. It is not that he does not respect tradition. His goal is to use various performance methods to express modern man’s inner thoughts and feelings, and this a goal closely connected with his inherent drive to pursue freedom, freedom of life and artistic freedom. As Gao Xingjian’s discarding of formulaic staging is in order to achieve a freer and more flexible performance, it is illuminating to examine the characteristics of traditional Korean performance arts. One could say that Korean and Chinese traditional drama are similar in nature as far as the basic characteristics of Chinese opera and folk ritual drama mentioned in the two preceding parts of this paper are concerned. One could even go a step further and say that both are examples of Eastern folk drama. But Korea did not develop a theater culture prior to the twentieth century. Performances of court singing and dancing or storytelling with songs did not take place on outdoor stages, but rather indoors. Folk performances such as mask dramas and musical shows mainly occurred in public squares. Thus over a long period of time, a big difference took shape between the distinctive art of Chinese opera performed in a theater and traditional Korean artistic performances in public squares. In a public square, the open space can be turned into a performance space at any time, involving a lot of supposition and strong playfulness, with no strict formula and lively interaction with the audience.8 In the early 1960s, Korea began to unearth the non-material cultural heritage of its people and preserve all sorts of folk rituals and performances. Traditional Korean drama was characterized by rigorous rituals and abundant entertainment. Gao Xingjian considers supposition, theatricality, and playfulness to be the essential nature of drama, and that along with its ritual and entertainment aspect are what Eastern drama has in common. It is on the point of breaking away from formulaic staging that Korean drama coincides with Gao’s pursuit. The following discussion will explore the playwright’s search for modern Eastern drama and its free spirit, based on the text of Hades and its first performance in Korea.

8 In several places History of Korean Dramatic Performance and Korean Mask Drama, the author Li Duhyun speaks about the aesthetics of traditional Korean masks.

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Gao Xingjian’s Theory of Drama in Hades Hades, a traditional drama transformed into modern, omnipotent drama, was part of the repertoire the author himself wanted very much to direct.9 However, because of the very strong Chinese flavor of the play, and because it required so many artistic measures, the play had never – apart from one dance performance in Hong Kong in 1988, before the script was published – been performed in the form of drama. In socialist China, the performance with elements of supernatural beings or folk beliefs was taboo. For a very long time, Mulian Opera in which Mulian passes through an 18-level hell was prohibited. In the world outside China, due to different ideas about the afterworld held by people of different nationalities and religions, the staging of Hades is not easy either. As for Korean people, they are not at all familiar with many of the deities in Chinese folk belief, but because of the Buddhist connection there is some common ground in their understanding of Hades, which provided the play with more leeway for development in Korea than elsewhere. Gao Xingjian’s pursuit of omnipotent drama full of ritual and playfulness was fully concentrated and entrusted to Hades. Since these are also characteristics of traditional Korean drama, the first performance of the play in 2011 displayed the features of the script to a considerable extent. It was well received by the Korean audience, and admired by local and foreign experts, including Gao himself, even though it was not necessarily the staging which he had imagined. The performance had live musical accompaniment and choral singing. It employed abundant body language and acrobatics on an empty stage, and even special effects of changing masks to present the multiple layers of a character. The imagery was clear and bustled with excitement and interest. In Act Two, the grotesque appearance of a sinister and vile hell is depicted in full as well as a weird and comical world of supernatural beings.

Accepting and Breaking with Tradition in the Structure and Theme of Hades The structure of the two acts and the epilogue of Hades creates complex contradictions and conflicts, and imparts multiple layers of meaning. For instance, it creates contradiction on the individual level arising from Zhuang Zhou playing a trick on his wife, thus creating an irreconcilable conflict and rift between 9 Personal interview with the author at the 2008 Gao Xingjian Arts Festival in Hong Kong.

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the two of them. Zhuang’s wife is most resentful of Zhuang Zhou’s lack of trust in her and his mocking attitude. Although for her to abandon life so easily is a big mistake, her extreme action is precipitated by his trickery contrary to her own full trust in her husband. There is a great reversal in the beginning and the end of Act One of the play, which is very tense. Another contradiction, on the social level, is displayed in Act Two of the play as the injustice of the netherworld’s judgment gradually deepens. Not only is there no righteousness in the netherworld, it is a carbon copy of society in the world of the living and even more deeply muddled. The magistrate of hell and the king of the netherworld who represent society’s authority are simply unconcerned about the individual’s fate or injustice done to the individual. They speak only to make rulings on events, and do not pass judgment on human sentiment. The insult added to injury makes Zhuang’s wife feel all the more wronged. Chinese opera accumulated a large number of repertoires from its long stream of popular literature of the past. Adapting existing repertoire was always a widespread practice. Revising a traditional play could afford the play with a new angle and new vitality. Thus Gao Xingjian borrowed from the familiar traditional repertoire, and modified the story of Zhuang Zhou tricking his wife into one about a woman being bullied and treated unfairly by the moral standards of a patriarchal society, even into a story about an individual having no way out in an autocratic society. Gao’s changes do not stop on the level of criticizing actual society. He goes deeper and ponders the fundamental issues of human life and existence. Act One of the play is a revision of the Peking Opera Splitting the Coffin Open, telling the story of women mocked for failing to keep their promise of fidelity. Although Zhuang’s wife, at first, does not violate the oath she had taken, she cannot resist the enticement of Zhuang pretending to be a prince of Chu. In the end she splits her husband’s coffin open, thus betraying her master. When she realizes Zhuang had put her to the test, she hacks herself with an ax in shame and anger (Zeng 71). In imperial China, women were severely oppressed in order to maintain the Confucian social order. In particular, in the patriarchal society south of the Yangtze River during the Ming and Qing dynasties when social mobility increased all the time, more emphasis was put on “chastity” to keep society stable. Women who “followed their husbands into death for the sake of honor” were acclaimed, and many women were forced to hang themselves and be buried with their husbands. It was not rare to arrange for a daughter or daughter-in-law to be forced to commit suicide to strive for a memorial arch to honor her chastity (Xu 308–312). That Zhuang’s wife’s is attracted to the prince of Chu in Splitting the Coffin Open and Hades mirrors the universal desire that

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exists between men and women.10 After she learns the truth, Zhuang’s wife feels remorse and shame in Splitting the Coffin Open and hangs herself over the moral denunciation she faces. Although suicide by hanging in such a situation in the past was called chastity, it amounted to public punishment and public murder. This is considerably different in Hades where Zhuang’s wife hacks herself to death. When her behavior, that is, violating social constraints and betraying her husband in pursuit of personal desire, comes to light in front of her husband, the awkwardness and shame leave her no way to retrieve her self-respect. She flies into a rage out of humiliation and chooses to hack at herself with the ax she is holding. Her action is more of her own accord than in Splitting the Coffin Open. This does not simply present a negative escape from a reality of bullying and injury to her self-esteem, instead it would be more accurate to say that her own fate is no longer toyed with by her husband, and she has freely chosen violent resistance. However, killing herself certainly does not put her in a realm of freedom, because free transcendence belongs only to the realm of the living. Without life, there is no self-respect, and no justice of which to speak. After death she becomes aware of how precious life is and regrets what she has done. Her self-blame and sense of being wrongly accused transform into hatred for her husband, because her husband broke a promise lightly and forced her to abandon life and lose everything. Act Two of the play consists mainly of her being tried in court in Hell twice, her suffering in purgatory, and ultimately her “washing of the intestines” in a self-purification ceremony. Zhuang’s wife appeals to the judge and the King of Hell to rectify the injustice done to her, but fails to obtain redress. The notion of Hell became widespread in China with the advent of Buddhism. People craved life and feared death, but even more so they were terrified of the torment they would suffer in the eighteen levels of Hell. Scenes of Hell take their source from traditional Chinese opera. An example is the Peking Opera law court judgment scene of the Judge Bao opera Investigation on Mount Yin. In the story, Judge Bao descends into hell to investigate the murder of Liu Jinchan. At Mount Yin, he encounters an oil-pouring demon and Liu Jinchan herself. Only then he learns how she was harmed. Liu Jinchan goes to see the king of the fifth court of Hell and lodges a complaint, but the judge who is the maternal uncle of the evil Li Bao has secretly altered the register of life and death. Judge Bao learns of it. Angered, he goes to the fifth court to argue with the King of Hell and to search for Liu Jinchan’s spirit (Zeng 586). Although

10 Zhao Yiheng compared it to Liu Cui Delivered, saying, “The first part is very much like the attraction of female charms in Liu Cui Delivered” (Gao Xingjian 183). Here, although male and female are reversed, the enticement to deliberately destroy another person is the same.

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she has already gone to Hell in Investigation on Mount Yin, she is able to obtain redress and come back to life with the help of Judge Bao. The play ends with a big reunion. In Gao’s play, Zhuang’s wife argues her own case in Hell, but fails to obtain redress because it was she who had killed herself. The author invokes Hell as an ironic, opposite reality where it is impossible to get justice. This suggests that in reality, one cannot find honest and upright officials like Judge Bao. Scenes of travel in Hell are also found in the plays Mulian Saving His Mother, Travel to the Sixth Court, and Oil Slippery Mountain. All these can be traced back to Song dynasty Mulian opera. Records of a Beautiful Dream in the Eastern Capital mentions that the variety drama Mulian Saving His Mother was performed from the Double Seventh Festival (on the seventh evening of the seventh lunar month) to the Hungry Ghost Festival (on the fifteenth night of the seventh lunar month), depicting the process of Mulian rescuing his mother from Hell. Mulian opera is still performed in various places in southern China.11 Out of loneliness and grief over her husband’s death, Mulian’s mother, a practicing Buddhist, resumes eating meat and gets punished by being sent to Hell. Here Mulian’s mother can be forgiven, and Mulian as the filial son obtains assistance from Guanyin and goes to Hell to rescue his mother. The emphasis lies on Mulian’s filial piety. In Hades, society cannot tolerate Zhuang’s wife wandering about in Hell, let alone her advocating the freedom to abandon her husband and renounce life. Thus a judge punishes her by cutting out her tongue, not permitting her to defend herself or to express views contrary to those of society. Her rebellion and challenge against social order must be controlled. Many corrupt or confused officials appear in Chinese opera, such as “the muddled official.” In Hades they are represented by the judge and the King of Hell. As for the judge, the emphasis is on his corruption, his hypocrisy, and his misuse of power. As for the King of Hell, he cannot even use ordinary words to communicate. He can only connect with the outside world through his translator, Magu, thus indicating the King of Hell’s confusion and isolation, despite his absolute authority. Of course, Zhuang’s wife with her tongue cut out cannot argue. So when Magu has the God of Thunder use a mirror to reflect how devoid of sincerity she is, she is even judged to be a monster. Because of the boundless hatred inside her, which hinders her from standing aloof from her suffering in life, she is cast into purgatory to suffer there, such

11 During the “International Seminar on Southern Drama and Mulian Opera” in Quanzhou at the end of February 1991, it was the first time I saw Puxian’s Mulian opera and Quanzhou’s Dacheng opera. Later, Nuo opera societies in Hunan, Sichuan, and Anhui held conferences on Mulian opera, and I watched performances in those areas on videotape.

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as having to ascend a ladder of knife blades. In the end, a confession and purification ceremony takes place: by taking out her own intestines and washing them, Zhuang’s wife is trying to transcend all suffering. Zhuang Zhou, who put his wife to the test and destroyed her, belatedly realizes how absurd human nature is, and how easy it is to extinguish life. Life is fleeting like a dream. It is like an illusion. He awakens from his confusion, drums on a bowl and sings loudly, “Life, life, death, death, don’t understand them clearly” (Hades 64) From that one can get an inkling of how he has become detached in a vague realm between life and death. But between yin and yang there can absolutely be no leeway for turning around. Thus Zhuang’s wife in the realm of darkness has her transcendence of wrongful accusation and hatred, while Zhuang Zhou in the realm of light has his isolation and detachment (Zhang and Oh 2). Zhuang Zhou’s image is completed as the epilogue echoes the first part. If there were no epilogue, he would just remain the target of his wife’s denunciation and criticism. Gao Xingjian has said, “To tease life is the goal of the performing arts” (Aesthetics and Creation, 168). By goading his wife, Zhuang Zhou is also goading himself. Only then does he recognize the impermanent “color” of life. Through his wife’s death and her suffering in Hell, the boundary between life and death can be eliminated (Lao 176). Having achieved this, the audience is then led into a realm of transcending the self and examining life. Both of these characters may be considered as embodying Gao Xingjian’s reflections on his own life. Like Zhuang’s wife, in pursuit of emotional and psychological freedom, he chose freedom by fleeing abroad in order to resist absurd and absolute authority. He draws on the story of Zhuang’s wife to drown his own sorrows, and on artistic creativity as a ritual to purify himself. And like Zhuang Zhou, he has pursued psychological freedom, and gained new awareness, reaching an artistic realm in which he can transcend and not be subject to any constraints. Gao thus borrowed tradition, but was not constrained by its framework. Instead he freely expressed contemporary humanity’s fate and thinking. He took the ethical notions in the original story and elevated them to pondering problems of direct concern to us today, such as lust, virtue, freedom, life, and righteousness. That sort of complicated and multi-layered pondering easily penetrates into his independent artistic pursuit. Thus, his modern Eastern dramatic theory started out from tradition, soared free, and reached a new artistic realm.

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Accepting and Breaking from Tradition in the Artistic Performance of Hades Hades starts out with an empty stage. The stage design for the play’s debut performance consisted of a bare stage, except for a three-paneled frame of woven bamboo and poles. At the beginning, the actor playing Zhuang Zhou stresses that “It was an ancient time, and this is basically an old, old story … and of course has nothing whatsoever to do with people today” (6) He then puts on a head cover, introduces his role, and begins portraying Zhuang Zhou. Such a self-introduction is a typical performance feature of Chinese opera. After deliberately putting distance between then and now, the actor then leads the audience into a hypothetical world, in which the audience and Zhuang Zhou coexist at the same time in the space of the stage. By doing so, space and time can be changed with just one word on the empty stage. The space the audience imagines thus expands, and there is more leeway for thinking deeply about issues. The director makes flexible use of the three-paneled frame and a choral group, making performers appear at any time among the frames, sometimes having the chorus explain or comment, and sometimes having the personages in the play perform. Because the performance space is small, there is close interaction between the performers and the audience. In this fashion, omnipotent drama creates an atmosphere with singing, dancing, and acrobatics. First of all, the music in the original Hades text is based on traditional beats and rhythms that closely approximate traditional Chinese opera. Act One starts with the random beat of percussive music, changing tempo from “twosix” (erliu 二六) to leading beat (daoban 导板), chopping beat (duoban 垛板), rolling beat (gunban 滚板), one strong beat and three weak beats meter (yiban sanyan 一板三眼), rolling beat (gunban 滚板), shaking beat (yaoban 摇板), hurrying style (jijifeng 急急风), rushing beat (qiangban 抢板), and slow beat (huanban 缓板). The second part starts with march tempo (xingban 行板), and then has increasing beat (zengban 增板), rhythmic talk accompanied by clappers (xiaokuaiban 小块板), a flowing style (liushuiban 流水板), fundamental rhythm (zhengban 正板), rolling tone (gundiao 滚调), mixed tunes (fanqiang 犯腔), rolling beat (gunban 滚板), shaking beat (yaoban 摇板), shaking beat long hammering (yaoban changchui 摇板长锤), march tempo (xingban 行板), one strong beat and one weak beat (yiban yiyan 一板一眼), and high-pitched singing (gaoqiang 高腔). Mainly xipi-erhuang tunes are used, and finally highpitched singing. Gao Xingjian uses changes in the musical beat to control the tempo and create a certain atmosphere, which is supported by Chinese opera music. But he does not completely follow the rules of Chinese opera music.

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He often inserts multiple narratives of a rather modern style from the chorus, thereby disrupting the atmosphere of the traditional music, creating distance, forcing the audience to think about the development of the story in the play and the actions of the characters, and finally returning to modern drama that is not confined to a prescribed style. The music was recomposed for the 2011 debut production of the play. A traditional Korean music trio playing the bowed string instrument known as ajaeng 12 and percussions including drum, long drum, and gong took charge of the stage music and sound effects, and further enhanced the expressive power of the stage. In particular, when Zhuang’s wife tells of being wrongfully accused, the traditional Korean music serves to intensify her emotions. Second, Hades also employs certain images and makeup from traditional Peking Opera roles. The images of Zhuang Zhou, Zhuang’s wife, the judge, and the King of Hell have already been discussed earlier. The two Black and White Impermanence Guards of Hell, and the two generals Heng and Ha are regular characters in Nuo and Mulian opera. Regarding makeup, when Zhuang’s wife changes costume and takes the stage carrying an ax, she wears “a short dress, her powdered face has black eyes, she carries a hatchet, she growls, and she hurries” (Hades 25), similarly to the character in the Peking Opera Splitting the Coffin Open. The yin-yang face of the judge and the “eight whiskers, triangular eyes, and mincing steps” of the two Black and White Impermanence Guards all use makeup. The judge’s yin-yang face originally indicated that he could see both sides, but here it seems to have another meaning. It consists of an honest and incorruptible black face and a treacherous and sinister white face, indicating the two faces of his hypocritical nature. The law court scene not only uses the technique of changing masks to model the confused and unpredictable image of the King of Hell, but other characters also use the technique to become white faces with just two eyes, emphasizing that they are a powerful community or assisting images which can see but not speak and only pretentiously mirror others. The art of changing masks, a Chinese special effect which became well known to everyone because of the movie The Mask (1994), has its origins in Sichuan opera The Marriage of Jin and Xia and was later used in the opera White Snake. In Hades, the characters use traditional Chinese opera facial makeup as well as the effect of changing masks, although not in a way driven by tradition, but employed freely in Gao’s own way to show the King of Hell’s insidious character. Third, the second part of Hades is like a cruel ritual. In a weird and horrific Hell, Zhuang’s wife is subjected to increasing torment. The stage setting is 12 When the play was performed again in 2012, the ajaeng was replaced by the woodwind instrument daegeum, a large bamboo transverse flute used in traditional Korean music.

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much more interesting than in the first part of the play. At the same time it is frightening. The sinister, terrifying, yet awakened person portrayed in the second part resembles a character in the drama of cruelty put forth by Artaud. The more cruelty Zhuang’s wife suffers, the more serious the conflict becomes in the minds of the audience. In the end, in order to break free from the agony unleashed upon her, Zhuang’s wife once again stands up for herself. She cuts open her belly and washes her own intestines. The scene has a strong visual impact. The cruelty and evil involved leaves the audience shocked to discover the strength of her determination to rescue herself. The ritual serves to wash away all evil, all desire, all hate, and functions both as an attempt at selfpurification and a means to escape.13 But traces of blood remain on stage. The second part of Hades acts as an altar laid out for purification, with Zhuang’s wife as the sacrifice, which enables Zhuang Zhou to break through life and death and reach a realm of awareness. Gao Xingjian’s omnipotent drama seeks to deliver its message by giving everything on stage expressive power. Scenes of a cruel Hell contain many elements of game playing: stunts and games such as the two Black and White Impermanence Guards walking on stilts and drama within drama, the two generals Heng and Ha spitting fire, witches larking about, and Zhuang’s wife being forced to climb a ladder of knife blades. These are all pregnant with acerbic humor, but certainly do not detract from the lively atmosphere. Instead they accentuate the surreal weirdness of hell and misfortune. Like temple fairs of the past, these displays embody the playfulness of old-style theatricals and variety shows. Even more so they emphasize the idea of human life as a sacrificial ritual. The final ritual of Zhuang’s wife being naked and washing her intestines makes the audience quickly resume a quiet calm, and enter into a deep level of thought. Hades exemplifies the idea of entertainment, not just through the gameplaying component, but also because of the skill of the performers who are relaxed and unconstrained.14 In the debut version of the play, Zhuang Zhou is 13 “Washing the intestines” comes originally from Buddhism. Among the 500 Luohan was the Honorable Yixichang, who is an allegory for washing the intestines and cleansing the stomach. He instructs all living beings to repent, purify their temperament, and thus attain peace and happiness. Rinsing the stomach and intestines can get rid of all guilt and all obstructions. 14 “Neutral actors” are the coordinates for performers on stage … benchmarks when performing …, as soon as a performer establishes latent coordinates, he can obtain the necessary intervals, control the audience’s reaction, and establish full interaction with the audience. … That sort of identity of a neuter-gender performer is certainly not the performer’s self-expression. On the contrary, he must get rid of narcissism if he is to be completely relaxed, if his performance is to be free and unconstrained, if he is to get into his role like a fish in water,

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played by the Korean actor Pak Sang-ch’ung, who is skilled in neutral actor performance. He assumed his role very naturally, “relaxed from head to toe, free and unconstrained, like a fish in water.” For example, when Zhuang Zhou as the Prince of Chu presses close to his wife with his lips puckered hoping for a kiss, he says, “One! (monologue, sneering) Looks like a butterfly, but in fact it’s a scorpion. (Aside) And don’t know if what’s poisonous is the scorpion, or he Zhuang Zhou himself. (Kisses his wife)” (22). The actor all of a sudden comes out of the Prince of Chu role and speaks as Zhuang Zhou, then leaves that role behind and uses the third person “he” in criticizing Zhuang Zhou before returning to being Zhuang Zhou as the Prince of Chu kissing the wife. With neutral actor status, actors can move in and out of role freely at any time, switching naturally among different identities. Traditional Korean drama in this sense tells a story through song and dance in an empty space, not confined by a formula. Thus not only do the performers switch time and space freely, they also change identity at will, unconstrained by the need to perform realistically or by a formula. The actress playing Zhuang’s wife, Chon Chinha, also moved in and out of her role. Besides using three musicians, the Korean version of the play had twenty performers. Apart from the actors playing Zhuangzi, Zhuang’s wife, and the King of Hell, each of the performers played several roles. If performers are skilled in tripartite performance and moving in and out of a role at any time, then they can play several kinds of roles. A neutral actor’s tripartite performance can only be attained through self-observation while performing with a high degree of freedom. This enables the performer to accomplish a performance resembling the Eastern aesthetics of toying with life. The Korean production of Hades was able to depict Gao Xingjian’s pursuit of omnipotent drama through the free and open spirit of the performers and their performance strength in both physical and language terms. Traditional Korean drama does not use formulaic performance, and the actors’ performance was not subject to any constraints. Thus although their performance was not formulated well, it was flexible and vigorous. In brief, the Eastern aesthetics of omnipotent drama Gao Xingjian pursues was embodied to a considerable extent in the debut performance production of 2011.

and be nimble and unaffected. A “neutral actor” is a performer in a state of physical and mental emancipation, with a kind of self-awareness. If a performer understands this fully, he can summon it at once.” (See Gao, Aesthetics and Creation, 179).

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Concluding Remarks The literature Gao Xingjian searches for, as he has put it, “literature which has recovered its innate character … [and] can be called ‘cold literature’” (The Case for Literature 38). It is a kind of literature that “entails fleeing in order to survive; it is literature that refuses to be strangled by society in its quest for spiritual salvation” (81). In the same way, modern Eastern drama may be considered as “having recovered the essential nature of drama.” Gao Xingjian’s understanding of the essential nature of drama starts with Chinese tradition and his deep understanding found among the people of “a kind of drama which encourages improvisation and is full of an intensely theatrical mood, a kind of drama which is game playing close to the public, a kind of drama which brings into full play the whole of the inherent nature contained in the art form” (In Search of Modern Theater 86). Bringing the whole of the essential nature into play can only be achieved through creative thinking that breaks free of constraints of all sorts and employs freedom to the maximum. Literature and drama with their essential nature restored can tolerate different aesthetics, which is why they have universal value. Drama only exists in modern society due to its hypothetical and dramatic nature, its realism and its interest, which sparks the audience’s rich imagination. It enables the viewers to participate in the joy of creativity, and to think deeply about existential issues. Hades, thick with Chinese cultural connotations, is theatrical art that has evolved from the basis of traditional theater. Its subject matter and form are both very traditional, but it is unconstrained by tradition. It freely brings drama’s power of imagination into play and radiates drama’s charisma. Not only does it deeply explore the issue of humankind’s freedom of choice and self-redemption, the play also bears the weight of Gao’s pursuit of omnipotent drama. The debut version of Hades employed Korean drama’s years of experimentation, that is, clashing with and accepting things ancient and modern, Eastern and Western. The performance sought to be a stage on which to restore the essential nature of drama, while at the same time embracing concepts promoted by Gao Xingjian, of the hypothetical, theatrical, and omnipotent nature of drama, and the skill of neutral actor performers. These concepts are natural to Korean performers, because Korea’s dramatic sphere has always pursued and practiced that sort of tradition-based yet free drama. The Korean version of Hades not only attested to the feasibility of Gao Xingjian’s modern Eastern omnipotent drama, but also sought and found a combined KoreanChinese aesthetics through internal dialogue about Asian dramatic aesthetics. The performance was also of real significance in exploring clashes and acceptance of the different aesthetics in Asia.

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Works Cited Chen, Baichen, and Jian Dong. History of Modern Chinese Drama [Zhongguo xiandai xiju shigao]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 2008. Print. Chen, Duo. Aesthetics of Opera [Xiqu meixue]. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House, 2001. Print. Duan, Yucai. Annotations of the Shuowen jiezi [Shuowen jiezi zhu]. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1981. Print. Gao, Xingjian. In Search of Modern Theater [Dui yizhong xiandai xiju de zuiqiu]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1988. Print. — Hades [Ming cheng]. Taipei: Dijiao Press, 1995. Print. — “Why Write?” [Weishenme xiezuo]. Tendency [Qing Xiang] 9 (1997): 177–81. Print. — “Modern One-Act Opera” [Xiandai zhezixi]. A Collection of Gao Xingjian’s Plays [Gao Xingjian zuopin ji]. By Gao Xingjian. Guilin: Lijiang chubanshe, 2000. 129–81. Print. — The Case for Literature. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney: Harper Collins, 2006. Print. — Aesthetics and Creation [Lun chuangzuo]. Taipei: Lianjing, 2008. Print. — Personal interview. 2008 Gao Xingjian Arts Festival, Hong Kong. — “On the Art of Stage Performance” [Lun wutai biaoyan yishu]. On Drama [Lun xiju]. By Gao Xingjian and Gilbert Fong. Taipei: Lianjing chubanshe, 2010. Print. Harrison, Jane Ellen. Ancient Art and Ritual. Bradford-on-Avon: Moonraker, 1978. Print. Lao, Siguang. History of Chinese Philosophy [Zhongguo zhexue shi]. 2 vols. Taipei: Sanmin shuju, 1981. Vol. 1. Print. Lee, Duhyun. Korean Mask Drama [Hanʾguk ui ka’myonʾguk]. Seoul: Ilchisa, 1979. Print. — History of Korean Theater [Hanguo de jiamianju]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 2005. Print. Legge, James, ed. The Li Ki, I-X. The Sacred Books of China. The Texts of Confucianism. Vol. 3. Trans. James Legge. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1968. Print. Liu, Zaifu. “An Independent and Steadfast Literary Person” [Duli buyi de wenxue zhongren]. Essays on Gao Xingjian [Gao Xingjian lun]. By Liu Zaifu. Taipei: Lianjing, 2004. 206–10. Print. Lü, Buwei. The Annals of Lü Buwei. Transl. John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel. Ed. John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Print. Oh, Sookyung. “The Influence of Nuo Opera Research on an Understanding of the History of Chinese Drama” [Nahi yon’ku ka Joongguk yon’guk’sa in’sik ui byunhua ei ggi’chin yonghyang]. Chinese Opera and Drama [Joongguk huigok] 6 (1998): 13–35. Print. — “Research of the Environment of Early Ming Dynasty Folk Drama” [Mingchu minjian xiju huanjing yanjiu]. Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theater and Folklore [Min su qu yi] 140 (2003): 117–53. Print. — “The Two Main Axles of Chinese Village Altars” [Joongguk ma’eul gut ui doo chuk]. Korean Dance Research [Woori chum yonkoo] 9 (2008): 9–33. Print. Sun, Chongtao and Xu Hongtu. History of Chinese Opera Actors [Xiqu youlingshi]. Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1995. Print. Wang, Guowei. On Chinese Opera of the Song and Yuan Dynasties [Song yuan xiqu kao]. Posthumous Works of Mr. Wang Jing’an of Haining [Haining Wang Jing’an xiansheng yishu]. 48 vols. Taipei: Taiwan Commercial Press, 1979. Vol. 13. Print. Xu, Xiaowang. Origin and Development of Folk Beliefs in Fujian [Fujian minjian xinyang yuanliu]. Fuzhou: Fujian jiaoyu chubanshe, 1993. Print.

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Zeng, Bairong, ed. Dictionary of Peking Opera [Jingju jumu cidian]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1989. Print. Zhang, Geng, and Guo Hancheng, ed. A General Introduction to Chinese Opera [Zhongguo xiqu tonglun]. Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1989. Print. Jang, Hijae, and Sookyung Oh. “Probing on the Writer’s Consciousness of Gao Xingjian as Seen in the Play Hades” [Jeoseung (Mingcheng) ai duronan Gao Xingjian ui jakga uisik yon’goo]. Collected Studies of Chinese Language and Literature [Joongguk eomun nonjip] 60 (2010): 409–34. Print. Zhao, Yiheng. Gao Xingjian and Chinese Experimental Drama [Gao Xingjian yu zhongguo shiyan xiju]. Taipei: Erya chubanshe, 1999. Print.

Quah Sy Ren

Multivocality as Critique of Reality: Fate and Freedom in Gao Xingjian’s The Man Who Questions Death When Gao Xingjian received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000, the Swedish Academy’s press release praised his writing by saying, “In the writing of Gao Xingjian literature is born anew from the struggle of the individual to survive the history of the masses,” and that the writer “has found freedom only in writing.” Such an assessment shows clearly that whether in the inner spirit of the works or in the writer’s approach to creativity, Gao Xingjian’s novels and plays reveal the individual’s fate in society as a collective, as well as idealism in the pursuit of freedom in that predicament. In different cultural and historical contexts, employing a great variety of artistic forms and means, writers in their works represent and reflect – to different extents – on the issues of fate and freedom. Gao Xingjian is a transcultural writer familiar with both Chinese and French thinking and artistic traditions. As such, how does he express his thoughts on fate and freedom by way of the unique structure and technique in his works, in particular in his plays? That is the focus of attention and discussion in this paper. An important structural feature of the dramatic works of Gao Xingjian is “multivocality.” It was an important element of his early views on theater, as well as a form specifically demonstrated early on in his own plays. In 1983, he published a discussion of the concept of “multivocality.” Wild Man, a play he wrote in China in 1985, was categorized as “multivocal modern epic drama” when it was published in the Beijing magazine October. Although no play after Wild Man was labeled as “multivocal,” Gao Xingjian’s subsequent plays still used that technique in several respects. Furthermore, other dramatic techniques appearing in his later works may also be seen as having been created with the concept of multivocality as a foundation. In his two recent plays, The Man Who Questions Death and Nocturnal Wanderer, his unique forms of performance are demonstrated in his exploration of the topic of life and death. This study aims to present an in-depth discussion of Gao Xingjian’s plays with a focus on “multivocality” as a theatrical form and structure. The Man Who Questions Death will be used in particular to illustrate how a character’s multiple voices are created, as well as the complementary or contrasting identities thus brought about; the study further explores how those voices and identities produce a counterpoint and dialectical effect, and how “multivocal-

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ity” as a medium of performance is being experimented with and employed to engage with the perennial topics of fate and freedom.

Three Types of Multivocal Drama To varying degrees, the three plays written by Gao Xingjian when he was still in China1 display a form of “multivocality.” He himself notes that the concept of “multivocality” is closely related to the structure of music (Collection 273),2 specifically, that “multivocality” is an expression in “different voices on the same theme, analogous to variations in musical composition” (Gao and Fong 93). In his earliest play to be staged (in 1982), Absolute Signal, he already makes preliminary use of the form, having several performers speak at the same time, creating a cacophony of voices, even to the point where it is impossible to make out what message the characters are conveying. The next play performed, Bus Stop (1983), continued with that form. In a part near the end of the play, Gao lets the voices of seven performers create a narrative with multiple focal points set side-by-side. Of the plays he wrote and staged in China, Wild Man may be considered as having the most comprehensive expression of multivocality. In several segments in the play, the lines spoken by the performers interweave and overlap to produce a harmonic counterpoint effect. And the play goes even further by using multivocal arrangements to achieve structural and thematic architecture. In my book Gao Xingjian and Transcultural Chinese Theater, I compared multivocality in Gao Xingjian’s plays with the Irish writer Samuel Beckett’s plays. I stated that Beckett and Gao Xingjian are similar in quite a few respects – Beckett was a novelist and a playwright, he wrote in two languages (English and French), and he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 – and I gave the following description of Gao Xingjian’s multivocal dramatic structure of that period: The significance of multivocality as a form is threefold. First, it breaks away from the conventional linear narrative mode. With two or more focal points presented on stage, the audience’s subjectivity is aroused by their selection of certain parts of the performance for their attention. In this sense, multivocality is somewhat similar to the effect of introducing a narrator to comment on the events – it alienates the audience and prevents it from

1 In 1987, Gao Xingjian left China for Germany, later settling down in Paris, France, where he became French citizen in 1998. 2 In addition, he has elaborated on the creative way he has employed multivocality, using Absolute Signal, Bus Stop, and Wild Man as examples. See Gao and Fong.

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becoming emotionally involved in the plot, while leaving it intellectually engaged with the motif. Second, by producing an integrated theatrical experience, multivocality subverts any attempt to produce a simple, idealized representation like that in Aristotelian drama and instead provides a multilayered and multitextual structuration. From the beginning, Gao has deliberately avoided dividing his plays into acts or scenes. In so doing, he discards the conventional linear structure and adopts one with greater flexibility. Third, this fundamental restructuration, by the use of multivocality as a form, inevitably leads to new ways of reading the motifs presented. Different motifs that complement or contradict each other are represented at a single time and therefore provide a platform for textual interreferentiality. (83)

This reading of Gao Xingjian’s early dramatic works must be considered within the specific social and cultural context of China in the 1980s. In the first three decades of Communist Party rule, China had seen political ideology intervene directly in the arts; the result was a rigid form of artistic expression that best suited the promotion of ideology. Thus an artistic orthodoxy took shape. In the sphere of drama, such a marriage of ideology and artistic expression unsurprisingly produced a distinctive mode of realism, displaying forms such as a strong contrast of hero and villain characters, a linear narrative presenting the emergence of crisis and its resolution, and a clear direction that accorded with the orthodox ideology at the end of the play. These techniques were commonly employed by writers and artists, and were also familiar to and internalized by the general audience at that time. Such a highly unified narrative structure also suggests that the audience is guided towards a monolithic perception of society and the future. Orthodox viewpoint was strengthened to varying degrees in the different social and historical contexts of the period from the founding of the People’s Republic to the end of the Cultural Revolution. In the new era after the Cultural Revolution, that is, since the end of the 1970s and in particular during the 1980s, different voices began to speak out in different forms. Diverse forms of performance and artistic viewpoints gradually took shape, and viewpoints on life including various concepts of freedom emerged. In that context, what Gao Xingjian’s multivocal dramatic works brought about was not just a kind of innovative artistic form, but rather a form that posed a direct challenge to the inertia in the audience’s thinking. In comparison to the singular voice of realist drama, and the singular ideology that voice represented, Gao Xingjian’s multivocal form allowed different voices presenting different points of view and focal points to appear simultaneously in a shared theatrical space, producing a sense of layers and contrasting relationships, and from that the shoring up of a polyphonic effect. The second type of “multivocal” drama is that which Gao Xingjian produced from the 1990s onward after he had settled in Paris, and includes

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Between Life and Death (1991), Dialogue and Rebuttal (1992), and Nocturnal Wanderer (1993). Critics generally make no reference to the multivocality of these plays, and for that matter neither does Gao Xingjian. Characters in realist drama usually reveal their inner thoughts through their utterances, which often represent only one voice, although in some instances the implied meaning may point to something other than what is being explicitly expressed in spoken words. The greatest significance of this dramatic form in Gao Xingjian’s works is that, with the employment of different personal pronouns, the single voice of a dramatic character is fragmented, allowing a single character to perform two or more voices. The technique of fragmenting a character by using different pronouns has an earlier appearance in Gao Xingjian’s novels, in particular in his novel Soul Mountain, which was written in the 1980s and published in 1990. The technique is one of the most important characteristics of his novels and plays. An essential difference concerns the narrative style: in the novels, the narrative can be ambiguous and unstable when shifting voices, whereas in the plays, and in particular in the actual space in which the plays are performed, the narrative must be conveyed by the words the performer speaks, and the relationship between viewpoint and voice on the one hand and the characters in the play on the other will appear to be more stable. For instance, a female character in Between Life and Death uses the third person pronoun “she,” and a male character in Nocturnal Wanderer uses the second person pronoun “you,” yet both cases imply the first person pronoun “I.” The first person pronoun and the second and third person pronouns all refer to one individual character. But the former corresponds to the external world, while the latter faces the inner self. As such, the same character which would have been limited to a single voice makes use of other personal pronouns and is fragmented into two voices. In addition to what drama can achieve conventionally in having a dialogue between two characters, this technique provides an internal perspective with which an internal voice is externalized, and thus creates a dialogue between two voices of the self. In terms of performance, this is Gao Xingjian’s unique tactic of combining and complementing theatricality (the actor’s performance) and dramaticality (contrast and conflict). The first type of multivocal dramatic work described above challenges and denies the perceived singularity of reality through presenting the external world’s clamor and turmoil, along with the multiple voices of several characters speaking at the same time. The second type shifts the focus to a single character. In other words, the same character in the drama consists of multiple identities, as well as differing ways of perceiving the outside world. These different identities are not necessarily harmonious, and they

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can even be charged with antithesis and internal tension. By switching personal pronouns, the different identities obtain the medium of different voices, and they express a single character’s views on his inner self and on the outside world, while at the same time displaying the complexity of the character and the world. The third type of multivocal dramatic work is by nature similar to the second type. However, from the perspective of the use of dramatic strategy, it allows a single character to use different internal voices, externalized as two or more specific dramatis personae, whereas the second type takes conflicts in the value system and multiplicity of world views and incorporates them in a single role. Toward the end of the last work Gao Xingjian wrote during his China period, The Other Shore (1986), the two characters Man and Shadow are created in that way. Although it is only a very short scene, the two characters are respectively the external and internal voices of the same person, or it could be said that Shadow is the externalization of the alter ego of “I.” The dramatic effect in the performance is produced by having the two voices assuming opposing roles. In a broad sense, the various kinds of dramatic roles created in the play can, to different degrees, be seen as several voices of one character (and even that of the playwright himself), expounding and arguing different viewpoints. Gao Xingjian’s method illustrates the playwright’s conscious use of this dramatic strategy, the dramatic effect of which is powerful and spectacular. And from it, his complex and multivariate worldview is being represented. In summary, Gao Xingjian’s multivocal dramatic structure in the abovementioned three types of works provides a detached and self-reflexive approach to an individual’s fate confined for a long time by collective consciousness. Gilbert Fong said in his discussion of Gao Xingjian’s dramatic innovation that “Realism in drama has dominated theatrical circles since the end of the nineteenth century. The usual practice and rules of the blind pursuit of illusions confined the methods of depiction and narration on stage within a rigid framework, unable to move,” and that Gao Xingjian’s form of drama “greatly expanded the scope of freedom to tell the story” (Gao and Fong 9). This is certainly true. In particular, in the historical instance where a certain kind of hegemonic ideology makes use of aesthetics to mold and guide the audience’s understanding of the world, a new variety of aesthetic form effectuates challenge, questions norms, and presents the possibility of an alternative way to look at oneself and one’s fate. The multiple voices of dramatic characters are a metaphor for the awakening of individual awareness and its validity, and they signify the release of the individual’s subjectivity from the oppression of collective consciousness. From that comes the possibility of the individual’s

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pursuit of freedom. It is worth mentioning that such an ideal of individual awareness and freedom is not conveyed by conventional didacticism of realist drama, but is instead hidden in the challenges brought about by the alternative dramatic structure and form. The new form achieves the effect of enlightenment by inspiring the members of the audience to reflect on the state of reality to which they have otherwise been accustomed.

The Portrayal of Multivocal Roles and Thinking about Fate The Man Who Questions Death is Gao Xingjian’s play that most specifically and entirely embodies the third type of multivocal structure. The title of the play unequivocally suggests that the theme of “death” is at the center of inquiry, and that it is a seminal piece representing Gao Xingjian’s profound reflections on fate and freedom. The Man Who Questions Death was written before Gao Xingjian was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. First published in French, it was completed in May 2000. The Chinese language version was completed in 2003, and published in Taiwan a year later. The play has only two characters: This Man and That Man. The entire play consists of long monologues by the two of them in turn, followed by a dialogue in the latter half. In the description of the characters in the published script, Gao Xingjian points out clearly that the two characters “play the same, one role, and wear identical, black clothing.” Moreover, “At times their lines intertwine, like dialogue, when in fact it’s still a monologue by a single character” (The Man Who 1). When the play was staged, this explanation by the author may not have been clearly manifested, and thus resulted in a certain degree of ambiguity in the characters’ voices. Gilbert Fong’s English translation took as the title The Man Who Questions Death which suggests that there is only one character in the play, or at least the emphasis is on This Man. If This Man and That Man are regarded as two distinct characters, then it is as Hu Yaoheng says, “Rather than say That Man is a character, it would be better to see him as a projection of some of This Man’s thoughts” (ii). The dramatic effect of that division of one character into two could be clearly discerned by the audience through the course of the performance. Whether it is one character with two voices, or one is a subject that actually exists and the other is a projection of abstract extension, the fact that two characters exist in the same scene effectively determines the occurrence of

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dramatic conflict in the performance. The utterance of This Man or That Man is sometimes a clear, lengthy discourse, sometimes it is comprised of intersecting expressions of internal words, giving the effect of a dramatic dialogue. Whichever it is, it can be regarded as a monologue accomplished by way of dramatic means. “Monodrama,” a form mainly consisting of monologues, which is often seen in modern drama, has just one actor for the entire play, perhaps performing one character or with the voices of several characters speaking through the one performer. In terms of the form, monodrama compresses several voices, with complementary or antithetical voices spoken by the one character, producing a multi-faceted yet ambiguous effect. In The Man Who Questions Death Gao Xingjian goes the opposite way, releasing the contradictions internal to the character, and forming specific, visible conflicts on stage by employing different characters. It is interesting that Beckett, whose plays are comparable in several respects to those of Gao Xingjian, wrote a short monodrama titled “Krapp’s Last Tape,” which has a similar treatment method (Beckett 213–23). The play has one character, the 69-year-old Krapp. But in the process of what seems to be a monologue performance a taped voice keeps speaking: the voice is Krapp’s own, recorded when he was 39 years old. The situation on stage is that even though there is only the one real performer playing the 69-year-old Krapp, there is also the Krapp from an earlier stage of his life – who should actually count as a completely different character – “appearing” on the scene through that voice. A voice serving as a performer with a different identity is a dramatic device used by both Beckett and Gao Xingjian. Martin Esslin maintains that “Krapp’s Last Tape” manifests the plight of time passing, as well as the instability of the self; that is, when the self of a certain time is faced with the appearance of his self from an earlier time, the former experiences a strong sense of unfamiliarity with the latter (76–9). In the last part of “Krapp’s Last Tape,” what the audience hears is a narrative from the taped voice: “Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn’t want them back” (223). The stage directions follow by saying that “Krapp [is] motionless staring before him. The tape runs on in silence” (223). What the audience sees is a theme of the kind seen again and again in theater of the absurd: the irony of existence, that is, the illusive character played by the voice pronouncing an end to the meaning of life for the character existing in reality. The way the character is split into two in “Krapp’s Last Tape” is achieved by having a temporal distance of thirty years. A relatively young self is created as a recorded voice while an older one physically appears on stage, thus creat-

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ing a cross-referential effect. The relationship between the two characters in The Man Who Questions Death resonates, to a certain extent, with that in Beckett’s play. It would appear that a true self (This Man) is projected as another self (That Man), and ultimately compelled to end his life. In Gao Xingjian’s script it is explained that This Man is “old and neurotic,” while That Man is even “older and weaker … cold and unemotional” (76). The ages of the two characters in Gao’s play as specified in the script are thus the opposite of that in “Krapp’s Last Tape.” Photographs from the premiere performance of the play in Marseille were published with the script, and reveal that the script had not been followed. Gao Xingjian himself together with Romain Bonnin had codirected the production, but the actor chosen for This Man is clearly older than the actor chosen for That Man (Escape Plates 8–11). In that case, the relationship between the characters in The Man Who Questions Death was closer to that in Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape.” The first third or so of The Man Who Questions Death is a monologue by This Man, telling of how he had gone into a museum of contemporary art after having missed a train, but was somehow locked into the building. Trapped in the building, This Man surveys the exhibits, and begins to critique them in a highly sarcastic tone. In fact he is questioning twentieth century art and its view of life. It is as Mabel Lee has noted: the autobiographical The Man Who Questions Death is a powerful and sustained criticism of Nietzsche and modernity (xvi). The long monologue by This Man sets the stage for reflection in the entire play, and also suggests an interwoven relationship between the self’s significance and this situation. In the course of This Man’s criticism, he sets his own life and values in opposition to the contemporary artworks on display, taking his own ideas as the opposite of the universal contemporary ideology. In that way, the real predicament of This Man being locked inside with the exhibits becomes a metaphor for the character’s self in the psychological predicament of being trapped in the real world’s various ideologies. The dramatic setting of The Man Who Questions Death is an individual’s fate of being caught in a predicament, and it is on this basis that the subsequent dialectic about the ideal of freedom is developed. Predicament is an important metaphor in The Man Who Questions Death. Gilbert Fong incisively points out that the theme of this play is “fear of being trapped in an enclosed space,” and that the situation shares similarities with the one set up in Gao Xingjian’s earlier play Escape (109). This sort of situation is a frequently recurring image, and it can easily be cross-read with the author’s own life experience. I think it is even more noteworthy that whether it be the main topic of our present discussion, The Man Who Questions Death, or Gao Xingjian’s other plays such as Escape and Nocturnal Wanderer, the

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predicament in which the main character finds himself is not just one of space, but also one of time. The three characters in Escape flee from a public square, and take refuge in a derelict building. The traveler in Nocturnal Wanderer is on a journey by train and trapped in his own dream world. Although the dramatic situations occur within a space that is frozen in time, the aesthetic value of these characters should be seen in the larger context of a journey in which time is a critical factor. This Man in The Man Who Questions Death experiences and faces the same sort of situation as he had when he originally intended to board a train to continue his journey. It was because he missed his train that he got into his predicament through inadvertent circumstances beyond his control. The various predicaments Gao Xingjian sets up in his plays serve as metaphors that can easily be seen as psychiatric prisons in which people find themselves. These “prisons” are the result of an external reality that worships material things, whether referring to the Western world dominated by global capitalism or China since the 1990s pursuing economic development and the dream of a big-power country. These predicaments can also be seen as cosmic irony, resulting from characters reflecting on the ideology of the external world or the meaning of their own existence. The words of the characters in these plays by Gao Xingjian, if regarded as direct criticism of ideology, are presented as a kind of lecture or debate. Setting up this sort of situation produces an ironic structure that produces a complex form of dramaticality, as well as more intense reflection about the fate of an individual who is trapped in reality. In such a predicament arising by chance, an individual’s innermost being enters a state of withdrawal from reality, conscientiously realizing all the problems of the external world, and confronting other voices within himself the individual ordinarily suppresses. In the latter half of The Man Who Questions Death, when This Man enters a state of vehement, indignant criticism, the other character in the play, That Man, appears on the stage. That Man is calm and apathetic. He begins by saying to This Man, “If you hadn’t missed your train, you wouldn’t have been in this kind of mess … It’s all in your destiny. At any rate, you’ve brought it on yourself” (87). Finally he pronounces a verdict in advance: “What is absolutely certain is that you’ll have to die sooner or later. Death is waiting for you, whatever you do or don’t do. There is no escape from this ending” (88). That Man’s words are aimed directly at This Man, and show no quarter, callously and ironically exposing his plight and the critical speech he has just made, seeing This Man’s existence and words as a mask of false identity. Liu Zaifu believes that The Man Who Questions Death “is a rallying call of the age, a manifesto of farewell; farewell to the artistic revolution, farewell to the illusions contemporary art created for the

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world, farewell to the ideas of artistic subversion since the twentieth century” (59). This is a very good elaboration of the nature of This Man’s performance in the first half of the play. When That Man suddenly appears, This Man’s manifesto-style speech is immediately challenged, and the challenge comes from another voice inside This Man. Starting at that moment, The Man Who Questions Death changes from manifesto into theater through a dramatic confrontation between the two voices. In the unmasking monologue following That Man’s appearance, This Man’s vehement indignation disappears. This Man makes a series of actions that seem to be at odds with the temperament he previously displayed: … with his back facing the audience, [he] starts to do a little jig. Then he moves away and watches THAT MAN intently … He takes hold of a rubber doll and dances with it … puts the deflated rubber doll on the floor … takes away the doll’s hairpiece, revealing its bald head … takes out a card and lights it up with his lighter … let’s go of what is left of the burning card, which falls onto the stage … picks up a piece of rope from the floor … runs around the stage, dragging the rope behind him … throws away the rope … walks backward, stumbling left and right … takes out a small piece of paper from his pocket and blows on it, making it fly in the air. (89–93)

That Man’s image as a critic and doubter is no longer righteous and stern, and his expression is now even somewhat cynical and cowardly. This Man’s role in the play changes from heroic figure to clown. It resembles the clown playing the multiple roles of a man, a ghost, and an old man (all of whom do not speak) in Gao Xingjian’s Between Life and Death. His actions are absurd and awkward, and what he does and how he behaves repeatedly becomes the object of That Man’s criticism and ridicule, and, moreover, during the entire process giving him no opportunity or right to speak at all. Based on that it can be said that That Man’s appearance and what he says serve as another voice of the inner self of the same character, silencing and negating himself. The suppressed voice of the self as represented by That Man has ironic overtones, while at the same time exposing another aspect of the self This Man would like to suppress. What “seems like dialogue” that subsequently takes place between This Man and That Man “intertwines at times,” but when they speak, there is no engagement. They “observe each other,” but their eyes do not meet (76), as they continue to play the two roles as different voices of the same character, the voices rising and falling one after the other. This “pseudo-dialogue” has the form of dialogue but not the substance of it. What the dramatic tension of this paradox form demonstrates is that a person’s inner voice cannot communicate. It also hints at the contradictory nature of a person’s inner self. Interestingly, challenged by That Man, the critical view of contemporary art and ideol-

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ogy voiced earlier by This Man completely disappears. The words between the two of them gradually enter a state of each individual’s inner thoughts, with assertions and opposition about the individual’s relationship with external reality. At the start, This Man speaks directly of the relationship between the two persons involved: This Man: That guy is waiting for you to go over there. You go forward, he goes back. You take one step forward, he takes one step back, no more, no less, just to lure you into his trap one step at a time. He lures you into his illusion, made of a sliver of light and nothing else. But it makes you happy and you follow him, moving around joyfully in circles … He’s evil to the core. He’s as filthy as the world we’re in, with only one appreciable difference: The world is unknowing, and he is very much self-aware. (93–4)

After That Man appears, the subjectivity and self-awareness shown by This Man by his critical posture in the first half of the play disappears. The following part suggests, as indicated by This Man, that the reflection on the value of the individual’s existence and the meaning of life is steered by That Man. This could be seen as the most important revelation of The Man Who Questions Death, and in fact its central theme. Under That Man’s induction and rebuttal, This Man’s self-awareness gradually disintegrates, although in the process he continually tries to defend himself and resist. After That Man callously deconstructs the meaning of life, This Man begins to realize that life’s end is the only choice. But he says: This Man: This isn’t suicide because you finish him off yourself! The difference is: When someone commits suicide, he’s hopeless and he gives himself up for lost; when someone finishes himself off, he is very much aware – he holds death in his own hand, he is in peace, and he’s happy as he puts an end to his own life. You’re toying with death before its sudden arrival, as if you were directing a play – to put it more succinctly, a farce. Suicide is always a tragedy; when you murder yourself, it’s bizarre, but it’s also interesting, and you get some pulsating pleasure out of it, not unlike that of orgasm, at the moment of extinction. (102)

Apparently, the two voices are also two kinds of consciousness resisting and wrestling with each other. Under the scrutiny of the perspective on life represented by That Man, This Man continually resists and denies, yet he has no choice but to accept the conclusion which That Man dictates. Here, in This Man’s words a third voice is revealed, the voice of the implied author, revealing an ironic attitude towards life and the way it ends. Although the third voice is not represented directly in the play, it is expressed in various instances and in different forms, especially through the respective discourse of the two characters and the ironic nature of their relationship. The strongest manifestation of such irony is represented by the com-

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plete negation of the self-absorbed character when That Man brings an end to the life of This Man after an extensive process of challenging and verbal combat with each other. The Man Who Questions Death is certainly not the first play in which Gao Xingjian explores this theme. The crisis between Man and Shadow in The Other Shore3 and that between Sleepwalker and Wanderer in Nocturnal Wanderer have a similar effect. The question is, when one of the selves is pronounced dead, is the other self of the same character still alive and continuing to exist? The answer is obviously no: with the demise of the first self, the second self has neither reason nor legitimacy to exist. The playwright’s dramatic treatment of the two characters in The Man Who Questions Death, trapped in reality in different ways and to different degrees, obviously cannot break through the reality which imprisons them, and thus metaphorically depicts them as being in ideological fetters.

Concluding Remarks The way The Man Who Questions Death ends is actually told in advance by That Man: the death of This Man. It is as Hu Yaoheng says, This Man “has a splendid posture when breathing his last” (viii). He notes that This Man’s death is dramatic and full of ironic overtones. This brings us back to Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape:” Krapp – as a young man recorded on tape – pronounces life to be meaningless after which (the older) Krapp stares ahead motionless, the tape then runs on in silence (Beckett 223). In The Man Who Questions Death, after This Man hangs himself, “That Man slowly lowers his head. Motionless, he stands erect on the stage” (107). The endings of these two plays both suggest that after the life of the first self ends, the life of the second self loses its meaning too. But the third voice besides those two other selves is like a completely uninvolved cold eye, continuing to observe and ponder. This third voice can be seen as an expression of the author’s attitude toward fate and death. When speaking of the author’s approach to writing, Gao Xingjian put forth the concept of “the third all-seeing eye:” The third eye is a neutral eye, or an all-seeing mind. The third eye excludes subjective emotion and individual likes and dislikes, as well as ethical and political judgment. It is not influenced a priori by any system of values, it just makes clear-headed observations. In other words, the third eye comes from the individual’s awareness. Otherwise it would

3 This opinion is shared by Hu Yaoheng. See Hu iv.

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only be like a device capable of recording diverse phenomena but not elevate that to any sort of understanding. (Gao and Fong 34)

The idea of an “all-seeing eye” has a strong Buddhist connotation. In Gao Xingjian’s explanation one could say it is a method of observation that is detached from reality. Although the concept has a Buddhist reference, Gao Xingjian states clearly that “To me, Chan [Buddhism] is not a religion, but rather a unique way of perceiving and thinking” (Gao and Fong 151). Just as he borrowed Buddhist imagery when writing The Other Shore and Dialogue and Rebuttal, or focused on dealing with a Buddhist character in Snow in August, as far as Gao Xingjian is concerned, Chan Buddhism is a method, as well as an attitude of detachment vis-à-vis reality and fate. Whether it is Gao Xingjian’s “all-seeing eye” (as an angle from which to ponder the state of existence), or “voice” as described in this paper (as a method by which to explain the meaning of life), what must be stressed is the “third” place in both cases, signifying a posture of detachment and deep thought. The predicament of an individual exists in reality, and is perhaps subject to conditions imposed by the external environment or by ideology, or bound up by innate self-awareness. The meaning of freedom can only be achieved through the individual’s extrication from this predicament. As the third voice in his plays, Gao Xingjian continues – using a third all-seeing eye which possesses aesthetic and critical significance – to ponder and explore the topics of the meaning of life and the ideal of freedom.

Works Cited Beckett, Samuel. “Krapp’s Last Tape.” The Complete Dramatic Works. By Samuel Beckett. London: Faber and Faber, 1986. 213–23. Print. Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. London: Penguin Books, 1991. Print. Fong, Gilbert C. F. “A Word from the Translator.” Escape & The Man Who Questions Death. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2007. 109–11. Print. Gao, Xingjian. “On Multivocal Theater Experimentation” [Tan duoshengbu xiju shiyan]. Xiju dianying bao 25 (1983): 2. Print. — “Wild Man” [Yeren]. Shiyue 2 (1985): 142–69. Print. — Collection of Gao Xingjian’s Plays [Gao Xingjian xiju ji]. Beijing: Qunzhong chubanshe, 1985. Print. — Wild Man. Trans. Bruno Roubicek. “Wild Man: A Contemporary Chinese Spoken Drama.” Asian Theater Journal 7.2 (1990): 184–249. Print. — The Man Who Questions Death [Kouwen siwang]. Taipei: Lianjing, 2004. Print.

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“The Man Who Questions Death.” Escape & The Man Who Questions Death. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2007. 75–108. Print. Gao, Xingjian, and Gilbert C. F. Fong. On Theater [Lun xiju]. Taipei: Lianjing, 2010. Print. Hu, Yaoheng. “The Man Who Questions Death Having Nowhere To Go [Shanqiong shuijin de ‘kouwen siwang’]. The Man Who Questions Death [Kouwen siwang]. By Gao Xingjian. Taipei: Lianjing, 2004. i–ix. Print. Lee, Mabel. “Introduction: Two Autobiographical Plays by Gao Xingjian.” Escape & The Man Who Questions Death. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2007. vii–xviii. Print. Liu, Zaifu. “Gao Xingjian’s Black Farce and Universal Writings” [Gao Xingjian de heise naoju he pushixing xiezuo]. The Man Who Questions Death [Kouwen siwang]. By Gao Xingjian. Taipei: Lianjing, 2004. 55–71. Print. Quah, Sy Ren. Gao Xingjian and Transcultural Chinese Theater. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004. Print. Swedish Academy. “Nobel Prize for Literature 2000 – Press Release.” Nobelprize.org. 12 Oct 2000. Web. 10 Jul 2012.

Wah Guan Lim

Between Memory and Forgetting: Ten Years after Gao Xingjian’s Winning of the Nobel* Introduction Ten years after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, is Gao Xingjian (b. 1940) remembered by the country that “disowned” him? After so many Chinese critics have obsessed over the Nobel Prize for more than a hundred years, a Chinese writer had finally won the coveted prize. From this angle alone, Gao should have been China’s most prized son. His works have been banned from 1989 onwards, and after he tore up his passport in the presence of the media at the outbreak of the Tiananmen massacre, he has literally been forgotten by most mainland Chinese today. When Quah Sy Ren interviewed theater students in mainland China in 1999, most of them did not know that Gao had been a leading figure in the avant-garde “little theater movement” in China during the early 1980s (Quah 163). Interestingly, Gao’s winning the Nobel in 2000 caused a bigger stir outside of China than within. This is not to say that his win did not cause a ripple within China, but it was largely confined to experimental Chinese theater circles. How, then, was Gao written out of China’s history? If the People’s Republic is so anxious to raise its status on the international scene, a Chinese winning the Nobel would, without doubt, not only be a feather in its cap but an honor of unequalled prestige. How is it then that few educated Chinese seem to know anything about Gao? This paper investigates the phenomenon of Gao’s (incomplete) erasure as “performance:” how his pursuit of freedom got him into trouble with the authorities and resulted in his being censored, and how fate played a part in ensuring his escape, and argues that his erasure from collective memory will never be complete.1 Employing Diana Taylor’s and

* I am especially indebted to my advisors Professors Edward Gunn and Sara Warner for their invaluable advice on the different drafts of this paper. This paper has also immensely benefited from the constructive feedback, discussion, and criticisms by fellow panelists and audiences at the Erlangen conference, to whom I thank with gratitude. 1 This is not to say that Gao Xingjian is not discussed in China at all. Quite the contrary, several articles published in China have attempted to discredit him. The best of these essays would discuss his merits as a pioneer in experimenting with Chinese drama in the early 1980s, but they would almost always end with lamenting the fact that Gao has since deviated ideologically and therefore we have nothing more to learn from him. Fortunately, at least two

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Marvin Carlson’s discussions of memory and forgetting, I posit the following questions: how does the state obliterate from public memory a figure who in today’s globalizing context is already internationally renowned and whose works are studied in the scholarly fields of Chinese drama, experimental theater, and global literature? This is not mentioning the high stature he earned as a leading figure in experimental Chinese theater in the 1980s, well before he became Nobel Laureate. Does Gao employ what Marvin Carlson terms ghosting to enact his resistance performance to a state that has effectively eradicated him from public consciousness? Are we able to prevent this erasure by “reviving” him in the realm of the embodied performance of the repertoire, as evinced by Diana Taylor? Above all, ten years after winning the Nobel, is Gao still remembered and relevant today? Indeed, borrowing Georges Banu’s words, how does Gao evoke a presence during his absence all this while? According to Pierre Nora, “We speak so much of memory because there is so little of it left” (7). To be sure, how much of Gao Xingjian’s legacy is retained in Chinese collective memory? How many Chinese nationals today remember – or even know in the first place – that the Chinese have in fact produced a Nobel Literature Laureate in 2000? The Chinese Communist Party’s “Technique of Forgetting History” is worth mentioning here. To avoid arrest by the Chinese authorities in the aftermath of the 1989 June Fourth Incident, Fang Lizhi (1936–2012), astrophysics professor at the University of Science and Technology of China at the time and spokesperson for human rights, went into hiding in the American Embassy in Beijing through the help of his good friend and renowned Sinologist Perry Link. A few months later while still in the American Embassy, Fang wrote an essay that, translated by Link as “Chinese Amnesia,” was published in the New York Review of Books. In it, Fang explains what is known as the “Technique of Forgetting History” that is “an important device of rule by the Chinese Communists” whose “aim is to force the whole of society to forget its history, and especially the true history of the Chinese Communist Party itself” (italics mine). The Party’s effective implementation of this technique is evidenced by the fact that the generation of Chinese youths who were fighting for democracy and liberation have no knowledge of how ruthlessly their predecessors were suppressed by the Chinese state during the past few decades. Hence, he doubted that even a major event such as the June Fourth massacre would be remembered for long. He further explicates: Events of a mere ten years earlier, for this new generation, were already unknown history. In this manner, about once each decade, the true face of history is thoroughly erased

sources published in China after 1989 have examined Gao’s significance as a dramatist without having colored the discussion with “politically correct” terms. See Gao Yin and Zhang.

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from the memory of Chinese society. This is the objective of the Chinese Communist policy of “Forgetting History.” In an effort to coerce all of society into a continuing forgetfulness, the policy requires that any detail of history that is not in the interests of the Chinese Communists cannot be expressed in any speech, book, document, or other medium.

Similarly applying this to Gao, it is no wonder that many young Chinese mainlanders today would not know that China had produced its first Nobel Literature Laureate at the turn of the millennium.

Nobel Obsession? In his pioneering study of modern Chinese literature, C. T. Hsia observes that Chinese intellectuals possess an “obsession with China,” one that has an “obsessive concern with China as a nation afflicted with a spiritual disease” (533). This perception of China as spiritually diseased “and therefore unable to strengthen itself or change its set ways of inhumanity” (534), has manifested, among other ways, a strong desire to gain global recognition through the awarding of the Nobel to a Chinese writer. Scholars like Julia Lovell aptly describe this “Nobel complex:” “Insecurity about Chinese national identity and the obsession with a diseased Chinese culture have often produced their inverse: a cultural machismo, angrily sensitive to slights and humiliations, that asserts China’s cultural uniqueness” (7). The intensity of this urge was heightened by the assurgency of the Chinese state in the globalizing contemporary world, paralleling China’s desire to be recognized as an equal in the international arena. The year 2000 marked the hundredth anniversary of the Nobel Prize, during which the prize for literature had never been awarded to a Chinese writer. With the Chinese authorities fanning patriotic sentiment, people held great hope that it would be China’s turn for the prize. However, the award of the prize to Gao Xingjian, persona non grata in China, has meant for the authorities to devote much effort to eradicating his existence from public memory. Why, we must first ask, is the Chinese state so opposed to the awarding of the prize to Gao? Why is he so dangerous, and are his writings really so subversive? Gao came to prominence after China emerged from the throes of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) during which the country was virtually cut off from the rest of the world. All cultural creativity was stifled, and the eight “model plays” promoted by Mao’s wife Jiang Qing became the blueprint for all cultural production. Chinese audiences were starved of artistic nourishment, thus opening up the immediate post-Cultural Revolution period as a

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wide vacuum for artistic innovation and experimental work. Gao Xingjian’s Alarm Signal (1982), which heralded the emergence of experimental theater in China (Zou 46) was one of the works that began to fill that vacuum. Consciously experimenting with different ways of expanding the possibilities and expressivity of theater, Gao’s theatrical aesthetics was inspired by the dramatic practices of Brecht, Artaud, Beckett, Genet, and Ionesco as well as that of traditional Chinese theater. As a French major in college, and later working as editor and translator at the Foreign Languages Press in Beijing, he had direct access to works of these major Western theater theorists and practitioners before most others in China had even heard of them (Quah 166–7). Gao’s advantage over his Chinese peers made him a central figure in Chinese experimental theater in the early- to mid-1980s. By the time he left China, the sensational impact of his plays Alarm Signal, Bus Stop (1983), Wild Man (1985), and The Other Shore (1986), had earned him the title: “undisputed leader of Chinese experimental theater” (Zou 54). It is to his second play Bus Stop that I would like to devote our discussion because it was the one that seems to have been most problematical for the authorities. Having been compared to a Chinese version of Waiting for Godot, Bus Stop opens at a non-specified locality with a group of people waiting at a bus stop for a bus to take them into the city. Buses pass but never stop. As the passengers begin to take note of time, they suddenly realize that ten years have passed and one of them – the Silent Man – has already quietly left to walk to the city. Panic stricken, they suddenly burst into self-reflection, asking themselves – and at times, directly addressing the audience – if they would not have already arrived in the city if they too had left with the Silent Man. Whether or not the Silent Man had successfully made his way into the city is not known, and is probably not as important as his having raised the possibility of doing something different from the collective. We could assume that he has arrived, just as we assume at the end of the play that the crowd has come to a collective agreement to wait no more and walk together into the city. This assumption is disrupted, however, by Director Ma’s ambiguous line at the end of the play calling out: “Hey, hey – wait a minute, wait a minute, I’m tying my shoelace!” (59). One of the strengths of the play lies in this ambiguity, perhaps frustrating the authority’s penchant for clarity and certainty. So, what was so controversial about Bus Stop? What warranted the play being labeled “more Hai Rui is Dismissed from Office than Hai Rui is Dismissed from Office” and “the most poisonous play written since the founding of the People’s Republic of China” (Gao, “Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 146–7)?2 Even 2 Written by Wu Han in 1959, Hai Rui is Dismissed from Office is a play depicting the dismissal of a morally upright official, Hai Rui (1540–1587). The play is widely considered as “the open-

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after the 73 year-old Cao Yu (1910–96) – heretofore China’s most renowned dramatist and Honorary President of the Beijing People’s Art Theater (where Gao was a playwright) – had given his tacit approval for Bus Stop, the play was only held as ten closed-door performances, not open to the general public.3 Furthermore, on the orders of the Central Propaganda Department, two extra performances of Bus Stop were staged and tickets issued to “specific work units” so that “they could write criticisms” and attack the play (“Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 148). Sure enough, as Peter Brook has elucidated so beautifully: No tribute to the latent power of the theatre is as telling as that paid to it by censorship … Instinctively, governments know that the living event could create a dangerous electricity – even if we see this happen all too seldom. But this ancient fear is recognition of an ancient potential. The theatre is the arena where a living confrontation can take place. The focus of a large group of people creates a unique intensity. Owing to this, forces that operate at all times and rule each person’s daily life can be isolated and perceived more clearly. (111–2)

Perhaps “the latent power of the theatre,” coupled with the messages embedded within Bus Stop and the form in which the play was presented, became a formula so truly formidable that it forced the authorities to ban further performances. Scholars have commented that the content of the play is peppered with references to social problems in contemporary China, with the underlying critique underscoring a need for political reform. Harry Kuoshu, for instance, feels that not only are Chinese characteristics identifiable in the play, it also serves as a critical commentary on Chinese society. He views the relationships among the passengers, and between buses and passengers, as critiquing China’s social problems: “when the bus is too full for everyone to get on it, the queue is no longer respected … ‘backdoorism’ (favoritism) becomes more and more prevalent in interpersonal relationship” (463). Indeed “backdoorism” has been an ongoing problem in China, even till today, where people skip through official channels not because of their extraordinary abilities, but their personal relationships with those in positions of authority. In the play,

ing shot of the Cultural Revolution” (Wagner 236). Even though He Jingzhi, who was then in charge of literature in the Central Propaganda Department, attacked Bus Stop as such, he himself had not seen the play (“Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 147). 3 When Gao Xingjian and director Lin Zhaohua were making rehearsal plans for Bus Stop, they visited Cao Yu and told him about the play, who replied, “It’s a global subject, why can’t you stage it?” After watching the dress rehearsal, no one in the theater dared to speak except Cao Yu, who raised his walking stick high in the air and shouted “Bravo!” (Gao,“Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 145–6)

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Director Ma mentions more than once having bribed various people in power, yet he still is unable to get onto a bus. This of course agitates the others. They would not be able to bribe their way in if a bus should stop for them. Critics also viewed the refusal of the buses to stop as an allegory of the state’s failure to deliver its promises to the Chinese people, resulting in their endless wait and wastage of their youth. Intentionally or unintentionally, the ten-year wait in Bus Stop would serve as a stark reminder of the ten-year Cultural Revolution. Furthermore, Kuoshu points out that the faded sign at the bus stop is: feng yu, literally “wind and rain.” These two characters could also suggest a second meaning of “political in-fighting” (466). The ending of the play then would suggest Gao’s implicit call to the people – who are tired of waiting endlessly for the state to change – to rise up collectively against the state. Having newly emerged from the Cultural Revolution in the early 1980s, one would interpret the semiotics too readily as expounded, even if Gao has often stated that his plays should not be interpreted as social criticism directed at specific locales.

Formal Qualities of Bus Stop If Geremie Barmé is right in surmising that Bus Stop is “the first play to introduce elements of the Theatre of the Absurd to a Chinese audience” (373), then the form of the play could pose a direct challenge to the existing party line and practices allowed within the theater. As Quah Sy Ren points out, “Gao knew the political danger in admitting to any relation to himself or his play with absurdist drama and cautiously rejected any suggestion that there was such an association. To be labeled as an ‘absurdist’ was tantamount to being called a ‘reactionary’” (64). The play’s alleged “treacherous” content, taken at face value by today’s standards, would seem rather mediocre. It was form rather than content, which Gao was steering himself clear of. In fact, even the staging of Alarm Signal – whose impact might be deemed less critical of the officials – was initially not approved “because its proposed form of representation was a breach of the tradition of socialist realism in the Beijing People’s Art Theatre” (Quah 62). Quah states that for Chinese dramatists in the 1980s, “form became a motif in the representation of modernity” (60). He also quotes from Terry Eagleton, who “further argues that in the modern aesthetic form becomes its content,” and it was through the “appropriation of these forms, [that] a clear picture of their [the Chinese dramatists’] ideological intentions and intellectual consciousness can emerge” (61).

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The formal modes of presentation in modern Chinese drama were up until then dominated by socialist-realism and naturalism, mostly represented by Ibsen and Stanislavsky, and drama was often used by the ruling Chinese Communist Party as a propaganda tool in political campaigns. It is worth bearing in mind that Brecht, Artaud, Beckett, Genet, and Ionesco, from whom Gao borrowed heavily, had also rebelled against conventional styles of Western performance. By deviating from the norm and borrowing from these alternative Western dramatic theorists, Gao’s act can be interpreted both as a mode of resistance performance against the political status quo as well as provide a subversive agenda. In Bus Stop, Gao had appropriated “Western theatrical techniques … to reveal human subjectivity, a quality previously repressed in conventional realist theater” (Quah 62). In the revelation of human subjectivity, the Theater of the Absurd and Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt are most apparently utilized. Towards the end in Bus Stop, as the people waiting at the bus stop realize that the Silent Man has already left, they fall into a state of despair and desperation, lamenting at how much time has zoomed past and how many opportunities have been lost in the interim. The performers then suddenly step out of their dramatis personae to address the audience directly: Actor B playing Director Ma: There are times in your life when you really have to wait … Then you must have lined up to wait for the bus? Lining up is waiting … Didn’t you stand in line all that time for nothing? You can’t help but be boiling mad … If you line up and line up, and wait in vain for half your lifetime, or perhaps your whole lifetime, aren’t you just playing a big joke on yourself? … Actor D playing Mother: The mother says to her son: walk, darling, walk! But the child can never learn. You might as well let him crawl on his own. Of course, sometimes you can support him … You also have to allow him to fall … A child can’t learn to walk without tripping. To be a mother you have to be patient about this. Otherwise you’re not qualified. No, you don’t know how to be a mother … (57–8)

By having his performers step out of their characters’ personae to critique the performance and directly communicate with the audience, Brecht was highlighting the theater as a staged and not real event. This prevents his audience from a total emotional immersion in the theatrical spectacle and instead alienates them from the spectacle, thus allowing them to stand apart from the performance to critique it from different points of view offered by the performers. According to Peter Brook: It was out of respect for the audience that Brecht introduced the idea of alienation, for alienation is a call to halt: alienation is cutting, interrupting, holding something up to the light, making us look again. Alienation is above all an appeal to the spectator to work for himself, so to become more and more responsible for accepting what he sees

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only if it is convincing to him in an adult way. Brecht rejects the romantic notion that in the theatre we all become children again … Brecht believed that, in making an audience take stock of the elements in a situation, the theatre was serving the purpose of leading its audience to a juster understanding of the society in which it lived, and so to learning in what ways that society was capable of change. (81–2)

Here Gao aims to do likewise. While Actor B highlights the frustration and futility of waiting in vain and Actor D allegorizes and critiques the parental style of governance of the Chinese Communist Party, it is only through them stepping out of their dramatis personae that the audience, confronted with this defamiliarized mode of presentation, gets shocked into contemplating the messages being discussed. Furthermore, having actors step out of their characters not only defies the spatial-temporal logic adhered to in socialist-realism and naturalism, it also confronts the audience directly when the words uttered by the actors are not in sync with the dramatic sequence of the play. This space-time linearity is similarly transgressed when the crowd first learns of the Silent Man’s departure and is suddenly shocked to realize then that ten years have passed. Gao seems to have designed this as a cathartic moment to first take the performers out of their dramatis personae and then further confront the audience with the messages directly delivered by the performers, sometimes without adhering to rational language. As Brook suggests: By using language illogically, by introducing the ridiculous in speech and the fantastic in behaviour, an author of the Theatre of the Absurd opens up for himself another vocabulary … The Theatre of the Absurd did not seek the unreal for its own sake. It used the unreal to make certain explorations, because it sensed the absence of truth in our everyday exchanges, and the presence of the truth in the seemingly far-fetched. (59)

Having the performers step out of their characters to address the audience directly may also prompt the audience into reflecting about the issues imbedded in the production in relation to their own situations, which is completely in sync with Brecht’s rejection of “the romantic notion that in the theatre we all become children again” (Brook 81). This calls directly into question the regime which has governed in a patriarchal fashion: since times immemorial, the Chinese Emperor has always styled himself as Son of Heaven, and these familial ties were extended to the people he ruled as his subjects. Although the Chinese Communist Party has long been an eradicator of the dynastic past, they have conveniently employed such methods – this mentality of ruling in a paternalistic fashion – to their own advantage. To ask the people to assume responsibility as “adults,” therefore, is akin to treason, inciting revolution. Though never publicly admitted by Gao, this has been the reading, at least by

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the censors, of the ending of Bus Stop: the group rises up to leave for the city. The censors read this as a “call to arms:” inciting the people to stand up for themselves and rise to the occasion to take their individual stances. All this is made possible only with Gao’s choice of the form of presentation. The formal qualities of Brechtian and Absurdist theater in fact work to subvert the Chinese regime.

Carlson’s Ghosting With all these potential problems in the interpretation of Bus Stop, how did Gao prepare himself for the play’s production? Already after the staging of his first play Alarm Signal, the authorities were concerned with the play having “blurred characterization” (Zhao 185), which deviated from the Party’s standards. Though his first play to be openly staged by the Beijing People’s Art Theater was Alarm Signal, Gao had composed Bus Stop earlier, but was advised by Yu Shizhi, the then Vice President of the Beijing People’s Art Theater, not to perform it because it was too avant-garde and could easily be used as a weapon to attack Gao in the highly fluctuating political environment of the early 1980s. It was then that Gao wrote Alarm Signal, and only after its success did Gao Xingjian and Lin Zhaohua have the audacity to stage Bus Stop without first seeking Party approval (Gao, “Wilted Chrysanthemums,” 145–6). Here, I consider Gao’s resistance act to be an employment of what Marvin Carlson calls ghosting to avoid the problem of the censors. Carlson describes this as a “process of using the memory of previous encounters to understand and interpret encounters with new and somewhat different but apparently similar phenomena” (6). As part of his resistance schema, Gao strategically designed the performance of Bus Stop as a two-part sequel, with Lu Xun’s (1881–1936) “Passer-by” (1925) presented as a prelude to Gao’s play, and having the protagonist in “Passer-by” double-up as the Silent Man in Bus Stop. In this way, Quah observes, Gao could “borrow Lu Xun’s image of the wayfarer, easily recognized by the Chinese audience, who proceeds with his journey regardless of uncertainty, in stark contrast to the other characters who hesitate” (65). Carlson explains his notion of the “haunted body:” The most familiar example of this phenomenon is the appearance of an actor, remembered from previous roles, in a new characterization. The recycled body of an actor, already a complex bearer of semiotic messages, will almost inevitably in a new role evoke the ghost or ghosts of previous roles if they have made any impression whatever on the audience, a phenomenon that often colors and indeed may dominate the reception process. (8)

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Considered in line with Carlson’s theory of ghosting, Quah’s reading of Gao’s strategy, therefore, bears a semblance to the Chinese proverb of “using the past to refer to the present,” or evoking a past memory and using it for contemporary purposes. Since, as Carlson further explains, “The expectations an audience brings to a new reception experience are the residue of memory of previous such experiences” (5), Gao’s deliberate doubling of the protagonists by using the same actor in the staging of the two plays, one immediately following the other, might drive the message home to the audience: if Lu Xun’s Passer-by is a wayfarer “who proceeds with his journey regardless of uncertainty,” then his reappearance as the Silent Man in Bus Stop carries forth the message of continuity into the unknown despite the ambiguity he has to face, which is “in stark contrast to the other characters who hesitate” (Quah 65) in Gao’s play. More importantly, I would argue that on top of this, what Gao is doing here is less so to recast the actor into a new character than to ride on the cultural credence of the author of “Passer-by.” Hailed as the “father of modern Chinese literature,” Lu Xun is the preeminent modern Chinese writer; to date, no creative Chinese writer has surpassed his stature. Even Chairman Mao has heaped praises on him posthumously, extolling him as “not only a great writer, but a great thinker and revolutionary as well” (qtd. in Hsia 29). By evoking the memory of Lu Xun and claiming that the theme of Bus Stop is in line with “Passer-by,” however vague that might be, was perhaps Gao’s strategy to avoid censorship.4 Indeed as Carlson has said, “The close association of the theatre with the evocation of the past, the histories and legends of the culture uncannily restored to a mysterious half-life here, has made the theatre in the minds of many the art most closely related to memory” (142). Despite whatever similarities there might be in the two plays, I am suggesting that the artistic considerations undertaken by Gao might be of lesser importance than its political implications: by riding on the authority of an esteemed literary figure, the ghost of Lu Xun, and the memories that respected figure evokes, Gao’s staging of his resistance performance attempted to deflect potential criticism by the censors. Evoking the ghost of Lu Xun in Bus Stop, did not save him from persecution then, or later on. Even as his third play, Wild Man, was “acknowledged by dramatists and critics alike as a bold attempt to push the performing arts

4 “Passer-by,” Lu Xun’s only play, is published as part of the collection in his anthology of prose-poetry entitled Wild Grass (1927). The pieces in Wild Grass are highly opaque and about the most difficult of Lu Xun’s writings to decipher, even “Lu Xunologists” fail to agree on a common interpretation of the collection, much less surmise what the “theme” of “Passer-by” is.

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of China into a new realm” (Roubicek 186), the production team for Gao’s fourth play, The Other Shore, was disbanded during the rehearsal stage, and its cast warned not to collaborate with him again. Gao concluded from then onwards that he would never again be able to explore his theatrical concepts in China freely nor would his works be staged without censorship, suspicion and threat of his being arrested. Finally in 1987, while traveling in Germany on invitation, he took his chance and sought temporary residence in France. In 1989 he publicly denounced the military crackdown on students in Tiananmen Square, and declared that he would never return to China as long as the authoritarian regime held sway in Beijing. In response, the state imposed a de facto ban on all his works, which explains why many Chinese had not heard of Gao when he was announced the winner of the Nobel literature award on October 12, 2000.

Taylor’s Repertoire The strategy the Chinese state has adopted – not without embarrassment and awkwardness – has been to suppress the living memory of this intellectual figure. When the Swedish Academy announced the winner of the Literature Prize, for instance, journalists in China who were uncertain of the position of the official party line on Gao’s winning the Nobel, did not know how to report the event. Most held their breath and “waited for instructions from above” (Lovell 171). Even more ironic was perhaps the confusion about how to deal with the statement by then Premier Zhu Rongji, who made public his good wishes to an author who used “Chinese squared characters,” but also added that since Gao was already a French citizen, the honor belonged to France and not the People’s Republic. Although permanently in print, these words were removed from the web version of The People’s Daily, and state media blatantly denied that the then Chinese premier had ever made the public statement (Hewitt)! Other Chinese media made a piece-meal report on the announcement, with some politicians and scholars in China attacking Gao for being an unworthy winner and that the Nobel Committee had a political agenda in giving the award to a dissident writer who had fled to France in 1987, calling him a “Chinese writer in inverted commas,” “foreign literature worker,” “exiled writer,” or “French writer” (Lovell 172). On the other side of the straits, the Taiwanese and Hong Kong press generally welcomed the news and championed Gao as a hero, and for his identity as a Chinese writer who broke the centurion-long wait for a Nobel literature laureate (Lovell 1).

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If the acts Gao has adopted in his position can be construed as “performance,” so too can the Chinese state’s response. Diana Taylor proposes that “Debates about the ‘ephemerality’ of performance are, of course, profoundly political. Whose memories, traditions, and claims to history disappear if performance practices lack the staying power to transmit vital knowledge?” (5) She further points out that: Performance … is as much about forgetting as about remembering. The West has forgotten about the many parts of the world that elude its explanatory grasp. Yet, it remembers the need to cement the centrality of its position as the West by creating and freezing the non-West as always other, “foreign,” and unknowable. Domination by culture, by “definition,” by claims to originality and authenticity have functioned in tandem with military and economic supremacy. (11–2)

Replacing “the West” with “the Chinese state” would be an interesting fit for our discussion. For the lapse of memory by the West on the rest of the (nonWestern) world, China matches it with a need to forget and deny the existence of its own minorities and the individuals it has disenfranchised. Yet, it is this blatant forgetting-cum-ignoring of such desecration it has inflicted on minorities and dissidents alike that the Chinese state is able to perform its own “domination by culture” (Taylor 12) into being and maintain its current hegemonic stance. Against a powerful and domineering state machinery such as China, therefore, is the effort of keeping Gao’s memory alive a lost cause? I propose that Taylor’s category of the “archive and the repertoire” might be a useful strategy with which to view the efforts of keeping Gao’s memory alive at multiple levels as a continued resistance performance. On top of the textual emphasis of “archival memory” as storage of information, Taylor defines the corporeal dimension of the “repertoire:” The repertoire, whether in terms of verbal or nonverbal expression, transmits live, embodied actions. As such, traditions are stored in the body, through various mnemonic methods, and transmitted “live” in the here and now to a live audience. Forms handed down from the past are experienced as present. (24)

The emphasis here is on the embodiment of a live memory. This allows superseded traditions to be carried on as lived traditions. When asked if he misses China or if he would have a problem writing for Chinese audiences since he has been living abroad for so long, Gao’s response is that he is neither interested in writing specifically for the Chinese audience nor does he need geopolitical China since Chinese traditions are “in his blood.” To be sure, Gao’s themes took a significant turn after his relocation to France, focusing on more

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universal themes “such as the relationship between God and Satan, man and woman, good and evil, and salvation and suffering, and modern man’s concerns for language and consciousness, as well as the relationship between the individual and the Other,” (Gao, The Other Shore 189) instead of restricting himself to a narrow critique of the Chinese government. More than once, however, has Gao returned to revisit Chinese themes in his works, drawing on classical traditions such as in Of Mountains and Seas (1993) and Snow in August (2000), and writing a semi-autobiographical account of his experiences during the Cultural Revolution in One Man’s Bible (1999). Even the works he wrote with a non-identifiable background, or anything China-related, do not discount the possibility that they are informed by a Chinese sub-consciousness interwoven with Western thought. In his speech at the Nobel Award Ceremony in 2000, Swedish Sinologist Göran Malmqvist commented: Gao Xingjian’s plays are characterized by originality, in no way diminished by the fact that he has been influenced both by modern Western and traditional Chinese currents. His greatness as a dramatist lies in the manner in which he has succeeded in enriching these fundamentally different elements and making them coalesce to something entirely new.

Contemporary scholars and critics alike have little doubt that Gao is steeped in both the “modern Western and traditional Chinese currents.” It is due to Gao’s continued efforts to write, to infuse elements of traditional Chinese culture into his creative writing that it is possible to “transmit” Chinese culture as a “lived” tradition through Gao’s “embodied actions.” While his works may be banned in China, they continue to circulate in the Chinese speaking world and in translation in other parts of the world “to a live audience” (Taylor 24). In turn, this might have some effect on exerting external pressure on the Chinese authorities to lift the ban on Gao’s works, or else increase the influx of Gao’s works into China via means other than the mainstream print media. Considered in this light, I argue that the resistance performance of the Gao phenomenon is not limited to his own actions. Just as Taylor proposes, “The repertoire requires presence: people participate in the production and reproduction of knowledge by ‘being there,’ being a part of the transmission” (20), the repertoire of keeping alive Gao’s memory is enacted by the many scholars and translators who continue to write on him, promote him, and translate his works for an even wider community that does not have access to the Chinese language.5 Among his many translators, the most renowned is none other than 5 Thus far, Gao’s works have been translated into thirty-six main languages in the world and performed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Australia, the United States, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, France, Poland, Japan, The Ivory Coast, Tunisia, and Canada among others.

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Göran Malmqvist, the only member of the Nobel Selection Committee who reads Chinese, and many have speculated on Gao’s winning the Nobel because of Malmqvist’s endorsement. Whether or not this is the case is beyond the scope of this paper, but one can certainly assert that Malmqvist has contributed to Gao’s repertoire by translating his works into Swedish. In addition, there have been many international symposiums held solely in Gao’s name, at which scholars and academics have been invited to analyze the significance of his works from different angles, thus adding to this collective repertoire: in 2005 in Norway, 2008 in Hong Kong, 2010 in South Korea, and 2011 in Germany. This is in addition to Gao’s numerous invitations to present guest lectures and to receive accolades and honorary degrees from institutions of higher learning all over the world. Gao’s significance as an important contemporary director, playwright and intellectual was not noticed only after he won the Nobel. Early efforts to introduce Gao to the Western world, although admirable, were often piecemeal and could not offer a fuller understanding of him. It was not until the concerted works of Gilbert Fong, Henry Zhao, and Mabel Lee that English-language readers have begun to see a more complete picture of Gao.6 He is also studied as an important figure in the literary and dramatic scenes in Taiwan and Hong Kong. All these efforts contribute to the collective living repertoire of Gao Xingjian.

Conclusion To conclude, I draw on Georges Banu’s study of Grotowski, how he depicts the Polish director’s absence as a living presence. Banu says that the ancient Chinese radical philosophers chose to exile themselves away from the power of the feudal princes as “an act of defiance against the prince, a permanent, living condemnation of his rule” (243). Instead of giving up or giving in, selfexile should be read as “questioning the state of things” and is itself “a politi6 To the best of my knowledge, there was no detailed study of Gao’s plays in English until the systematic introduction and translation of his plays by Gilbert Fong, in the anthology The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian (1999), and the first book-length study of Gao’s drama Towards a Modern Zen Theatre: Gao Xingjian and Chinese Theatre Experimentalism (2000) by Henry Zhao. Mabel Lee was responsible for the translation of several of Gao’s speeches, short stories, prose, and most notably, his two long novels Soul Mountain (2000) and One Man’s Bible (2002) into English. Almost every modern Chinese drama anthology in English published by a major university press has excerpted Gao’s works, the most important being the Oxford and more recent Columbia anthologies (see Yu, Cheung and Lai, Yan and Chen).

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cal statement in the absence of anything else, because, confronted by discretionary power, it seemed to signal the regaining of control over place” (243). To arrive at such a stage, however, Banu outlines three criteria which I consider to apply to Gao, and this provides further evidence of how Gao enacts his resistance performance even though he has physically been away from China since 1987: the absent presence. I quote at length from Banu: First, the master has to have been in the world, and to have touched concrete heights of perfection … Absence has to follow achievement, rather than a failure or a block. Second, absence is not silence. The master may radically challenge the day-to-day grind that devastates practical work, but he never stops thinking about his work and about the possibilities of improving it. His word is both critical and Utopian. Absence is not dumb. Finally, the master does have disciples. They may be people who help him survive … Without forming a coertia, i.e. a group of unconditional friends, in the true sense of the Greek word, they operate individually to transform the absence of the master into presence for others, for those who have never known him. Only this tripartite combination can transform an absence into a fertile presence that feeds hopes of better things. The exiled master makes double statement of refusal and of Utopian projection. (245–6; italics in the original)

For Gao then, self-exile is perhaps his best act of resistance. He had already achieved the status of undisputed leader of experimental Chinese theater in the 1980s. Secondly, Gao has never given in: he continues to write, in both Chinese and French, and won the Nobel Prize as a dissident – perhaps his best claim against a dictatorial Chinese state. On Banu’s third criteria, the scholars who endorse Gao by translating his works to reach wider audiences can surely be considered “disciples” in Banu’s definition. It is a combination of all these factors that has allowed Gao to continue his resistance performance even up till today, ten years on from winning the Nobel Prize. It was fate that he mastered French, which truly distinguished him from his peers and allowed him to take up residence in France when living in China would have meant that he needed to compromise. It was freedom – not just freedom to live a material life but the freedom to write and create – that guided his unyielding spirit, from struggling against the odds in China to seek a different theatrical aesthetics to his continued resistance performance after his self-imposed exile. His legacy lives on as he continues his creative efforts and as scholars continue to assess his work even as they continue to remain banned in his home country. I dare not prognosticate on the future, but can only hope that through continued efforts by scholars and translators alike we will one day see Gao’s works published and studied in China without repercussions.

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Works Cited Banu, Georges. “Grotowski – The Absent Presence.” The Intercultural Performance Reader. Ed. Patrice Pavis. London, New York: Routledge, 1996. 242–6. Print. Barmé, Geremie. “A Touch of the Absurd – Introducing Gao Xingjian, and his Play The Bus Stop.” Trees on the Mountain: An Anthology of New Chinese Writing. Eds. Stephen C. Soong and John Minford. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1984. 373–8. Print. Brook, Peter. The Empty Space. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. Print. Carlson, Marvin A. The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. Print. Chen, Xiaomei, ed. The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Print. Cheung, Martha P. Y., and Jane C. C. Lai, eds. An Oxford Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama. Hong Kong; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Print. Fang Lizhi. “Chinese Amnesia.” Trans. Perry Link. New York Review of Books. 27 Sept. 1990. Web. 31 Aug. 2011 . Gao, Xingjian. “Bus Stop: A Lyrical Comedy on Life in One Act.” Trans. Kimberly Besio. Theater and Society: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama. Ed. Yan Haiping. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. 3–59. Print. — The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1999. Print. — “Wilted Chrysanthemums.” Trans. Mabel Lee. The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. 140–54. Print. Gao, Yin. Theater History of the New Era in Beijing [Beijing xin shiqi xiju shi]. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 2006. 167–93. Print. Hewitt, Duncan. “China in Denial over Nobel Laureate.” BBC News. BBC, 10 Dec. 2000. Web. 09 Feb. 2012. . Hsia, C. T. A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. Print. Kuoshu, Harry H. “Will Godot Come by Bus or Through a Trace? Discussion of a Chinese Absurdist Play.” Modern Drama 41.3 (1998): 461–73. Print. Lovell, Julia. The Politics of Cultural Capital: China’s Quest for a Nobel Prize in Literature. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006. Print. Malmqvist, Göran. “Presentation Speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature 2000.” Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media. 10 Dec. 2000. Web. 24 Apr. 2011. . Nora, Pierre. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Trans. Marc Roudebush. Representations 26 [Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory] (1989): 7–24. Print. Quah, Sy Ren. Gao Xingjian and Transcultural Chinese Theater. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004. Print. Roubicek, Bruno. “Translator’s Introduction – Wildman: A Contemporary Chinese Spoken Drama.” Asian Theatre Journal 7.2 (1990): 184–91. Print. Taylor, Diana. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. Print.

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Wagner, Rudolf G. The Contemporary Chinese Historical Drama: Four Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. Print. Yan, Haiping, ed. Theater and Society: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1998. Print. Yu, Shiao-Ling S., ed. Chinese Drama after the Cultural Revolution, 1979–1989: An Anthology. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1997. Print. Zhang, Fu. “Gao Xingjian and Contemporary Drama – The Analysis of Alarm Signal, Bus Stop and Wild Man” [Gao Xingjian yu zhongguo dangdai xiju – Juedui xinhao, chezhan, yeren sanbu ju de fenxi]. Collection of Decorated Jade: Selected Articles of Graduate Students from the Chinese Department at Beijing University [Zhuiyuji: Beijing daxue zhongwenxi yanjiusheng lunwen xuanbian]. Eds. Yan Jiayan and Yuan Xingpei. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1990. 165–84. Print. Zhao, Henry Y. H. Towards a Modern Zen Theatre: Gao Xingjian and Chinese Theatre Experimentalism. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2000. Print. Zou, Jiping. “Gao Xingjian and Chinese Experimental Theatre.” Ph.D. Diss. Illinois: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994. Print.

Lily Li

Finding Freedom and Reshaping Fate: An Exile’s Disentanglement from Obsession in Gao Xingjian’s Novels Introduction Exile exists in a variety of forms and in a variety of experiences from individual to individual. Many writers in exile have tried to define the term “exile” from their various experiences and to delineate the experiences of exile in their writings. While some writers see more disadvantages and miseries in exile, others see advantages and opportunities in it. Exile is, first of all, a destabilizing experience particularly to a writer, whose identity is manifested in their work through the medium of language. The event of exile, whether forced or self-imposed, brings discontinuity into life. As Robert Edwards remarks: “exile attacks identity by threatening continuity and one’s ability to project a self located in time and space confidently toward the future” (Rulyova 118–9). When a writer finds himself in exile either by choice (voluntary/self-imposed exile) or by force (exile as banishment), whether he lives in the native land (internal exile) or abroad (external exile), the writer usually has to accept his fate of exile, displacement from home, and finds his own way to cope with the new experience, which is often reflected in his writings. Though one’s displacement from the home or the homeland can mean “an incredible spiritual freedom” to one writer, it can also cause a “spiritual paralysis” to another if the writer persists in agonizing over the loss of the home or the homeland (Gombrowicz 154–5). To consider the loss of one’s “true home” as an eternal loss undermines the advantages of exile (Said 173), and is not the unique experience of just one writer in exile. In many cases, exile is not automatically equivalent to spiritual freedom. However, as Leo Lee points out, when a literary exile is a truly “peripheral” writer, who chooses to be “unbound” by his homeland, he can gain “total freedom” (231). Many writers in exile cope with life in exile by resorting to memories of the past in their writings. Consequently, a large part of exile literature consists of recollections of the past: memories of the past in the homeland become treasured assets, and are carried into exile. However, there is a paradox in memories. Memories can enable an exile to enrich his present with the past, as “a useful tool with which to work in the present” (Rushdie 12), and can provide the writer with “contrapuntal vision” (Said 186). But excessive retro-

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spection leads to the inability to face the realities of the present and the uncertainties in the future, and is described by Joseph Brodsky as a miserable exile “like the false prophets of Dante’s Inferno, his head … forever turned backward and his tears, or saliva, … running down between his shoulder blades” (6). Hana Píchová compares handling memories to turning a “kaleidoscope.” As she describes it, the colored fragments in it are the pieces of the personal and cultural memories of the past while the reflecting mirrors of the kaleidoscope are the surfaces of the present: a careful turn tumbles the fragments into “a constellation of surprising beauty,” but a sudden or fast turn leaves the pieces fallen into “a shapeless heap” (10). Therefore a writer in exile who knows how to turn the kaleidoscope skillfully to form beautiful patterns can be viewed as a successful writer, or in Píchová’s words, “a novelistic pattern designer” (10, note 21). Gao Xingjian’s two novels Soul Mountain1 (1990) and One Man’s Bible (1998) were written in Chinese while in exile. Gao started the first novel in voluntary internal exile in China and completed it in external exile in Paris; he wrote the second novel in Paris, during his continuing exile. In both novels, Gao relates his memories, happy or bitter, of the homeland, and shows the process of a writer in exile becoming a masterful “novelistic pattern designer” due to the beauty of his art. One might say, using Píchová’s metaphor, that Gao succeeds in becoming a kaleidoscopic novelist. The current criticism on Gao’s Soul Mountain varies mainly from discussing the identity of the Chinese nation, culture or literature, to the identity of the individual. As the novel Soul Mountain concerns the protagonist’s search for the mythical Soul Mountain in southern China, mostly in marginalized minority cultures, the view that Gao’s novel is a search for the roots of the national culture in unorthodox Chinese cultures is dominant (Liu, “Reading Soul Mountain,” 180; Liu, “Preface,” 139; Zhao 112; Fong “Freedom,” xxxiv). This view of Soul Mountain as a quest for the essence of Chinese culture is supported by Gao Xingjian himself, as he expounds his view of Chinese culture from the perspective of cultural history on many occasions (“Literature and Metaphysics,” 82–103). Another important criticism of the novel’s perspective comes from Mabel Lee: She examines the novel in the context of Chinese intellectual and literary history and argues that Soul Mountain is Gao Xingjian’s exploration of the individual’s multi-dimensional self as an intellectual and a creative writer, using the narrative technique of multiple pronouns as the protagonists.2 Lee further points out that “self-obsession and self-celebration” 1 Gao Xingjian says that he started Soul Mountain in the summer of 1982 in Beijing and completed it in September 1989 in Paris (“Literature and Metaphysics,” 82–103). 2 For a sampling of Lee’s articles elaborating this view, see “Gao Xingjian;” “Personal Freedom;” “Pronouns.”

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are attributes of Gao’s novels, and relates Gao’s two novels to the tradition of late Ming literati autobiography and subsequently early Qing literati fictionalized autobiography (“Gao Xingjian’s Fiction,” 11). At the same time, some scholars have observed the sense of fleeing in the novel, as the protagonist is on the run from the political center in the north to the marginalized cultures in the south, from the center to the periphery, just as it was for the author in real life for five months in 1983. Kwok-kan Tam argues that “a conscious attempt of fleeing” is the sense of exile presented in Soul Mountain (“Introduction,” 5). Gilbert Fong, writing about Gao’s fivemonth trip to southern China, an essential part of the novel, remarks: “it was an escape, and to an extent, also an exile … The trip could have been a selfconscious subversive act; undoubtedly, it was an escape of the spirit, which added to his conviction that only through escape could one find his true self and preserve his own integrity” (“Freedom,” xxviii). Mabel Lee also refers to Gao’s escape from Beijing in 1983 as “self-imposed exile” (“Gao Xingjian’s Soul Mountain,” 137). These scholars all equate the sense of fleeing in the novel to the experience of exile, but none has examined Soul Mountain from the perspective of exile studies. The present investigation is the first to do so, and focuses on achieving a deeper understanding of the implications of the exile experience for Gao Xingjian as a writer. In Soul Mountain, Gao Xingjian externalizes the psychological and emotional problems experienced by the displaced individual during his selfimposed exile. From the protagonist’s obsession with memories of home to his recognition of the problem to his temporary solution of willful forgetting (though forgetting leads him nowhere either), the protagonist in Soul Mountain is constantly in search of a way to deal with the memories of the past. Not until One Man’s Bible will the protagonist find a way to integrate the past and the present. Though both Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible have an abundance of autobiographical elements, they are first of all works of fiction and must be interpreted as complex literary pieces. Gao’s personal experience as an exile is subsumed as well as reflected in the process of his disentanglement from the Chinese homeland, a central theme that is progressively developed in both novels. I will argue that throughout both novels, a network of recurring ideas and metaphors central to the experience of exile is probed: Gao Xingjian explores an exile’s disentanglement from homeland obsession while attempting to balance the present with the past both to find a new voice and to reconstruct his identity as a writer and his essence as a human being in the context of exile. This is the process through which the exile finds freedom and reshapes his fate. This process of disentanglement involves the protagonist’s passage

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through a sequence of psychological stages, but the stages overlap rather than being clear-cut. The successive stages – (1) waves of nostalgia; (2) critical objectivity; (3) willful forgetting; and (4) integrating the present with the past – all mingle together and echo one another, but they are essential and distinct stages that reflect the inner experience of the writer in exile, as described in Gao’s two novels.

Soul Mountain: Exploration of the Exilic Mind Gao’s Soul Mountain can be read as a novel of exile, not only because there is a sense of fleeing in the protagonist’s escaping from the center to the periphery, but also because it explores the exilic mind or consciousness, imagination or sensibility. Whereas he first employed this method in his play Bi’an (1986), it is only in his later novels that Gao imbedded such themes deeply in the complicated psychological process through which the protagonist/narrator extricates himself from obsession with the past. In the process the metaphors and concepts become interrelated and juxtaposed. In discussing Soul Mountain, it will be necessary to appreciate the different roles and perspectives of the narrator and the protagonist. The protagonist (in the form of different pronouns “I,” “you,” and “he”) is a writer like the author, who, recently misdiagnosed with cancer and criticized for a booklet irrelevant to politics in his view but condemned by the authorities, embarks on a journey fleeing from the political capital to the south in search of the mystical Soul Mountain. This is a self-imposed exile within the country of residence, in other words voluntary internal exile. The protagonist lives in the past in China. He is often depicted as a stranger or outsider in the places he goes, which is a revelation of an exile’s sensibility: he feels not only “a stranger in a strange city” (Conrad 331), but also a stranger in his native land. The narrator, employing different points of view via different pronouns, “I,” “you,” and “he,” is an observer of and commentator on the protagonist. The narrator’s comments on the protagonist’s situation often transcend the space and time of the protagonist, reflecting an exilic consciousness. Nostalgia and memory are closely related in the experience of exile. Joseph Brodsky suggests that there is an essential relationship between the two concepts, remarking on the excessive retrospection in the life of a writer in exile, and that “this obstinacy translates itself into the repetitiveness of nostalgia” (6). Eva Hoffman equates nostalgia to “an excess of memory” (“The New Nomads,” 52). For both Brodsky and Hoffman, nostalgia and memory are qualitatively the same. However, nostalgia and memory do have an essential differ-

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ence. Gayle Greene differentiates the two concepts on semantic grounds: “the roots of the words suggest different impulses: whereas ‘nostalgia’ is the desire to return home, ‘to remember’ is ‘to bring to mind’ or ‘think of again,’ ‘to be mindful of,’ ‘to recollect’” (297). Greene further points out that “nostalgia and remembering are in some sense antithetical, since nostalgia is a forgetting, merely regressive, whereas memory may look back in order to move forward and transform disabling fictions to enabling fictions, altering our relation to the present and future” (298). According to Greene, nostalgia is simply retrospective while memory can be prospective. Cristina Emanuela Dascălu elaborates on Greene’s definition of nostalgia: “To feel nostalgic is to hope for a return home … it is longing to return to a home, any home, whether it be the certainty of an imagined landscape or not” (22). In Gao Xingjian’s Soul Mountain, the sense of nostalgia pervades the first two thirds of the narrative, as the protagonist journeys looking for “home” in southern China. The novel opens with a strong sense of nostalgia, reinforced with the recurrence of words such as “hometown,” “native soil,” “root,” and “home,” which sets the tone of nostalgia for the narrative. At the very beginning of the novel, the protagonist (“you”), as a tourist and an outsider appearing at a small town in southern China, envies the locals because they live on their native land (1). Revealed here is the attachment to the root, further evoked in the Chinese saying of “fallen leaves returning to the root,” a metaphor meaning when people are old, they return to die in their native place or the homeland in a broader sense. This sentiment was prevalent among early generations of Chinese immigrants who traveled abroad: few in those times were able to gain permanent residence, not to mention citizenship (Wang 186– 9). As the narrator explains, people are returning home, “the home of their ancestors” (1) from places of domicile or from abroad. The author clearly shows his view on the notion of the root and the notion of home, through the narrator, by disclosing his envy of those who are always rooted in the native land and also those who have returned home after leaving. Here the concepts of “hometown,” “native soil,” “root,” and “home” are all ultimately synonymous with the geographical location, the native place. The attachment to the native place is shared by many categories of people who leave their native place for somewhere else; however, it is especially typical of exiles, not only Chinese exiles but also exiles from other cultures. No doubt, one who views the native place as the root and home will have, upon departure, the sense of feeling uprooted. The metaphor of an exile, forced or self-imposed, as “a tree pulled up by its roots,” has been widely acknowledged by many writers in exile from different cultures (Hugo 78; Aciman, “Shadow City,” 22; Said 173). This metaphor suggests the violence, the

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abruptness, and the fatality of exile. Edward Said describes exile as “an unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place” and “between the self and its true home” (173). In Said’s view, leaving the native place or the “true home” is the immense loss experienced by an exile. In one of his novels, Milan Kundera bluntly portrays the character Tomas leaving Prague during the Russian occupation as an alienated figure, uprooted and expelled, as if “the culprit accepts his sentence” (27). The experience of uprooting even prevents some writers in exile from putting down roots again; as André Aciman remarks, exiles “have lost everything, including their roots or their ability to grow new ones” (“Shadow City,” 21). In Soul Mountain, the narrator’s notion of home seems to be that of his childhood, as trivial things like food, roof tiles, a couplet on the window frames of an old house, etc., all trigger the sentimental and nostalgic feelings of the narrator throughout two thirds of the narrative (ch. 1–54). The movement from recalling to returning to childhood (ch. 22) shows a cumulative and progressive process in the narrator’s nostalgia. His nostalgia escalates to a complete immersion in his childhood when he feels as if he has returned to his childhood (ch. 45). The deeper back into childhood memories he goes, the more emotional and sentimental the narrator becomes. The further back into memory and time, the more the past displaces the present reality. Nostalgia reaches a climax following the narrator’s disillusionment in chapter 54, when he demonstrates a sudden recognition of his obsession: “You are always searching for your childhood and it is becoming an obsession. You want to visit each of the places you stayed during your childhood, the houses, courtyards, streets and lanes of your memory” (325). Interestingly enough, the previous important chapters on nostalgia, riddled with emotional breakdowns (ch. 12, 22, and 45), are all narrated in the first person pronoun “I,” while Chapter 54 is in the second person pronoun “you.” The personal pronoun shift to “you” enables the narrator to distance himself from the protagonist in order to engage in introspective analysis and recognition. It also makes this chapter sound like an indictment of the protagonist, as the narrator points critically to “you” about “your” obsession with “home.” The narrator’s nostalgia is brought to a halt when he realizes his dream world constructed with beautiful things in his mind has been replaced by the real world: the plain, practical, empty, and even ugly phenomena of the world. He further realizes that his nostalgia is not for a specific place, but for anywhere that can evoke his childhood memories; he is looking for something familiar in his memories in order to engender a sense of having a home. Words such as “irresistible sadness,” “inexplicable grief,” “nostalgia/homesickness,” and “intoxicated” are used by the narrator in reference to the emotionally

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crippled state of mind of the second-person protagonist (Soul Mountain 327– 8). The narrator is ruthless, while the protagonist becomes pathetic, as he desperately gropes for emotional satisfaction not only in memories of his actual childhood but also in virtually any images or recollections that might seem like the real thing. For Gao’s narrator, “your” nostalgia is “your” mind locked in the specific temporality and spatiality of childhood, which is “regressive” to borrow Greene’s terminology, and keeps him from moving forward. However, while looking for “home” on the protagonist’s journey in southern China, the narrator also presents the reader with an alternative view of “home” and “hometown.” In Chapter 47, the first-person protagonist encounters a Buddhist monk who gives him a new vision of home and hometown. When the protagonist asks the monk who is leaving whether he will come back to his hometown, the monk answers: “For one who has renounced society all within the four seas is home, for him what is called native village does not exist” (Soul Mountain 278). Here, for the Buddhist monk, the secular and common sense notion of home is elevated to a sublime notion of home: “all within the four seas is home,” which means the world is considered as home; in other words, home can be anywhere. Interestingly, the Buddhist notion of home coincides with another ancient philosophical tradition, that of the Roman Stoics. We see this view in Plutarch’s letter “To a Young Exile,” and his view of home is a reversal of the dominant view of an exile being rooted in the native land. Plutarch states, “… by nature there is no such thing as a native land, any more than there is by nature a house or farm or forge or surgery, as Ariston said; but in each case the thing becomes so, or rather is so named and called, with reference to the occupant and user. For man, as Plato says, is ‘no earthly’ or immovable ‘plant,’ but a ‘celestial’ one – the head, like a root, keeping the body erect – inverted to point to heaven” (200). According to Plutarch, a human being is his mind or soul and doesn’t dwell on earth, which indicates the superiority of the mind. Therefore, it is the mind that gives him the power to define his native land, not the body or memory that are grounded in the corporeal senses and reflect a fondness for time and place in the material world. Thus, the body is “rooted” in the earth, even in the original homeland, but the mind is free to choose, to roam, and to shape for itself an imaginary homeland. In Soul Mountain the monk’s words leave the protagonist/narrator speechless, which may suggest a variety of meanings. Almost certainly, “all within the four seas is home” makes sense to the protagonist, as it implies a solution to the feeling of being homeless, i.e., feeling at home anywhere, as opposed to the distress of homelessness, which is the state of mind of many an exile. A drifter like the protagonist does not have to feel rooted in his native place.

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On the other hand, if it is the narrator who is speechless, then the implication is that the narrator has not yet been able to articulate what the protagonist has internalized. In Buddhism, the experience of sudden realization or enlightenment is essentially wordless; the protagonist invites the monk to continue their conversation over tea in order to prolong and fully grasp this significant and lofty movement of thought. After suffering disillusionment in nostalgic memories (ch. 54), the narrator’s tone changes from emotional and sentimental to a more critical, objective, self-aware, and self-analytical one; he often sets himself apart from the protagonist. From here, the narrative moves from nostalgia to other central issues related to exile with this newly adopted tone. I refer to this stage as that of critical objectivity as it offers more objective reflections on exile. In this stage, a complex of ideas and metaphors related to the central theme of exile evolves and develops, from the metaphor of the lost key (to home), which suggests Gao Xingjian’s view that the notion of home affects an exile in many aspects. This complex consists of the notion of exile, the concept of the other shore, the metaphor of the lost voice, the metaphor of the lost key, the concept of home/homelessness and the question of remembering and forgetting. These ideas appear sporadically in Gao’s play The Other Shore, but pervasively in his novels Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible, which are vehicles for his disentanglement from his obsession with home. Gao Xingjian uses the recurring motif of the key lost and found in three chapters (60, 62, and 64), which is the core of this complex of ideas and metaphors. Is this key merely a key to the door of home? Can the loss of an ordinary key trigger complicated feelings of being homeless and having memory loss? Here the meaning of the lost and found key cannot be simply summarized as a mere metaphorical reference to the world of literary creations, as it clearly is in the play The Other Shore. What does the metaphor of the key, lost and found, portend? Is it the key to the real self, the identity, or some other psychic space? The metaphor of the lost key is first introduced into the narrative in the conversation between the second-person protagonist “you” and an amateur model for his artist friend “she” in Chapter 60. The key seems to be an ordinary door key. In Chapter 62, the protagonist “you” describes to “she” in detail how “he,” “you” of the past, had lost his door key and searched for it in vain. The key continues to be an ordinary key until it causes complicated feelings in the protagonist “he,” such as those of not feeling at home in his home and the sense of homelessness mixed with the sense of freedom and the loss of memories. The key becomes a metaphor for home: the lost key is thus a metaphor for the lost home.

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The metaphor of the key is clearly associated with the concept of home/ homelessness. In Chapter 62, “you” describes how the protagonist “he,” you of the past, had gotten himself into a sorry plight: he couldn’t go out without the key and had to be confined to the room. The room he rummages through searching for the key turns into a shamble: what is being explored is the concept of home and the idea that the home is not recognizable as home anymore. As the narrative goes, “Ten minutes earlier his life was orderly … His life had its own order and he knew where everything was, he lived quite comfortably in this room. In any case he was used to it and because he was used to it, it was comfortable” (392). The notion of home is a notion of a place familiar and comfortable, and thus the sense of the loss of the familiar and the comfortable equals the sense of losing home, which is similar to Hoffman’s view of displacement from home, and exile as “the loss of all familiar external and internal parameters” (50). When the protagonist cannot find a foothold in this messed-up room, home is not home anymore; consequently, he chooses to leave home, as the narrator describes: “he doesn’t want to see and even to return to the room again” (392). However, the protagonist leaves with his door open, implying the possibility of his return. It is often the case that the home door is open to voluntary exiles. There is, however, a positive aspect of going outside, giving a person a new perspective, suggested at the end of Chapter 62, when the protagonist “he” returns to his room with the door left open due to his having lost the key. Standing outside the door, he sees the lost key on the edge of his desk, only to realize that the key could not be seen from inside because vision from inside was blocked by an unanswered letter in front of it. What is revealed here is that being outside of “home” renders a line of vision for the protagonist to find the key, which is gained by going outside, that is, by exile. Complexity, ambivalence, confusion, the sense of freedom accompanied by the sense of emptiness and loss: this is Gao’s primary notion of exile, manifested in Soul Mountain. The image of the protagonist standing in an empty square conveys these complicated feelings of an exile. In Chapter 64, after leaving home, the protagonist “he” goes outside and stands in an empty square; as the narrator “you” relates, “he was standing in an empty square … he suddenly felt he had discarded all responsibilities, had attained liberation, he was at last free …” (409). Here the protagonist standing in an empty square initially conveys the sense of solitude and estrangement that an exile constantly feels in his new environment, whether a new spiritual or physical space. However, he also feels liberated from and unfettered by his previous responsibilities, unlike a forced exile feeling stripped of everything. The sense of freedom and the sense of loneliness coexist. It is not surprising that Boris

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Khazanov describes these as one new emerging feeling, which dominates the mind of the exile, leaving no room for the old feelings: “a new sensation crowds out the old – a feeling of loneliness and freedom” (Glad xiii). Gao’s notion of exile is further associated with the metaphor of a baby newly born but without voice. Exile has been viewed as death by some writers in exile, represented in Ovid’s famous cry “Exilium mors est” (“Exile is death”). But an opposite view of exile as life also exists, represented in Victor Hugo’s “Exilium vita est” (“Exile is life”) written on his study door in exile (Bent 511). In the modern world, many writers in exile view exile as a new life, like Victor Hugo, despite a wide variety of sensations from individual to individual. Adam Zagajewski remarks, “Exile is like birth. There are so many disadvantages, and some joys, both in being born and being in exile” (126). For the Polish writer in exile, similar negative and positive aspects make the dual experience of being born and being in exile equivalent. In the same way, Gao Xingjian views exile as rebirth in Soul Mountain, applying the metaphor of a naked newborn (454) to describe his exilic condition. Moreover, Gao’s newborn cannot cry. Writers in exile often have to face the questions of what to write and for whom to write. As the Polish exile Czeslaw Milosz indicates, “He [an exile] was aware of his task and people were waiting for his words, but he was forbidden to speak. Now where he lives he is free to speak but nobody listens and, moreover, he forgot what he had to say” (36). For Milosz, a writer in exile faces the freedom to speak but no longer having an audience in his adopted country; having no audience often means loss of voice for a writer. Meanwhile, what to write about is also a frustration for him, for he actually loses the ability to think, to operate in his own field of ideas. Having recognized the predicament, the author Gao Xingjian avoided the latter crisis by writing Soul Mountain in Chinese, and about China, even as he strove to disentangle himself from his native consciousness. Writers in exile have resorted to different solutions to cope with the problem of lost voice. Eva Hoffman finds her voice again after attaining a sophisticated command of the English language, the language of her adopted country. For her, her native language, Polish, did not apply to her new experiences and thus could not allow her to speak with relevance to a new world; it could not help her connect her inner world with her new external world (107–8). She chose to acquire the English language of the new world to live “a new life in a new language,” as indicated by her book’s subtitle. Gao Xingjian also shows in his novel Soul Mountain his concern about a writer’s lost voice in a new space, just as Eva Hoffman did. The metaphor of the lost voice evoked in Soul Mountain implies the discontinuity of a writer’s writing life, as the protagonist is also a writer like the

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author. The protagonist’s sensitivity about losing his voice in the new conditions suggests the author’s concern over his life in exile. The predicament of living a new life like a newborn but having no voice is described in several places in Chapters 64 and 66. A writer without a voice cannot be heard. On the one hand, he feels like an infant that has just come into the world and wants to embrace this brand new world with a powerful voice; on the other hand, he is a person without a voice, unable to address himself to the new world into which he has been reborn. Further revealed in the metaphor of the lost voice is that the new unknown world is not a silent world, but one in which only the protagonist cannot have a voice. Near the end of Chapter 66, the metaphor of the lost voice is used again: “… you are so happy you want to shout. You shout but there is no sound, the only sound is the gurgling of the water as it strikes the holes at the roots of the trees in the river” (420). Thus, the silent shouting is an indication of the new predicament a writer in exile has to face: he is in an uncomprehending world, at least temporarily. The loss of voice implies, for a writer, not only the lack of readers in his new world but the loss of the readers in his home country, particularly when he writes in exile in his native language and his works are banned in the home country. From the protagonist’s inability to remember (ch. 62) to his intention to discard his memories (ch. 64), the protagonist/narrator is in the process of moving into the stage of “willful forgetting,” to use Píchová’s words, which means “erasing one’s past to fit quickly into the new cultural setting” (4), the opposite of obsession with memories in the first stage of nostalgia. From obsession with the memories of the homeland to willful forgetting, via critical objectivity, the narrator moves from one extreme to another. The former is an obsession with the past, while the latter is an erasure of the past in order to move on in the present. Chapter 66 is a crucial chapter in the stage of willful forgetting as represented in the metaphor of the protagonist’s immersion in the “River of Forgetting.” This chapter is a commentary on the condition of exile. The “River of Forgetting” helps one forget the past; hence, it suggests that the protagonist/ narrator in exile desires to shed the heaviness of the haunting memories of the past, via the avenue of willful forgetting. First, the protagonist’s choice of going down to the valley, attracted by the “River of Forgetting,” is a metaphor for exile as a choice. It’s evident that the protagonist decides to go to the river not to meet death but to “embrace a thread of life” (418). He chooses the unfamiliar (the valley) over the familiar (the forest) – the initial step into exile. The protagonist is wading in the river, symbolizing that he is still exploring life in the new world: he feels amazement and joy, and at the same time

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fear and uncertainty in this new space. This is a space, unknown, indescribable and sometimes hellish, with unknown dangers in it. The hellish side is suggested in the ominous dangers of wading in the “River of Forgetting” as it can lead to death, figurative or even literal. Danger is also vividly indicated in the metaphor of an exile as a thread of gossamer drifting “in an unnamed space” full of “the stench of death” (419). Here, displaced from the known world to the unknown, the protagonist experiences a series of physical changes that metaphorically suggest the protagonist’s dissolution in an unfamiliar, undefined space, which is the exilic space. Gao’s metaphors of walking in the “River of Forgetting” and drifting like gossamer in unknown space, referring to the condition of exile, coincide with the metaphor of “walking a tightrope” used by Milan Kundera, the Czech writer living in exile in France, in his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984). Speaking of the condition of exile, Kundera remarks that it is like “walking a tightrope high above the ground without the net afforded a person by the country where he has his family, colleagues, and friends and where he can easily say what he has to say in a language he has known from childhood” (75). This is the narrator’s depiction of the feelings of Tereza, who has to live in exile in Switzerland after the Soviet Union invaded her Czechoslovak homeland. For Kundera, to be an exile means “to struggle to maintain balance at a precarious height” (Píchová 2), like an acrobat performing a tightrope act. Safety can be guaranteed with a protective net, but as an exile, leaving the homeland and the language behind leads to the loss of such a safety net. If one fails to maintain balance, one will fall from that height to destruction. Similarly, Kafka’s metaphor of the rickety bridge in his short story “The Bridge” can also be interpreted as a reference to the condition of exile, as Píchová argues: “‘The Bridge’ paints a shocking portrait of the heartrending consequences of a failed attempt to bridge two shores; in fact, upon closer examination, we can see that Kafka’s short piece suggests many of the ideas and images central to the experience of exile” (4). Gao’s metaphor of walking in the “River of Forgetting” as the condition of exile is strikingly similar to Kundera’s and Kafka’s metaphors: balance is what the protagonist needs in the space of exile. The loss of balance could lead to the destruction of the writer in exile. To maintain balance, it is essential to mediate between the past and the present, the homeland and the adopted country. Moreover, Gao’s metaphor of the thread of drifting gossamer shares some similarity to those of Kundera and Kafka: the protagonist is similarly high above in the sky in danger in all three metaphors. However, this image also suggests Gao’s difference and foresight. Gao’s gloomy valley is still a space of danger, and he is still at risk, but his protagonist metaphorically

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transforms into lightweight gossamer to more easily survive the dangerous situation, because he can now drift “serenely” in the valley. Soul Mountain as a novel of exile is pervaded with the exilic mind, imagination or sensibility. The meaning of Soul Mountain is clearly associated with the concept of “the other shore” versus “this shore.” The concept of the other shore can be understood from different perspectives.3 However, the other shore is also a familiar concept to many writers in exile. It is used to refer to the exilic territory. In contrast to the old and familiar native land, the other shore is new and “strangely unfamiliar, as if two-dimensional,” in Hana Píchová’s words; only with time, she explains, “[D]imensions were added, and splendid colors appeared in front of me” (iv). For most writers in exile, crossing between the two shores, the familiar and the unfamiliar, is the most challenging experience, sometimes even a fatal one. With time moving on, the situation is reversed: the old, familiar territory becomes the world of the imaginary while the new, alien one has become the world of the familiar. The meaning of Soul Mountain emerges most emphatically in the conversation between the protagonist and an elder in Chapter 76. The protagonist “he” has been searching for Soul Mountain without finding it. In this conversation, the protagonist and the elder are not referring to the same “Soul Mountain.” Whereas the protagonist is asking for the location of the actual mountain, the old man is talking about the metaphorical Soul Mountain. For the protagonist, as he has crossed the river for Soul Mountain from the other shore to this shore, Soul Mountain should be certainly found on this shore. For the elder, Soul Mountain is forever on the other shore, which suggests it will never be reachable physically, because it does not have a physical existence: Soul Mountain exists only in one’s mind. The elder is teaching the protagonist about life: a person can only rely on his own mind to escape pain and find freedom, which is a person’s real “Soul Mountain,” and nothing external can help. The elder’s teaching can also apply to the condition of exile: an exile, whether in internal exile or external exile, has to find “his or her own way of groping in the dark” (Aciman 9) in order to see the “dimensions” and “splendid colors” of the other shore (Píchová iv). The elder’s understanding of Soul Mountain provides an answer to the way of life in exile, because the protago3 Gilbert C. F. Fong interprets Gao’s title The Other Shore in reference to the Buddhist concept paramita, “the land of enlightenment in Buddhism.” As Fong explains, “According to Buddhist beliefs, one is able to cross the river of life – from the shore of delusion and suffering to the other shore of enlightenment – by cultivating and perfecting the paramita virtues of generosity, morality, patience, vigor, concentration (or meditation) and wisdom.” However, according to Fong, “enlightenment is unobtainable” for the characters even after crossing the river in the play, which is “the fundamental tragedy of human life” (“Introduction” xxvii).

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nist is an exile. In the end, the elder walks away and the protagonist is left confused. However, the narrator gradually moves toward enlightenment, as revealed in the exploration of his own exilic mind in the last five chapters. Gao Xingjian sets the rest of Soul Mountain, the last five chapters (77–81), all in a winter of snow and ice, indicating his view on the exilic mind as “the mind of winter.” As Edward Said remarks, … exile is never the state of being satisfied, placid, or secure. Exile, in the words of Wallace Stevens, is ‘a mind of winter’ in which the pathos of summer and autumn as much as the potential of spring are nearby but unobtainable. Perhaps this is another way of saying that a life of exile moves according to a different calendar, and is less seasonal and settled than life at home. (186)

For Said, the state of mind of an exile is locked in the discontent of winter, not as colorful and warm as the other seasons, for he feels forever unsatisfied, disturbed or insecure. However, the mind of winter does not suggest the exilic mind is as frozen as snow and ice. On the contrary, it can be full of imagination and sensibility. In the last five chapters, except for Chapter 79 in which the narrator “I” tells four stories of four people’s visits on a snowy night, Gao combines his painting skills into the novel to create a desolate winter landscape of snow and ice, which seems to be a very common winter landscape but is used as a reflection of the mind on exile. Bearing in mind that Gao is an accomplished ink painter, it can be seen that the painting-like winter landscape is delineated as a still and desolate world, with the core image of the stretch of water and three leafless trees (ch. 77). The narrator “I” remarks on this: “it is fixed and unmoving, like a stretch of dead water, a finished painting which will not be further changed, devoid of any wish for change, devoid of disturbance, devoid of impulse, devoid of desire” (480). Here the narrator is describing the landscape reflected in his inner world; it is a world devoid of human feelings, the heart is as dead as the still water. This is the narrator’s interpretation of this winter landscape, of his own consciousness, from his own perspective. Near the end of Chapter 77, the snow that has come and gone without being noticed by the protagonist has the function of obliterating things; however, it can also make certain things clearer. Here, if the tracks, which clearly manifest themselves like veins on the snow, symbolize the road of the past, the ambiguous road above further represents the road to walk on in the future. In the end, the narrator “I” expresses the desire to watch himself walk into the snow scene, suggesting that he wants to confront and explore this world of solitude. In these chapters, the visual images of the protagonist walking alone barefoot in the snow with his imaginary woman (ch. 78), and his strug-

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gling alone on the glacier (ch. 80) are both metaphors of the experience of exile, reminiscent of the metaphor of wading alone in the “River of Forgetting” (ch. 66). The new space depicted here is always a world of alienation and solitude.

One Man’s Bible: Finding Freedom In Soul Mountain, the narrative depicts the stages of nostalgia, critical objectivity, and willful forgetting in the process of the narrator/protagonist’s disentanglement; the last stage of integrating the present and the past, is explicitly addressed in One Man’s Bible. The same images or issues central to exile in Soul Mountain reappear in One Man’s Bible. Compared with Soul Mountain, One Man’s Bible is an overt and direct exploration of the protagonist’s exilic mind: the protagonist lives in the West having left the home country ten years earlier, and the narrative alternates back and forth between the past in China and the present in the West. In the novel, the protagonist is split into two identities: the “you” mostly associated with the present in the West, and the “he” mostly associated with the past in China; “I” disappears as part of the protagonist in One Man’s Bible. Liu Zaifu states: “The ‘I’ has been unexpectedly smothered by the harshness of reality, leaving behind the ‘you’ and the ‘he’ of that particular moment in time, reality and memory, existence and history, consciousness and writing” (“Afterword,” 237). Liu makes a good point by highlighting the binaries existing in One Man’s Bible; however, I would argue that “I” still exists in the novel, not as part of the protagonist anymore, but as a hidden omniscient narrator, and a quiet observer of the protagonist. The idea that the exile may develop a split personality or consciousness is not an unfamiliar one. As Eva Hoffman remarks, “one certain outcome of exile that takes place in a bipolar world is the creation of a bipolar personal world. Spatially, the world becomes riven into two parts, divided by an uncrossable barrier. Temporally, the past is all of a sudden on one side of a divide, the present on the other” (“New Nomads” 45–6). Later, in her discussion, she cites the condition of “a psychic split – living in a story in which one’s past becomes radically different from the present and in which the lost homeland becomes sequestered in the imagination as a mythic, static realm” (“New Nomads” 52). Furthermore, Kwok-kan Tam observes that in One Man’s Bible “The double-voiced structure of narration serves to illustrate ‘the psychological double’ inside the protagonist, who has a split self and split identity” (“Language as Subjectivity,” 299). It is my view, however, that as the narrator

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struggles in One Man’s Bible to reconcile his past and his present, he is faced with the task of recognizing and accepting the humanity of both identities in order to bring about an integrated self. For him, the “psychic split” is not a desirable or sustainable end; there must be a whole and essential self. In One Man’s Bible, the protagonist’s attitude to the past and memory changes throughout the novel. He first is reluctant to confront his past, the nightmarish experience of the Cultural Revolution (1967–76), considering it as going back to Hell (ch. 7 and 10). However, urged by Margarethe, he gradually recounts stories of his past and starts to face his past. Thereafter, the protagonist (“you”) treats “he,” himself in the past, as an object to observe in alienation, which is further shown in the metaphor of “you” in the audience watching “he” crawling onto a deserted stage (25). After chapters of retrospection, of bridging the distance between the present and the past, the protagonist finally confronts his past in Chapter 60, and closes the gap between them: “In any case, he is a character, and, sooner or later, there would have to be a conclusion. He can’t be disposed of like garbage just by your saying that he’s finished” (441). Here the protagonist grants existential value to his past, his character, which he cannot retract, even if “people are garbage, and, sooner or later, have to be eliminated” (441). As they bid farewell, they part as equals, “you and he go your separate ways” (442), witnessed by the hidden “I” and reconciled in mutual recognition. The metaphor of the lost key in relation to the notion of home is revisited in One Man’s Bible. Unlike the protagonist who leaves with his door open due to the lost key in Soul Mountain, implying the possibility of his return, the protagonist of One Man’s Bible loses his key and also his home back in his homeland. In the first five chapters, at many places the protagonist broods on the lost home in Beijing, which was confiscated by the police. Consequently, the protagonist declares his renunciation of his homeland. However, the protagonist does make a home return in dream, but it is more of a nightmare. He sneaks back home from abroad only to find that he cannot open his home door without the key, because it is lost. In the end, he can only find himself a cement pit – a grave – in the ground to stay in (ch. 5). This nightmare is a reflection on the protagonist’s consciousness of homesickness, frustration, insecurity, and fear due to the sense of homelessness and also on the protagonist’s complicated feelings for his homeland. From the renunciation of his homeland, the geographical location, at the beginning of the narrative (ch. 2), to the recognition of his personal China, existing in his memory only, “as a hidden spring gushing forth feelings that are hard to articulate” (443) in the end of the novel, the narrator also finds himself a lost home. His notion of home changes from the previous view of “home” as the one located in his

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native country to an alternative view of home, which is spatially unbounded. Moreover, the ending of the whole novel – the protagonist’s feeling at home with the French language and his waiting to get a ride to the airport to fly “back” to Paris (ch. 61) – suggests that the protagonist is going back to his other home, a new home adopted during his experience of exile. The protagonist’s memories of his home in Beijing are closely tied to memories of the young lover, a military nurse, whom he has abandoned by going into exile. However, the protagonist’s desire for a home is for more than a safe place to satisfy his sexual desire, it is also for individual freedom (ch. 3): the protagonist is resolved to reject living like a silent larva tightly wrapped up in a cocoon. The cocoon is a metaphor for all kinds of repression, which restrains him from articulating his own voice especially as a writer. The rejection of the cocoon-like life is also a yearning for a transformation: a larva can break out of the cocoon only after turning into a butterfly, and the butterfly can fly away. So the protagonist flies away from the homeland to freedom by boarding an airplane (ch. 3). Ironically, the concept of freedom is synonymous with the concept of homelessness. The metaphor of a thread of drifting gossamer, reemerges in One Man’s Bible (ch. 31 and 39) as the image of an exile drifting freely in the exilic world, which is different from the image of a thread of gossamer drifting in the deep gloomy valley full of “the stench of death” in Soul Mountain (ch. 66). The exile’s feelings for the exilic world change from fear and uncertainty to lightheartedness and enjoyment of drifting in the new world. Another metaphor of an exile as a free bird pervades the whole narrative. The protagonist is compared to a bird escaping from a cage, free as the wind: “From city to city, country to country, your journey is less secure than a migratory bird’s … You are now an unfettered bird, seeking joy in flight, and no longer need to go looking for suffering” (145). The sense of homelessness has become a token for freedom and joy. In the novel One Man’s Bible, the protagonist’s sexual release is used to symbolize his literary creativity after gaining his personal freedom in exile, just as the French sculptor Auguste Rodin had used sexual imagery to render Balzac as a powerful literary creator in the studies for his sculpture Monument to Balzac (1891–98).4 In 1891, Rodin received a commission from the Société des Gens de Lettres to create a statue of Balzac within eighteen months. The project took much longer, but he displayed his final sculpture in 1898 after

4 Rodin did a series of studies for the sculpture of Balzac, both bust and whole body, naked and clothed. For detailed accounts of its controversial reception, refer to Grunfeld 370–86; Elsen 89–106.

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working years on studies of Balzac until he was satisfied with a final version. However, the final sculpture was rejected by the patrons because it was allegedly not recognizable as Balzac. The first display of the final version of Balzac also caused many harsh criticisms of Rodin (Elsen 103). The final sculpture has the figure Balzac standing with his head thrown back and his body loosely covered in a robe, under which his hands converge upon his crotch. Albert Elsen, by tracing Rodin’s series of studies for Balzac chronologically, finds that though some versions are “divested of its sexual implications” due to the raised right hand of the figure, most versions, even those in cloak, keep the basic masturbatory gesture of the arms and hands, as it is seen in one of the earliest nude studies titled “Headless Nude Torso: Study for Balzac (1893–5).” Elsen says, “Seen from the front, the crossed hands conceal the groin; looked at from the right side, the figure’s right hand appears to have a firm grip on the penis” (96). Elsen argues that Rodin’s idea of portraying “Balzac’s potency as a creator” (101) – the figure’s crossed hands firmly grasping his male organ – remains in most of the studies and also in the final statue, which conveys “the idea of showing Balzac as having brought his own world into being” (96). Throughout the narrative of One Man’s Bible, sexual performance and literary creativity are often connected to each other. The protagonist’s writing is expressly compared to a man’s seed as “traces of life” in several places: “You should articulate your experience in writing, leave traces of your life, just like the semen you ejaculate. Surely blaspheming the world will bring you joy! It has oppressed you, and you have the right to seek revenge like this” (138). Furthermore, freedom of writing in exile is often depicted as repressed sexual desire that gets released. The idea that a writer in exile gains freedom in the literary world is conveyed in the portrayal of the protagonist standing inside a big cave in central France and feeling like a microscopic single sperm “roaming about happy and contented” in a woman’s huge womb (34). However, Gao’s metaphorical meaning stands in stark contrast to that of the Balzac statue, since the narrator describes himself as “an infertile sperm,” one that is free from the consequences and obligations of a progenitor in the cultural or literary womb. This suggests that a writer in exile enjoys total freedom in the new literary world without attachment or inhibition. This idea is further intensified when the narrator later calls his writings “sterile writings:” “Let the sterile writings you leave behind erode with the passage of time. For you, eternity is not of pressing significance. This bout of writing is not your goal in life, but you continue to write so that you will be able to experience more fully this instant of time” (444). Near the end of the novel, the narrator compares his secret writing in the past directly to masturbation due to the same effect

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of release (447). As in the famous statue of Balzac, there can be no doubt that the metaphor of sexual release is central to the concept of literary creation in this novel, but it is a release that is completely devoid of cultural or literary responsibility, “a freedom that exists after release from lust” (34).

Conclusion The process of disentanglement is essential to win intellectual independence, “total freedom,” which ultimately is manifested in the author’s vision of writing and a writer’s role. In Soul Mountain, after his recognition of his obsession (ch. 54), the protagonist/narrator “I” moves from the collective sense of belonging towards individual freedom, demonstrated in his refusal to play the social role expected/imposed on writers in Chinese society,5 declaring he has no intention of being a fighter or warrior against social injustice by using his writings as his weapon (ch. 55). In his retrospective account of an old friend’s visit on a snowy night, the protagonist “I” and the friend engage in a conversation instigated by the friend: You’re a writer. So what if I am a writer? You’re the conscience of society, you must speak for the people. Stop joking, I say. Are you the people, or am I the people, or is it the so-called we who are the people? I speak for myself. (498)

Here the protagonist declares that he refuses to be the social conscience and the spokesman of the people; he writes for himself and speaks only for himself. C. T. Hsia remarks about Chinese intellectuals’ “obsession with China” having become “the moral burden” of modern Chinese literature. However the protagonist in Soul Mountain clearly rejects this moral burden. In One Man’s Bible, the narrator declares his vision of writing (ch. 56): Writing is for the writer’s pleasure only, and he must have total freedom; writing is not a way to make a living or a way to fulfill social expectations. Finally, he refuses to be “manipulated by any ‘isms’” (152). To quote Gombrowicz, another writer in exile, “All bonds burst. One can be more of oneself” (154). For Gao Xingjian, this is the way for an exile to find his freedom and reshape his fate.

5 Many scholars have written about the social roles imposed on modern Chinese writers (e.g. Hsia; Liu, “Zhongguo;” Lee, “Zarathustra’s;” Lee, “On the Margins”).

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Works Cited Aciman, André. “Foreword: Permanent Transients.” Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language, and Loss. Ed. André Aciman. New York: New Press, 1999. 9–14. Print. — “Shadow City.” Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language, and Loss. Ed. André Aciman. New York: New Press, 1999. 15–34. Print. Bent, Samuel Arthur. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men with Historical and Explanatory Notes. Boston: Ticknor & Company, 1887. Print. Brodsky, Joseph. “The Condition We Call Exile.” Altogether Elsewhere: Writers on Exile. Ed. Marc Robinson. Boston; London: Faber and Faber, 1994. 3–11. Print. Conrad, Joseph. “Poland Revisited.” Altogether Elsewhere: Writers on Exile. Ed. Marc Robinson. Boston; London: Faber and Faber, 1994. 331–52. Print. Dascălu, Cristina Emanuela. Imagining Homelands of Writers in Exile: Salman Rushdie, Bharati Mukherjee, and V. S. Naipaul. Youngstown, New York: Cambria Press, 2007. Print. Elsen, Albert. “The ‘Monument to Balzac.’” Rodin. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1967. 88–106. Print. Fong, C. F. Gilbert. “Introduction.” The Other Shore: Plays by Gao Xingjian. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. 1999. x–xlii. Print. — “Introduction: Freedom and Marginality: the Life and Art of Gao Xingjian.” Cold Literature: Selected Works by Gao Xingjian. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2005. ix–xlvii. Print. Gao, Xingjian. “Exile and Literature” [Taowang yu wenxue]. Shidai wenxue. October 21, 1990. Print. — Soul Mountain. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney; New York: HarperCollins, 2000. Print. — Without Isms [Meiyou zhuyi]. Hong Kong: Tiandi, 2000. Print. — “The Predicament of Chinese Exile Literature” [Zhongguo liuwang wenxue de kunjing]. Without Isms [Meiyou zhuyi]. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Tiandi, 2000. 108–15. Print. — One Man’s Bible. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney; New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Print. — Cold Literature: Selected Works by Gao Xingjian. (Chinese English Bilingual Edition). Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong and Mabel Lee. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2005. Print. — “Parisian Notes.” Cold Literature: Selected Works by Gao Xingjian. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2005. 58–75. Print. — The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; and New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. Print. — “Literature and Metaphysics: About Soul Mountain.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; and New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. 82–103. Print. — “The Art of Fiction.” Trans. Mabel Lee. Chinese Writers on Writing. Ed. Arthur Sze. San Antonio; Texas: Trinity University Press, 2010. 117–37. Print. — and Yang Lian. “What We Have Gained from Exile” [Liuwang shi women huode shenmo]. Without Isms [Meiyou zhuyi]. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Tiandi, 2000. 116–56. Print. Glad, John. Literature in Exile. Durham; London: Duke University Press, 1990. Print. Gombrowicz, Witold. “A Reply to Cioran.” Trans. Lillian Valle. Altogether Elsewhere: Writers on Exile. Ed. Marc Robinson. Boston; London: Faber and Faber, 1994. 153–6. Print.

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Greene, Gayle. “Feminist Fiction and the Uses of Memory.” Journal of Women in Culture and Society 16.2 (1991): 290–321. Print. Grunfeld, Frederic V. Rodin: A Biography. New York: Henry Holt, 1987. Print. Hsia, C. T. “Obsession with China: The Moral Burden of Modern Chinese Literature.” A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, 3rd edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. 533–54. Print. Hoffman, Eva. Lost in Translation. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1989. Print. — “The New Nomads.” Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language, and Loss. Ed. André Aciman. New York: The New Press, 1999. 35–64. Print. Hugo, Victor. “What Exile Is.” Trans. Jeanine Herman. Altogether Elsewhere: Writers on Exile. Ed. Marc Robinson. Boston; London: Faber and Faber, 1994. 67–84. Print. Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Trans. Michael Henry Heim. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. Print. Lee, Ou-fan Leo. “On the Margins of Chinese Discourse.” The Living Tree: the Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today. Ed. Tu Wei-ming. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. 221–38. Print. Lee, Mabel. “Without Politics: Gao Xingjian on Literary Creation.” The Stockholm Journal of East Asian Studies 6 (1995): 37–71. Print. — “Personal Freedom in Twentieth Century China: Reclaiming the Self in Yang Lian’s Yi and Gao Xingjian’s Lingshan.” History, Literature and Society: Essays in Honour of S. N. Mukherjee. Ed. Mabel Lee and Michael Wilding. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 1997. 133–55. Print. — “Gao Xingjian’s Soul Mountain: Modernism and the Chinese Writer.” Heat 4 (1997): 128–57. — “Gao Xingjian’s Dialogue with Two Dead Poets from Shaoxing: Xu Wei and Lu Xun.” Reprinted in Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian. Ed. Kwok-kan Tam. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2001. 277–92. Print. — “Gao Xingjian on the Issue of Literary Creation for the Modern Writer.” Reprinted in Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian. Ed. Kwok-kan Tam. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2001. 21–41. Print. — “Pronouns as Protagonists: On Gao Xingjian’s Theories of Narration.” China Studies. Reprinted in Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian. Ed. Kwok-kan Tam. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2001. 235–56. Print. — “Nobel in Literature 2000 Gao Xingjian’s Aesthetics of Fleeing.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 5.1 (March 2003): 2–11. Web. . — “Zarathustra’s ‘Statue:’ May Fourth Literature and the Appropriation of Nietzsche and Lu Xun.” Running Wild: Essays, Fictions and Memoirs Presented to Michael Wilding. Ed. David Brooks and Brian Kiernan. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2004. 113–43. Print. — “Gao Xingjian’s Fiction in the Context of Chinese Intellectual and Literary History.” Literature & Aesthetics 16 (1): 2006. 7–20. Print. Liu, Zaifu. “Change in the Historical Roles of Chinese Intellectuals” [Zhongguo zhishifenzi lishi juese de bianqian]. Expelling the Various Gods: Summarizing Literary Criticism and Revaluating Literary History [Fangzhu zhushen: wenlun tigang he wenxueshi chongping]. Hong Kong: Sanlian, 1994. 403–40. Print. — “Afterword to One Man’s Bible.” Trans. Ann Huss. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 14.2 (Fall 2002): 237–42. Print.

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“Preface to Of Mountains and Seas” [Shanhaijing zhuan xu]. Introductory Essays on Gao Xingjian [Gao Xingjian yinlun]. By Liu Zaifu. Hong Kong: Dashan wenhua chubanshe, 2011. 137–42. Print. — “Reading Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible” [Yuedu lingshan he yigeren de shengjing]. Introductory Essays on Gao Xingjian [Gao Xingjian yinlun]. By Liu Zaifu. Hong Kong: Dashan wenhua chubanshe, 2011. 167–86. Print. Milosz, Czeslaw. “Notes on Exile.” Altogether Elsewhere: Writers on Exile. Ed. Marc Robinson. Boston; London: Faber and Faber, 1994. 36–40. Print. Píchová, Hana. The Art of Memory in Exile: Vladimir Nabokov & Milan Kundera. Carbondale; Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002. Print. Plutarch. “To a Young Exile.” Altogether Elsewhere: Writers on Exile. Ed. Marc Robinson. Boston; London: Faber and Faber, 1994. 199–207. Print. Rulyova, Natalia E. “Joseph Brodsky: Exile, Language, and Metamorphosis.” Exile, Language and Identity. Ed. Magda Stroińska and Vittorina Cecchetto. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003. 111–24. Print. Rushdie, Salman. “Imaginary Homelands.” Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991. By Salman Rushdie. London: Granta Books, 1991. 9–21. Print. Said, Edward. “Reflections on Exile.” Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. By Edward Said. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2002. 173–86. Print. Tam, Kwok-kan. “Introduction: Gao Xingjian, the Nobel Prize and the Politics of Recognition.” Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian. Ed. Kwok-kan Tam. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2001. 1–20. Print. — “Language as Subjectivity in One Man’s Bible.” Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian. Ed. Kwok-kan Tam. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2001. 293–310. Print. Vladislav, Jan. “Exile, Responsibility, Destiny.” Literature in Exile. Ed. John Glad. Durham; London: Duke University Press, 1990. 14–22. Print. Wang, L. Ling-chi. “Roots and the Changing Identity of the Chinese in the United States.” The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today. Ed. Tu Wei-ming. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. 185–212. Print. Zagajewski, Adam. “Discussions on ‘The Condition We Call Exile.’” Literature in Exile. Ed. John Glad. Durham; London: Duke University Press, 1990. 125–27. Print. Zhao, Henry Y. H. Towards a Modern Zen Theatre: Gao Xingjian and Chinese Theatre Experimentalism. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 2000. Print.

Kwok-kan Tam

Fate as (Re)Visioning of the Self in Soul Mountain Fate connotes a sense of predestination. In Western culture, fate refers to a predestined pattern of life that cannot be altered, but has to be realized through a human agent. Fate is made known to a person in the form of a prediction, which is open to interpretation and often appears as a paradox that can trick even the cleverest person into a series of mistakes in the course of realizing the prediction. The agent who realizes fate at the same time falls victim to it. Oedipus Rex is a classic example of how a wise and powerful human subject is tricked and trapped in his struggle against fate. The Greek classic illustrates a paradox that the wiser the human subject is and the harder his struggle, the deeper he is caught in the determination of fate. Presented in the Oedipus struggle is a paradox in which a human being is caught between the strife to be master of life and subject of fate. If freedom means being master of life, then fate represents a trick that leads a person into a trap. Hence, struggling against fate may make a person the slave of fate. In Greek tragedy, the cause of a tragic hero’s downfall lies in flaws in his character. Hence, the tragic hero is partly responsible for his own downfall and cannot put all the blame on fate. In the process of struggling against fate, the hero also realizes his self and becomes what he makes himself to be. Life is thus a process either following fate or struggling against it, as well as a realization of the self. However, in the Shakespearean rendering, fate is a prediction that tempts the human subject to realize it sooner than predicted. Macbeth, for instance, falls into the trap of the witches because he believes that he is just following the prediction and making things happen earlier. In traditional Chinese culture, fate refers to unknown forces (often supernatural) that can determine what will happen to a person in life. Social mishaps or otherwise are considered manifestations of fate. A person has to submit to fate and turn it around in order to avoid catastrophic consequences, though there is a sense of escapism in this way of dealing with fate. The Tang Dynasty tale “Matrimony Inn” is the Chinese counterpart of Oedipus Rex. In the tale a young man, Wai Gu, is told by the God of Marriage that he will have to wait eighteen years to marry a little girl when she grows up. Wai Gu does not want to wait, so he tries to break the prediction by killing the young girl. He thinks that he has killed the girl, but when he marries a woman eighteen years later, he discovers that the woman has a scar on her forehead. Upon

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learning the background of the woman, Wai Gu finally understands that he cannot escape from the predestined marriage, as he is the person who left a scar on the forehead of his wife when attempting to murder her eighteen years ago. “Matrimony Inn” is classified under the section “Predestination – Marriage” in the collection of short stories, Taiping Imperial Encyclopedia. In the section, there are eleven other tales telling similar stories about marriage, and showing the traditional Chinese belief that there is predestination in marriage (Tam, “A Greimasian Reading,” 166). In the case of “Matrimony Inn,” a human subject has to serve as an agent to realize the prediction. Predestination is reaffirmed in that no human action can alter the course of fate and its realization. The Chinese and Western concepts of fate, as shown in the cases of Oedipus Rex and “Matrimony Inn,” are similar in emphasizing human action as agency in realizing a prediction. What is interesting is that both emphasize the change in a person after they have undergone all the mishaps in life, be they due to human errors or external uncontrollable causes. In the case of Oedipus, he has achieved self-understanding in terms of knowledge of his limitations. In the case of Wai Gu, he finally understands more about predestination and submits to it. In both cases, fate is revealed in the form of a prediction, upon which the human subject is lured into a series of actions in their self-realization. As the plot unfolds, this series of actions becomes a process of inward self-revisioning. In the world of contemporary China, socialism promulgated the idea that people should believe in themselves, that is, in human effort, rather than in fate, which refers to the traditional concept of determination by supernatural forces. However, it was in the negation of the traditional concept of fate that socialist ideology promoted a new make-believe based on the promise of a prediction. The Marxian prediction of socialism is predicated on a Macbethan belief contrary to Shakespeare’s warning. It was in the realization of the socialist prediction of a better future that the whole country was eventually turned into a state of social absurdity. Gao Xingjian’s Soul Mountain presents a story about how characters fall victim to social and political absurdities in contemporary China. What troubles their world is the socialist belief that there is a better way of life that can be achieved through the realization of a promise. However, it is in the realization of this prediction that people are caught in all sorts of dilemmas in life and complications in politics. Many of Gao’s works portray a world in which humanity is distorted in their pursuit of the socialist “Promised Land.” The protagonists are people who have gone through processes of self-distortion and self-negation, thus achieving a different level of self-consciousness. They

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are disillusioned in their pursuit of the Promised Land, and this eventually leads to self-destruction. In Soul Mountain, the narrator-protagonist is a person who wishes to escape from the fate of being victimized by political absurdities in the city, and searches for a spiritual utopia that can be found only in nature. Right at the beginning, the theme of nature being counter-culture is presented in the protagonist’s journey, which leads him to an ultimate state of facing his own self and eventually a discovery of his inner self. It is fate that determined that he was diagnosed with lung cancer, but it is also fate that gave him the chance of recovery. He takes recovery as rebirth and sets out on a journey following whatever fate dictates: fate becomes a process of re-visioning the self. Soul Mountain consists of two journeys: a physical and a spiritual journey. While the physical journey delineates the protagonist’s efforts in ascertaining his outer self and satisfying his bodily needs, the spiritual one brings him to a higher-level understanding of his inner self and his hidden desires. The physical journey is narrated by the character “I,” in dialogue with the spiritual search recounted by the character “you.” The two narratives form a double plotline offering contrastive viewpoints that illuminate events surrounding predestination in life and its unfolding into a journey of self-discovery.

“I”-Narrative: Fate and the Mind-Self The narrative of “I,” which is the experiencing self of the protagonist, consists of a physical journey that goes forward in time and outward in spatial dimensions. Soul Mountain connotes a spiritual journey, and Yangtze River denotes the reality of the protagonist’s social existence. Fate is a concept explored in the “I”-narrative with reference to the sociopolitical reality of life. In this context, fate is part of the reality of life, but is illusory and hence intriguing to many people. Human beings have the ability to philosophize, and therefore like to think forward. Fate is a concept that is always intriguing to human beings, as it is related to the human desire to master one’s own life, and thus obtain freedom, in soul and body. Human beings are language beings, and human agency lies in a subjectivity that depends on an inner voice in language (Taylor 374). It is this agency in human beings that enables them to verbalize their existence, of which history and future expectation are a vital part. The protagonist states clearly at the beginning: “I believe in science but I also believe in fate” (Soul Mountain 13).1 Science is human knowledge on objective 1 In all quotations from Soul Mountain, I have followed Mabel Lee’s translation, occasionally with minor changes to suit the contexts of discussion in this paper.

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reality, but fate is human belief in patterns of life that may be predestined or dependent on coincidences. As the protagonist “I” puts it, life is itself a coincidence that occurs within the probability of chances: My schoolmate and I sat on chairs by the grass and started discussing fate. It is when there is no need to discuss fate that people talk more about fate. “Life is a strange thing,” he said, “a purely chance phenomenon. The possible arrangement of the chromosomes can be worked out, but can it be worked out prior to falling into the womb on a particular occasion?” (74)

Fate is mentioned or discussed numerous times in Soul Mountain. Every time there is discussion of fate, it is always the protagonist “I” who laments upon the unpredictability of life, as he says, “I didn’t believe in miracles, just like I didn’t believe in fate, but when one is desperate, isn’t it a miracle all that could be hoped for?” (70). Contrary to what most people do, the protagonist “I” does not try to find a theory of fate; nor does he try to predict his future. Instead, fate is taken as an explanation for the incomprehensible parameters that work behind life. How does a person make sense of life if life itself is a matter of chance? The answer the protagonist “I” gives is to search for Soul Mountain in life. In other words, meaning exists in life only when a person’s sense of self is fulfilled. When life is threatened, a person feels anything he does is meaningless: “I couldn’t understand how people in the prime of life could do such a stupid thing, but now I have prayed, prayed devoutly, and from the depths of my heart. Fate is unyielding and humans are so frail and weak. In the face of misfortune man is nothing” (72). Soul Mountain symbolizes a journey, both physical (outward) and mental (inward), that the protagonist has to go through to achieve spiritual salvation. The journey begins with the protagonist’s escape from political absurdities confronting him: I have long tired of the struggles of the human world. In all the fine-sounding discussions, controversies and debates, I have invariably been made the topic, subjected to criticism, made to listen to instructions, made to wait for a verdict, and then waited in vain for some kind divinity to intervene, to turn Heaven and Earth and get me out of my predicament. This divinity eventually emerged but wasn’t sympathetic and just looked somewhere else. (410)

The protagonist’s first awakening to the need for salvation is when he learns that he has cancer: “While awaiting the pronouncement of the death sentence, I was in this state of nothingness, looking at the autumn sun outside the window, silently intoning Namo Amitofu, over and over in my heart” (72). The protagonist is not a Buddhist, but saying Namo Amitofu is a sign of his submis-

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sion to fate and request for help from Buddha in his state of helplessness. Symptoms of cancer disappear when the protagonist submits to fate and becomes humble: Buddha said rejoice. Buddha said rejoice first replaced Namo Amitofu, then turned into more common expressions of sheer joy and elation. This was my initial psychological reaction after which I had extricated myself from despair, I was really lucky. I had been blessed by Buddha and a miracle had taken place. But my joy was furtive; I did not dare to appear hasty. (72–3)

Right from the beginning of his journey, the protagonist admits that it is out of coincidence that he has heard about Soul Mountain. As he continues with his search for it, he shows a greater and greater interest in the mountain. He gradually comes to understand that the place has a significance much broader and deeper for him than it first appears to: “You know very well that in the histories and classics, Soul Mountain appears in works dating back to the ancient shamanistic work Classic of the Mountains and Seas and the old geographical gazetteer Annotated Water Classic. It was also at Soul Mountain that Buddha enlightened the Venerable Mahkashyapa” (5). However, the village folks that he meets do not seem to know anything about the place. Obviously, Soul Mountain does not exist in the geography of contemporary China. It is a legendary place bearing a Buddhist message of self-enlightenment, and it can exist in anybody’s heart when the state of enlightenment is achieved. Fate has a realistic meaning to the protagonist, who feels that fate works behind the social absurdities in life, as one of the characters in Soul Mountain says, He was transferred out of Tianjin just ten days before the big earthquake of 1976. Those who had trumped up the case against him were crushed to death in a building which collapsed; it was in the middle of the night and not one of them escaped. “Within the dark chaos of life, naturally there is fate!” he said. For me, what I had to ponder was this: How should I change this life for which I had just won a reprieve? (74)

To the protagonist, it is fate that has made him suffer, but it is also fate that brings him a new life. His immediate concern is how to make the best out of his regained life. His journey, on the one hand, is an escape from the political absurdities in Beijing. It is, on the other, also a retreat from politics and civilization into primitive living in search of the origins of Chinese culture. In the primitive villages, he learns the Daoist philosophy that sees oneness between the myriad forms of the universe and human life, the origin of which lies in nature: “Man follows earth, earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Way, the Way follows nature” (48, 402).

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In Soul Mountain, nature is seen as being disrespected and destroyed by man. It is only in remote parts of China that nature is preserved, particularly in primitive forests where there is little human culture. Yet, it is impossible to travel to the heart of these forests because of the lack of transportation means. In his journey, the protagonist meets people living a primitive life with strong beliefs in fate and shamanism. Palm reading, fortune telling, and consultation with a medium are the usual ways to predict one’s fate and determine one’s course of action in life. All such practices are described as absurd and sometimes funny. Since values and meanings are created and dependent upon language, so are the concepts of fate and self culturally construed. Yet, the dilemma is: without these concepts, how are human beings different from other animals? The protagonist concludes: “Man cannot cast off this mask, it is a projection of his own flesh and spirit. He can no longer remove from his own face this mask which has already grown like skin and flesh so he is always startled as if disbelieving this is himself, but this is in fact himself” (141). In critiquing the hypocrisy of human culture and the values derived from it, the “I” of the protagonist laments his inability to transcend the limits of the self: “I’m not a wolf but I would like to be a wolf, to return to nature, to go on the prowl. However, I can’t rid myself of this human mind. I am a monster with a human mind and can find no refuge” (229).

“You”-Narrative: Social Reality and the Body-Self The narrative of “you” begins with a journey, in which the importance of the body is highlighted in a seemingly unimportant advertisement: Body odour (known as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell. It often affects social relationships and can delay life’s major event: marriage. It disadvantages young men and women at job interviews or when they try to enlist, therefore inflicting much suffering and anguish. By using a new total treatment, we can instantly eradicate the odour with a rate of up to 97.53 % success. For joy in life and future happiness, we welcome you to come and rid yourself of it … (6)

“You” is the inward and reflective self of the protagonist, in whose narrative the body is the only realm of experience that can assure its existence. The body is a result of social inscription. As “you” says, Only the flesh of the other was real, could verify one’s own existence, You love me, The girl was seduced by the snake, The snake is my big brother. (114)

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“You” is a body-self that knows the limits of the body, though it gives him assurance of his existence and its relation to society. In the consummation of sex, the body-self is aware that his self is imprisoned by the body: She says she will give you freedom as long as you love her and don’t leave, as long as you stay with her, as long as you satisfy her, as long as you want her. She wraps herself around you, kisses you wildly, wet kisses on your face, your body, and rolls around with you. She has won; you can’t resist and again sink into carnal lust, unable to free yourself. (274).

“You” is the body-self of the protagonist, but it is also a reflective self, capable of meta-critical thinking. For him, sex is more than a physical experience, but a detachment of the soul, through which process human existence is reduced to a state of non-distinction between the self and the other, to pure primordial senses: Flushed cheeks and leaping flames are suddenly swallowed in darkness, bodies are twisting and turning, she tells you not so rough, she calls out you’re hurting! She struggles, calls you an animal! She has been stalked, hunted, torn apart, devoured. Ah … this dense palpable darkness, primordial chaos, no sky, no ground, no space, no time, no existence, no non-existence, no existence and no non-existence; non-existence exists so there is non-existence of existence; non-existence of existence exists so there is non-existence of non-existence; burning charcoal, moist eye, open cave, vapours rising, burning lips, deep growls; human and animal invoking primitive darkness; forest tiger in agony, lusting, flames rise, she screams and weeps, the animal bites, roars and, possessed by spirits, jumps and leaps, circling the fire which burns brighter and brighter, ephemeral flames, without form. In the mist-filled cave a fierce battle rages, pouncing, shrieking, jumping, howling, strangling and devouring … The stealer of the fire escapes, the torch recedes into the distance, goes deeper into the darkness, grows smaller and smaller, until a flame no bigger than a bean sways in the cold breeze and finally goes out. (114–5)

It is in this state of self-oblivion that “you” finds himself totally forgetful of who he is. This is transcendence of the physical self by ridding the human mind and the intellect (405). Every time after making love, “you” finds that he is miserable when he has to face the reality of the human world again: He wanted to have a good cry to unleash the full extent of his emotions but discovered he only had the one physical body, it was empty inside and couldn’t produce shouting, he stared at this physical body of his standing there on the deserted square not knowing where it wanted to go, he should greet it, pat it on the shoulder, joke with it, but he knew that if at this moment he were so much as to touch it, it would die of fright. “It’s like sleepwalking, when the soul comes out of the orifice of the body.” “It was then that he understood, his sufferings all came from this physical body.” (409)

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Sex is not simply a way for “you” to experience himself and test his extremes; it is also a means to defining himself in terms of gender and in relation to the opposite sex. The numerous encounters with women give “you” opportunities to engage in body-interaction and dialogue with women: She says your stories are becoming wicked and crude. You say this is what a man’s world is. Then what is a woman’s world like? Only women can know what a woman’s world is like. So there can’t be any communication? It’s because there are two different perspectives. But love can communicate between the two. You ask her if she believes in love. (178–9)

“You” is a gendered self in its quest for an understanding of the truth underlying masculinity and femininity: Women’s truth. Why women’s truth? Because men’s truth is different from women’s truth. (180)

There are different ways to define masculinity and femininity. Feminists believe that femininity can be defined independently of men, but psychoanalysts in the Freudian tradition believe that masculinity has to be defined in its opposition to femininity, or vice versa.

Language, Meaning and Visions of the Self Soul Mountain, however, is not a simple story with a quest theme. It is a story about visions of the self, and more importantly about how the self evolves in the protagonist’s journey of quest: Still, you’ve confirmed that there is a place called Lingyan [Soul Rock] and you think this wonderful place must really exist, proving that you haven’t made a mistake by charging off to find Lingshan [Soul Mountain]. You ask these old women. Their sunken mouths make hissing sounds but none of them can say clearly how to get to Lingyan. “Is it next to this village?” “Shishisisi ….” “Not far from this village?” “Sisixixi ….” “Go around a bend?” “Xixiqiqi ….”

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“Go another two li?” “Qiqixixi ….” “Five li?” “Xixiqiqi ….” “Not five li, but seven li?” “Xishiqishixishisi ….” Is there a stone bridge? No stone bridge? Follow the creek in? Would it be better to go along the main road? It will take longer traveling by the main road? After making some detours you will understand in your heart? Once you understand in your heart you will find it as soon as you look for it? The important thing is to be sincere of heart? If your heart is sincere then your wish will be granted? Whether or not your wish is granted depends on your fate and lucky people don’t need to search for it? This means that if you wear old iron shoes you won’t find it anywhere and to look would be a total waste of time? Are you saying this Lingyan is just an insensate rock? If I don’t say that, what should I say? If I don’t say that, is it because I shouldn’t say it or because I can’t say it? That is entirely up to you, she will be what you want her to be, if you think she is beautiful she will be beautiful, if there is evil in your heart you will see only demons. (93)

The tongue-twister in the dialogue quoted above actually carries a double meaning. It can be read as an utterance of sounds carrying no meaning, but it can also be read as carrying a message that meaning comes from the addressee’s own reception. In other words, meaning is derived from the addressee’s heart that can see beauty as beauty, or beauty as demons. The dialogue is typical of a Chan Buddhist gong’an, in which the dialectics of binary opposition is played out to achieve an effect of negation and nullification in Chan Buddhist transcendental thinking. The utterances may form a string of echoing sounds that eventually points to absurdity (xiqi). This suggests that the protagonist’s search for Soul Mountain can be a tautology in language. Language creates meaning, but meaning lies not in language. Meaning is in the heart of the perceiver. That is to say, meaning is created by culture and is not part of nature. In the protagonist’s reflections, he says: Do the trees, birds and cart of this scene also think of their own meaning? And what associations does the grey sky have with reflections on the water, the trees, the birds and the cart? Grey … sky … water … leaves all shed … not a trace of green … mounds of earth … all black … cart … birds … straining to push … don’t disturb … billowing waves … sparrows noisily chirping … transparent … treetops … hungry and thirsty skin … anything will do … rain … tail feathers of the golden pheasant … feathers are light … rose colour … endless night … not bad … there’s a bit of wind … good … I’m very grateful to you … a vacuous formlessness … some ribbons … curling … cold … warm … wind … tottering … spiralling … sounds now intermingled … huge … insects … no skeletons … in an abyss … a button … black wings … night unfurling … everywhere are … panic … fire illuminates … finely painted designs … joined to black silk gauze … insects in a straw sandal … nuclei swirling in cytoplasm … eyes form first … he decides the style … innate potential exists … an earring … nameless imprints … (482)

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Meaning, as seen by the protagonist in his reflection, does not exist in nature. Only images come to the mind of the perceiver. What then is the meaning of the self? Belief in fate is nothing else than a way to make sense of life by adding meaning to it. The protagonist suddenly comes to an awakening that it is out of human falsity that life is given meaning and aspirations: “By entering the snow scene I would become the back shadow of someone. This back shadow of course would not have any particular meaning if I were not at this window looking at it. Gloomy sky, snow-covered ground brighter than the sky, no mynas and sparrows. Snow absorbing thought and meaning” (482). “I” laments that he has “too much analytical thinking, too much logic, too many meanings! Life has no logic, so why does there have to be logic to explain what it means? Also, what is logic? I think I need to break away from analytical thinking, this is the cause of all anxieties” (50). As the protagonist sees it, the source of human trouble lies in that human beings have a concept of the self: “I don’t know if you have ever observed this strange thing: the self” (150). After much observation and reflection, the protagonist concludes that “the self is in fact the source of mankind’s misery” (152) and salvation can only be found in Buddhism, that is, in forgetting the self, or in a state of the “originary self,” that is, a self without any sense of distinctions (chaos). To transcend the limitations of logic without sacrificing language is one of the purposes for the protagonist telling his story in different dimensions of the self. In Gao Xingjian’s experimentation, Soul Mountain entails elements of meta-fiction and non-traditional use of the Chinese language: He feels confused and uncertain about what it is that is critical in fiction. Is it the narrative? Or is it the mode of narration? Or is it not the mode of narration but the attitude of the narration? Or is it not the attitude but the affirmation of an attitude? Or is it not the affirmation of an attitude but the affirmation of the starting point of an attitude? Or is it not the starting point but the self which is the starting point? Or is it not the self but perception and awareness? Or is it not the perception and awareness of the self but the process of that perception and awareness? Or is it not the process of that perception and awareness. Or is it not the process but the action itself? Or is it not the action itself but the possibility of the action? Or is it not the possibility but the choice of action? Or is it not whether there is a choice but whether there is the necessity of a choice? Or is it not the necessity but in the language? Or is it not in the language but whether the language is interesting? Nevertheless he is intrigued with using language to talk about women about men about love about sex about life about death about the ecstasy and agony of the soul and flesh about people’s solicitousness for people and politics about people evading politics about the inability to evade reality about unreal imagination about what is more real about the denial of utilitarian goals is not the same as an affirmation of it about the illogicality of logic about rational reflection greatly surpassing science in the dispute between content and form about meaning meaningful images and meaningless content about the definition

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of meaning about everyone wanting to be God about the worship of idols by atheists about self worship being dubbed philosophy about self love about indifference to sex transforming into megalomania about schizophrenia about sitting in Chan contemplation about sitting not in Chan contemplation about meditation about the Way of nurturing the body is not the Way about effability or ineffability but the absolute necessity for the effability of the Way about fashion about revolt against vulgarity is a mighty smash with a racquet about a fatal blow with a club and Buddhist enlightenment about children must not be taught about those who teach first being taught about drinking a bellyful of ink about going black from being close to ink about what is bad about being black about good people about bad people about bad people are not people about humans by nature are more ferocious than wolves about the most wicked are other people and Hell in fact is in one’s own mind about bringing anxieties upon oneself about Nirvana about completion about completion is nothing completed about what is right about what is wrong about the creation of grammatical structures about not yet saying something is not the same as not saying anything about talk is useless in functional discourse about no-one is the winner in battles between men and women about moving pieces backwards and forwards in a game of chess curbs the emotions which are the basis of human nature about human beings need to eat about starving to death is a trifling affair whereas loss of integrity is a major event but that it is impossible to arbitrate this as truth about the fallibility of experience which is only a crutch about falling if one has to fall about revolutionary fiction which smashes superstitious belief in literature about a revolution in fiction about revolutionizing fiction.2 (454–5)

The unpunctuated long sentence is reminiscent of the long speech Lucky makes in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. On the one hand, the sentence attempts to break the rules, as well as logic, of grammar. On the other, as Gao Xingjian says, language does not need to follow logic (“Literature and Metaphysics,” 90). This is an example illustrating Gao’s idea of the stream of language, as well as a state of mind where logic is absent: when the self is in a state of chaos, and undifferentiated from that chaos.

“I,” “You,” “He,” “She:” The Dialogic Self The novel consists mainly of two narratives of the self: that of the pronouns “I” and “you,” which are both dimensions of the same protagonist (Lee 235– 6). As stated at the beginning, the physical journey undertaken by “I” complements the spiritual journey of “you:” “While you search for the route to Lingshan, I wander along the Yangtze River for this sort of reality” (11). These two

2 I have highlighted the section in italics to show the “stream of language” presented in an unpunctuated mental state, thus defying the logic and grammar of language. For details on Gao Xingjian’s idea of the stream of language, see Gao Xingjian’s essay “My Drama” and Kwok-kan Tam, “Language as Subjectivity.”

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narratives form a binary pair, with one complementing and alluding to the other. In Soul Mountain, “I” says, “I am on a journey – life. Life, good or bad, is a journey and wallowing in my imagination I travel into my inner mind with you who are my reflection” (312–3). In psychoanalytical terms, the self consists of the “ego” and the “alter ego.” But Gao Xingjian’s “you” and “I” are interchangeable subject positions, as well as different dimensions of the self: You know that I am just talking to myself to alleviate my loneliness. You know that this loneliness of mine is incurable, that no-one can save me and that I can only talk with myself as the partner of my conversation. In this lengthy soliloquy you are the object of what I relate, a myself who listens intently to me – you are simply my shadow. As I listen to myself and you, I let you create a she, because you are like me and also cannot bear the loneliness and have to find a partner for your conversation. So you talk with her, just like I talk with you. She was born of you, yet is an affirmation of myself. You are the partner of my conversation, transform my experiences and imagination into your relationship with her, and it is impossible to disentangle imagination from experience. (312)

“You” and “I” in Soul Mountain are two lines of narration, and two lines of subjectivity, which converge near the end of the novel to form a dialogical space of the self, so do the spiritual journey and the physical journey that form a mutually illuminating process. In Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism, the social nature of language makes it possible that there is an underlying dialogue going on in any speech or language use (104–5). Expanding on this theory, psychologists recently explored the dialogical operations in human thinking (Hermans, Kempen, and van Loon 23–3). The dialogic self refers to the mind’s ability to imagine the different positions of participants in a dialogue that takes place in the inner mind. Soul Mountain, however, is a literary exploration of this dialogic self in its psychological representations. While psychologists are still trying to theorize such dialogic operations in the inner mind, Gao Xingjian unfolds the complexities of the dialogical relations of the self. If writing is an exploration into the self, Gao Xingjian has experimented with a method of observation in character delineation. In a philosophical sense, “I” and “you” are observers of each other. They also observe other people in order to understand themselves. So “I” says: “I don’t know if you have ever observed this strange thing, the self” (150). The self cannot be defined by itself; it has to be defined with reference to an “other:” After that I went about observing other people, but whenever I observed other people I found this detestable omniscient self of mine interfering, and to this day there is not one

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face it hasn’t interfered with. This is a serious problem, for when I am scrutinizing someone else, I am at the same time scrutinizing myself. I search for faces I like, or expressions I can tolerate, so I can’t get rid of myself. I can’t find people with whom I can identify, I search without success, everywhere: the railway waiting room, in train carriages, on boats, in food shops and parks, and even when out walking on the streets, I am always trying to capture a familiar face or a familiar build, or looking for some sign which can call up submerged memories. When I am observing others I always treat the other person as a mirror for looking inwardly at myself. The observations are inevitably affected by my state of mind at a particular time. Even when I am observing a woman, my senses react to her and my experiences and imagination are activated in making a judgement. My understanding of others, including women, is actually superficial and arbitrary. Women I like are inevitably illusions I have created to delude myself, and this is my tragedy. As a result, my relationships with women inevitably fail. On the other hand, if I were a woman and living with a man, this would also be worry. The problem is the awakened self in the inner mind, this is the monster which torments me no end. People love the self yet mutilate the self. Arrogance, pride, complacency or anxiety, jealousy and hatred, all spring from this. The self is in fact the source of mankind’s misery. So, does this unhappy conclusion mean that the awakened self should therefore be killed? Thus Buddha told the bodhisattva: the myriad phenomena are vanity, the absence of phenomena is also vanity. (151–2)

“I” and “you” are not simply complements. They are sometimes opposites and serve as means for the protagonist to get rid of his self-consciousness: However, the totality of my misfortunes also exists within you, the unlucky demon I have invoked. Actually, you are not unlucky for all your misfortunes have been conferred upon you by me, they are all derived from my self love – this damned I loves only himself! I don’t know if God and the Devil in fact exist but both were invoked by you who are the embodiment of both my good fortune and my misfortune. When you vanish, God and the Devil will in the same instant disappear. (314)

The dialogic self presented in Soul Mountain is more than a narrative self, for it is the origin of all its multiplicity, as the protagonist explains: At that time the individual did not exist. There was not an awareness of a distinction between “I” and “you”. The birth of I derived from fear of death, and only afterwards an entity which was not I came to constitute you. At that time people did not have an awareness of fearing oneself, knowledge of the self came from an other and was affirmed by possessing and being possessed, and by conquering and being conquered. He, the third person who is not directly relevant to I and you, was gradually differentiated. After this the I also discovered that he was to be found in large numbers everywhere and was a separate existence from oneself, and it was only then that the consciousness of you and I became secondary. In the individual’s struggle for survival amongst others, the self was gradually forgotten and gradually churned like a grain of sand into the chaos of the boundless universe. (307–8)

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In one sense, Soul Mountain can be read as a journey to the self. The contradiction that the protagonist finds at the end is that the self is the source of all misery and anxiety. By inventing a “you” and a “he,” the protagonist thinks that he can go beyond the “I,” but instead he finds that he is caught in the tautology of philosophical circular arguments: It is only by getting rid of you that I can get rid of myself. However having invoked you, it is impossible to get rid of you. I’ve thought of an idea. What would happen if you and I were to change places? In other words I would be your image and you instead would be the concrete form of me – this would be an interesting game. If you listen carefully to me from my position I would then become the concrete expression of your desires, it would be a lot of fun. (314)

Meta-Fiction in Self-Narration Soul Mountain is fiction, but not in the traditional sense of storytelling. It is a journey into the dismal innermost part of the human mind, as well as an attempt to come out negating all manifestations of the self. The journey along the Yangtze River is a spatialization of the self and lets it manifest itself in flimsy realities of the transient self: “Reality can’t be verified and it doesn’t need to be … What is important is life … Reality is myself, reality is only the perception of this instant and it can’t be related to another person” (15). The travels of “I” constitute a journey of physical contacts with social realities, despite their absurdities. The journey into the inner self by “you” with its numerous sexual encounters brings the protagonist to a new level of self-understanding and self-negation. His search for Soul Mountain is a temporalization of his subjecthood, and he is finally redeemed from all worldly bondages. The body is seen as a prison house of the mind, and only by transcending it will the protagonist be able to achieve ultimate freedom. History, as a site of signification that gives meaning to the self, is also negated: History is a riddle, it can also be read as: history is lies and it can also be read as: history is nonsense and yet it can be read as: history is prediction and then it can be read as: history is sour fruit yet still it can be read as: history clangs like iron and it can be read as: history is balls of wheat-flour dumplings or it can be read as: history is shrouds for wrapping corpses or taking it further it can be read as: history is a drug to induce sweating or taking it further it can also be read as: history is ghosts banging on walls

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and in the same way it can be read as: history is antiques and even: history is rational thinking or even: history is experience and even: history is proof and even: history is a dish of scattered pearls and even: history is a sequence of cause and effect or else: history is analogy or: history is a state of mind and furthermore: history is history and: history is absolutely nothing even: history is sad sighs Oh history oh history oh history oh history Actually history can be read any way and this is a major discovery! (450–1)

History is a linguistic construct and therefore subject to manipulation of the human intellect. History is not fiction, but it can be read as fiction and being fictional. In all its manifestations, history is a linguistic construct. What does the protagonist-narrator want to tell in Soul Mountain? The “I-self” says, I don’t know that I don’t understand anything and still think I know everything. Things just happen behind me and there is always a mysterious eye, so it is best for me just to pretend that I understand even though I don’t. While pretending to understand, I still don’t understand. The fact of the matter is I comprehend nothing, I understand nothing. This is how it is. (506)

Soul Mountain is a novel negating the writing of fiction. The meta-fiction lies in its negation of history, of the self, of human intellect, of memory, of fiction writing, and of knowing. Fiction writing is life writing. It is Gao Xingjian’s manifesto of being without isms. How do the pronouns in the process of fiction writing illuminate the complexities of self other than being narrative voices? How are philosophical voices translated into art? Through the journeys to nature and into the self, Soul Mountain brings out the deeper layers of consciousness hidden within the self. The two lines of narration form a dialogue exploring the complexities of the self. The novel thus presents itself as the problematization of the self, in which life is rolled out as processes for deciphering fate and seeking freedom. Fate in Soul Mountain is no longer simply the prognostication of predestination; it is an unfathomable state of existence consisting of coincidences that trigger off a series of physical and mental quests into subjecthood. Fate is but an explanation of coincidences, a meta-narrative of life, all based on the self’s need for rationalizing its existence.

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Works Cited Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1982. Print. Gao, Xingjian. “Literature and Metaphysics: About Soul Mountain.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; and New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. 82–103. Print. — “My Drama My Key” [Wo de xiju he wo de yaoshi]. Without Isms [Meiyou zhuyi]. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1996. 235–52. Print. — Soul Mountain. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney; New York: HarperCollins, 2000; and London: HarperCollins, 2001. Print. Hermans, H. J. M., H. J. G. Kempen, and R. J. P. van Loon. “The Dialogical Self: Beyond Individualism and Rationalism.” American Psychologist 47 (1992): 23–3. Print. Lee, Mabel. “Pronouns as Protagonists: On Gao Xingjian’s Theory of Narration.” Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian. Ed. Kwok-kan Tam. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2001. 235–56. Print. Li Fuyan. “Matrimony Inn.” Trans. Lin Yutang. Famous Chinese Short Stories. By Lin Yutang. New York: Washington Square Press, 1967. 285–95. Print. Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. Trans. David Mulroy. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2011. Print. Tam, Kwok-kan. “A Greimasian Reading of ‘Matrimony Inn.’” Tamkang Review 16.2 (1985): 163–75. Print. — “Language as Subjectivity in One Man’s Bible.” Soul of Chaos: Critical Perspectives on Gao Xingjian. Ed. Kwok-kan Tam. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2001. 293– 310. Print. Taylor, Charles. Human Agency and Language. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Print.

Shelby Chan

Trap Revisited: The Man Who Questions Death and the Tragedy of Modern Man* Introduction In an earlier essay entitled “Falling into the Dusty Net: Situation, Trap, and Gao Xingjian,” I proposed that in Gao’s plays the main characters are usually portrayed as being in various types of traps (197–9). For Gao, a “trap” is a symbol of the wider predicament of humanity in the modern age. The characters in his works are often dominated by a “siege mentality,” which causes them to feel lonely and isolated and to lack trust in others, as if “the rest of the world has highly negative intentions” towards them, and no help from others can be expected (Bar-Tal). Gao considers human life to be a neverending effort to escape: I believe that being alive means being always on the run, either away from political persecution or from other people. One still has to run away from one’s self, which, once awakened, is precisely what one can never run away from – this is the tragedy of modern man. (Escape 109)

Running away is the motto of many of Gao’s characters. Escape (1990), set against the background of the 1989 Tiananmen incident, is a quintessential example of the “trap” drama. The play describes the encounter of a young man, a girl, and a middle-aged writer, who are trying to escape from the People’s Liberation Army soldiers who are pursuing them. The title of the play accentuates a paradox: although the title is Escape the characters are actually unable to escape. For the three protagonists, symbolic of modern man, it is their destiny always to be trying to escape, but never being able to do so. They are involuntary exiles, scurrying from one trap to another: from the square where a bloodbath has taken place to a rundown warehouse. Their attempts to escape are doomed to fail. The perpetual trap that confronts them is made up of a host of fundamental human weaknesses, such as fear, vanity, and desire. Similarly, in Between Life and Death (1991), Woman is shut alone in a room, estranged from other people and events taking place in the external world; even the ring of a telephone makes her jump. In this solitary confine* All quotations of the play come from Gilbert C. F. Fong’s English translation Escape & The Man Who Questions Death.

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ment, the dark secrets of her inner world are revealed: she is trapped in a love-hate relationship with an unfaithful man, and in a frail body that has been drained of youthful beauty. Although Man and Woman in Dialogue and Rebuttal (1992) have each other for physical company in an enclosed room, they still feel trapped, first in a one-night stand devoid of love, then by their refusal to engage in any sort of meaningful communication. Nocturnal Wanderer (1993) takes the setting out of a room into a dream world. Sleepwalker falls into a dream from which he cannot wake up, and his stroll in the night leads him into a world infested with crime and violence. The trap that threatens to engulf him is as evil, invincible and irresistible in the dream as it is in reality; neither submission nor resistance to evil offers a way out. The aforementioned plays, as well as my previous essay, shed light mainly on the spatial dimension of the trap situation. The protagonists are invariably stranded in a confined area, thus the scope and success of the characters’ activities are constrained. The futility and frustration arising from the trap situation urge the protagonists to change the aim and direction of their efforts – from attempting to break away from the physical world to searching deep into the psychological world. As it becomes apparent that any attempt to get out of the trap is doomed to fail, the protagonists, suffering from claustrophobia and psychological asphyxiation, begin to question themselves in earnest about what it really is that is frightening and worrying them. These questions are also in vain, and thus plunge the questioners into an abyss of despair. The traps in Gao’s dramas show a pattern of concentric circles: at the beginning of the drama, the protagonist is, by accident or for reasons untold, shut away in an enclosed area (a physical trap). Left alone, the protagonists start meditating on death (a metaphysical trap). Finally, in desperation, they realize that the ultimate trap is indeed the self (an all-encompassing trap which no one can hope to avoid). The Man Who Questions Death (2004), the focus of this essay, clearly displays a plot structure that is typical of Gao’s trap dramas. The protagonist accidentally gets locked in a modern art museum after opening hours. As made explicit in the title of the play, he starts to examine the issue of death, which he considers inevitable and inescapable. While one may choose one’s own death, one cannot escape from one’s self, which is the source of despair. The four traps identified in the play – other people, the modern art museum, death, and the self – form concentric circles. The protagonist runs away from other people, which is the first trap presented in the play. The modern art museum forms the outer circle, death forms the middle circle, while the self is at the core. The outer ring is the trap that is the most obvious to the reader, yet it is also a material representation of the inner rings, which reveals the essential features of the traps facing modern man.

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Otherness as Trap The various traps in The Man Who Questions Death may be interpreted as different forms of “otherness.” It might even be suggested that “otherness” is precisely the ultimate trap facing modern man. The playwright does not appear to oppose the idea that the “other” is part of what defines or even constitutes the self. The gaze of an “other” is also integral to a person’s comprehension of himself, as people construct a sense of themselves in relation to the gaze of an “other” as a process of reaction that is not necessarily related to stigmatization or condemnation, but that brings about calm, control, and diverse perspectives. What Gao opposes is a monopoly of and subservience to otherness. The threat of otherness is manifested less in coercion and intimidation than in hegemony and autocracy. The other which the self might look up to is, paradoxically, an “otherized” self, which is externalized and de-familiarized for the purpose of observation.

Other People Consistent with other works by Gao Xingjian, The Man Who Questions Death conveys a profound mistrust of and estrangement from other people. The existence of other people is both a trap and a dilemma. Worse still, the “masses” are a kind of physical otherness, an obvious impediment to personal freedom. Life is an agonizing ordeal of making one’s way through a crowd. The presence of others can seem to be crushing and restricting one’s movement and freedom. That Man: Throughout your life, it was either people trampling on you or you squashing other people. Good or bad, you tried to find a way out among the bustling crowd, not knowing year after year if this long journey would ever come to an end. (92)

The presence of the crowd implies constant surveillance and persecution, as there is always someone “watching you, spying on you, and playing hide and seek with you” (97): That Man: Only men are that cunning. They smile at you to tempt you, and if you take the bait, you’ll be hooked for sure. Be careful when someone smiles at you. It means that he can’t control you yet. When that happens, he won’t need to smile anymore. (97)

Even a smile, endearing as it is supposed to be, is an affectation. There appears to be no genuine affection from other people. The relationship with other peo-

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ple is also a prey–predator relationship, as though a wolf or a vicious dog is waiting in silence, “about to jump up and tear at your throat” (97). The malicious gaze of other people is omnipresent. The dilemma is that neither the presence nor the absence of other people can offer comfort or succor. The grim prospect of death results in feelings of anxiety and alienation. As one gets older and weaker by the day, one mourns that “what was missed can’t be had again” (91). Forlorn and remorseful, one is no longer able to feel love or pleasure. This Man misses the women and acquaintances he used to have: “there are no more hands to hold you, to caress you, or to give you a little tenderness” (90), to the extent that you “can’t understand why you’re so alone in the world” and that “even ghosts ignore you” (91). That Man dismisses the possibility that other people might offer consolation. True companionship is lost, while fake companionship only adds to desolation and desperation: That Man: You only wanted a whore, nothing more, a woman who’s as corrupted and depraved as you are, a faceless body which has lost its soul, to satisfy that little bit of desire in you, so that you could disappear inside the pitch-black abyss … (90)

The rubber doll with which That Man fiddles is a double metaphor. On the surface the doll signifies the companion that you cannot have as it is inanimate and unable to provide warmth or satisfy you sexually, because it “hasn’t even got a hole in it!” (90), and it only “arouses your desire, and then it leaves you high and dry and makes you sick to the stomach” (91). On a deeper level, the rubber doll implies that, devoid of health and soul, one is no different from inanimate objects. When That Man removes the doll’s hairpiece, revealing its bald head, he makes the point that in one’s twilight years one is no better than a “shriveled corpse” (90) and “it makes no difference whether you’re dead or alive” (91). One loses one’s autonomy like a toy at the disposal of other people, not unlike the way the rubber doll is treated by That Man, who in a rage tears away the doll’s hairpiece, waves it before the audience, and then tosses the doll on the floor. Modern man is thus like a “piece of rope left on the floor,” being picked up, pulled on, and thrown away. One lets oneself be “intimidated and controlled,” and no one can hope to be an exception (98). In the play, This Man is accidentally locked alone inside the museum of modern art. The setting excludes the outside world, so at least he is “safe” from the persecution of other people. Nonetheless, a sense of menace pervades the story. The play pokes through the threat of physical otherness, deep into a kind of otherness that is intrinsic to being. The absence of anything related to the external world reveals the dreary captivity of modern man, who will-

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ingly lives his life in bondage to utilitarian values. The trap situation in which This Man is caught is related less to the presence of the masses than to his own subjectivity. In this sense, The Man Who Questions Death is a blow-byblow account of the trap situation, represented variously by the masses, the modern art museum, death, and the self. By becoming isolated in the closed space of the museum, away from the masses, This Man simply leaves one trap and plunges into another. The museum, which itself is a physical trap, and the modern art it is showcasing can be considered as an allegory of modern life. The futility of life is the logical result of yet another trap facing everyone, that is, death. Even when This Man appears to take control of his own death, seemingly rejecting the limitations of mortality, he is still encompassed by his subjectivity. His anguish is brought about by the self, which is the ultimate trap for modern man.

The Museum of Modern Art The museum has literally become a trap, and it is the most material and explicit trap in the play. The museum can be compared to a prison for two reasons. First, This Man misses his train, tries to seek shelter from the rain in the museum, and accidentally gets locked inside. He is then held in solitary confinement on the premises, trying in vain to attract attention, and vainly searching for a way out. He imagines himself “going wild and doing all sorts of crazy things,” like setting the place on fire in order to attract the attention of the police (78, 80). He feels like a criminal kept behind bars, although he has not committed a crime. He says the museum has become a form of “spiritual bondage” for him, impinging upon his personal freedom. Second, the museum is compared to a “cultural prison, artistic prison” (78). The Man Who Questions Death appears to be Gao’s lampooning of modern art. When asked by a reporter why he chose death as the theme of the play, Gao asserted that the play was a critique and reflection on modern art, based on the role of a creator in the society and the historical background in the post-modern age (Gao and Fong 117–8). The playwright, using This Man as his spokesperson, comes down harshly on the banality and vulgarity of the so-called “pieces of modern art” on display: This Man: There are urinals made in France and the United States, also Asian imports, odds and ends, from brand new refrigerators to a hodgepodge of stuff one finds in junk shops, cigarette butts, and even used sanitary napkins. Anything goes, no matter how broken or damaged, as long as they don’t stink. If the worst comes to the

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worst, they could be sterilized and used again, which is called “recycling.” There are all kinds of exhibits but no living human beings. Why not? … All that crap’s made its way into the museum and found itself listed in beautifully appointed catalogs and analyzed with the latest critical jargon. (81)

Works of art are supposed to represent keen observation, the elevation and sublimation of life, whereas the artworks exhibited fail to see beyond material life, and reflect the dismal state in which modern man finds himself. Gao denounces modern art as “crap” because modern art presents crap as art: modern art simply takes some mundane object and calls it art, with no attempt to interpret, create or embellish it. Modern art comes across as a trap because it fails to transcend the banality of life, meaning that modern man, as the subject of art, strives in vain to rise above this banality. In Gao’s view the discourse of modern art appears to be merely a method of self-congratulation; irrelevant and irreverent statements are made and recorded in art almanacs, to fool people into believing that these are of significance. In the play, This Man goes around looking at the works of art and commenting on them: This Man: Sure you have to be eloquent to justify yourself; remember that words are the raw materials of thinking, but your problem is that you have nothing worth saying. So you try to bluff your way through with word games, as if you were playing mahjong. One way or another you find yourself a beginning, and like stringing beads along a piece of thread, you string words into sentences, then group them into concepts, and combine the concepts to make up a theory, which becomes part of an ideology, but it’s just a never-never land, like the moon’s reflection in the water. (85)

Gao’s criticism of modern art is direct and obvious, while also representing the plight of modern man. Looking up to the discourses of art critics and historians, modern artists subordinate their own perception of life to other people’s perceptions to secure a place in art almanacs. This situation reveals not only the fact that there is a monopoly on the discourse on modern art, but also people’s obsession with conforming to the view of those who hold this monopoly. If otherness is a trap, in the play modern art may be said to symbolize the process by which modern man subsumes himself into otherness and enters the trap of his own accord. If art, as This Man proclaims, is “at the brink of extinction” and has “been tortured and put to death” (86), the same may be said for modern man. The similarity between modern art and the plight of modern man can be seen in two aspects. First, both lack imagination, innovation, and creativity. This Man’s references to “pretending that you’re thoughtful and deep” and “trying to roll out the little bit of cleverness in you” (85) can also be applied to the

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modern artist, in order to make a name for himself, resorts to defamation and destruction, to firing shots at the masters, and thus “causing art to wane and die” (87). The same can be said for his statements that “everybody wants to be God” and scrambles to “overthrow God, take his place and be the Creator” (84). While it is mankind’s destiny and responsibility “to save our country and its people, we still have to save our own souls” (84). In other words, modern art does not have a soul, nor does modern man. Yet both are supposed to save souls. So they try to pretend that they have souls or to steal souls from other people. This Man wonders: “Do you really have a soul? And who can save this soul of yours?” (84). The rationale here seems to be: If you do not have a soul, steal somebody else’s: “So you resort to metaphysics and dabble in philosophy, claiming that ‘You think, therefore you are.’ Sure, you have to be eloquent to justify yourself; remember that words are the raw materials of thinking, but your problem is that you have nothing worth saying” (85). The second point of similarity is that both are experiencing an identity crisis. In a long monologue at the beginning of the play, This Man satirizes the self-importance of art critics and historians, as well as modern artists’ fixation on getting their names into art almanacs. Trapped inside the museum, This Man muses on putting himself forward as the first human exhibit. Here the playwright is drawing an analogy between the desires of both modern art and modern man to confirm their identity (85). Further, This Man, appearing to be a mouthpiece for Gao’s own views, doubts whether modern man has any identity to speak of (85). Assailed by self-doubt and insecurity, modern man gives up his right of self-assertion and self-articulation. He subjects himself to the gaze of others and lets himself be described and analyzed with fanciful jargon and theories. This Man: Of course like everybody else you can’t help being narcissistic, an exquisite objet d’art that’s been chosen, accepted and admired, an archetype which the imagination, no matter how fanciful, cannot create, a work praised and appraised, analyzed, deconstructed layer by layer, and heaped on with hitherto unprecedented kudos, higher than all that’s been accorded to any existing work. (85)

The eye is a recurrent image in Gao’s plays, films, and paintings, symbolizing the idea that man is under constant surveillance by others. To be watched by others implies pressure, oppression, and thus an impediment to personal freedom. The Man Who Questions Death does not contain any image specifically related to the eye, although This Man assumes that there are “security cameras covering every corner” (77), which can be considered a variation of the eye imagery. Yet the play presents an even more miserable situation than Gao’s other works. In their enthusiasm to obtain a place in art history, modern artists, and by implication modern man, willingly subject themselves to the

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gaze of other people, which is tantamount to making a voluntary entry into a trap. For both modern art and modern man, the trap situation is excruciating, as This Man clearly states at the beginning of the play: This Man: Just like a fly caught inside a glass window case, you’ll die for lack of air. You’ll become a sample, a piece of dehydrated art, and your skeleton will be put to good use, to fill the gap in their exhibition. (81)

Drained of air and water, drained of freedom, spirit and life, modern art and modern man might as well be dead. Having one’s name listed in the history books is no different from having it etched onto one’s gravestone (87). Here, another trap, that is, death, is introduced.

Death While This Man is bemoaning the demise of modern art, which signifies the degeneration of modern man, That Man appears on stage and expounds his view on death. Death, as the main theme of the play, is presented as a trap, both physically and metaphysically. It imposes restrictions on man because it offers no possibilities of escape. With the transience and unpredictability of life, death is the only certainty and gauge of equality for all men: That Man: What’s absolutely certain is that you’ll have to die sooner or later. Death is waiting for you, whatever you do or don’t do. There’s no escape from this ending … The only thing you can grasp is this tiny bit of understanding: Sooner or later you’ll have to die. What incentive is there to live on? … Man is destined to die; you can’t do anything about it. You make yourself busy, running around doing this and that, only to keep yourself entertained … (88–9)

Death comes with every birth. It is as natural and logical as the law of gravity: what goes up must come down. Whatever lives must pass away. That Man relates mortality to the pull of gravity. He compares life to “a piece of paper blowing in the wind,” which “has to fall down sooner or later” (91). No one can stop it from falling. The key phrase in That Man’s exposition is mianbuliao yi si, literally translated as “One can’t be exempted from death” (19, 21, 22), which appears as many as five times. Interestingly, the phrase mianbuliao is translated into English by Gilbert Fong as “sooner or later,” which, perhaps inadvertently, hints at the inevitability and imminence of death. Death is a double trap in the sense that it imposes a limit on both life span and the

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physical body, both of which are indeed interdependent. As one grows old, health is constantly on the wane, leading to the day of death. Even if there were an infinite life span, one would still be constrained by deteriorating physical strength: That Man: You’re getting older by the day; you can’t turn back the clock. The latest techniques and medications that claim to make you young again can do nothing except make you go bankrupt. Sooner or later you’ll turn into a corpse … … You’re too old; you can’t even move your legs. The only thing you’re able to do is to keep rambling on endlessly, only then can you feel that you’re still alive. … You can’t stop it, you’re getting older and weaker by the day, you’re frittering your life away. … You’re straining yourself, your back’s aching all over. You’re totally exhausted, half dead, with nothing to show for your troubles. (88–92)

At the same time, life becomes not worth living, and the meaning of life becomes doubtful. On the one hand, fond memories do not add to the meaning of life, but rather “inflict excruciating pain on you” (96), just as when This Man savors past love and happiness, wishing to find hope and strength in living. Yet what has been lived, no matter how beautiful, cannot be lived again, and what has been missed will only lead to endless regrets. Nonetheless, regrets and remorse are futile and meaningless (91). To live one’s days in memories is to live in a state of self-deception and slow suicide. On the other hand, as one’s life is gradually dissipated, one loses one’s senses and emotions, “to the point of being numb” (100). One cannot help becoming senile, and one feels the urge to shout and cry for help. Yet, as That Man points out, there is no one who can rescue you, and even if rescue were possible, it would be useless, since if one were able to escape from death, one would still be trapped by one’s self. That Man emphasizes the futility of any effort to prevent or delay death, since death is “all in your destiny” (87), “there’s no escape from this ending,” so “there’s not much you can do” (88). Immortality is impossible and man is trapped in a downwards spiral into death. Given that “the day of judgment has arrived” (86), there is no hope of salvation. At the same time, death promises neither rebirth nor entry into a better world, instead it is a plunge into “the Big Void, ending up in nothingness” (88). This Man: In fact, there’s absolutely nothing on the other shore, not a strand of air, no wind, no impulse, no rhythm, no face, neither form nor words, neither color nor taste, and no feeling, everything is blurred. (106)

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Death is, therefore, a trap not only because it is inescapable, but also because a hypothetical escape does not lead to liberation. Death is inherent in life. In other words, so long as one lives, death is part of one’s life. In the play, Gao considers death as an external other, an object for observation and discussion, hence the play’s title, The Man Who Questions Death. Death becomes a kind of “otherness.” Given that death is inevitable, the only way This Man can sustain his existence is by “keeping an eye on death, this most meaningless death, which gobbles up everything like a bottomless black hole” (88). The playwright personifies Death as a manipulative teaser. Man and Death exist in a prey–predator relationship, which Gao compares to the situation of a cat quietly waiting in a corner looking out for mice, and ready to pounce. That Man: That guy is waiting for you to go over there. You go forward, he goes back. You take one step forward, he takes one step back, no more, no less, just to lure you into his trap one step at a time. He lures you into his illusion, made of a sliver of light and nothing else. But it makes you happy and you follow him, moving around joyfully in circles. This old man, you know him only too well, but you let him push you around and manipulate you. You can’t help it. (93)

Death becomes an opponent in a game, which is not unlike an uphill battle in which a man fights against the doom and gloom of being. In other words, Death decides the time and manner of your demise, and man can exercise no discretion at all. The only way for This Man to win this game is to assume authority over his own life. In other words, he can choose to be aware of his own life and death; he can choose not to be intimidated by its torment; and most important of all, he can choose when and how he is going to die. To put an end to one’s own life is different from suicide. Suicide is the result of resignation and relinquishment of power over one’s being. It is “cowardice” (99) and desperation. It is “always a tragedy,” which is “hopeless” and “bizarre” (102). By contrast, to put an end to one’s own life deliberately and dispassionately is to hold death in one’s own hand. If one ends one’s life at the right time, and accepts this in peace, it becomes a demonstration of acceptance and liberation. One’s attitude in this case is playful and commanding, as if “toying with death before its sudden arrival” or as if “directing a play.” The process is farcical, “interesting,” generating some “pulsating pleasure” (102): That Man: It’s like inviting yourself to a party, and you celebrate all by yourself. All your life you’ve been slaving away aimlessly and now you’ve reserved this short period of time for your own enjoyment. It’s only normal, isn’t it? This Man: Not only is it normal, it’s absolutely right! You end your life at the right time, and you accept this in peace. This is ten thousand times smarter than a fly dying from slow suffocation inside a glass window case. (104)

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This Man compares modern man to a trapped fly, suffering from asphyxiation and claustrophobia. If the fly cannot get out of the glass window case, it might as well kill itself instead of slowly being killed. Such a death would at least be dignified. To put an end to one’s life, deciding on the time and manner, is to turn the tables on Death. If, as That Man believes, life is often wasted and “worthless like dry shit,” and “there is no salvation” (103), and if death is the worst destiny, the gesture of ending the situation is to turn humiliation into humor – “Even though it’s absurd and badly performed, it’s also more wonderful than the boundless quagmire known as living” (102). At the end of the play, in the presence of That Man, This Man hangs himself. The act is a proactive invitation to death because This Man has not only decided the timing and manner of his death, but has also attained a thorough understanding of his being. As This Man’s life comes to an end, the siren of the museum sounds, heralding the arrival of the museum staff and the re-opening of the museum. The speeches of both This Man and That Man have come to an end. The dead body of This Man will be discovered and people will suspect suicide. This may have two implications: on the one hand, the quest for the meaning of death is personal. This Man’s experience suggests that reflections on life are possible only in isolation from other people and worldly matters. Other people might not understand what This Man has gone through. On the other hand, as the quest for the meaning of death is so personal, it matters only to the individual concerned. Whether or not other people acknowledge it is not important. As This Man puts an end to his life, That Man remains on stage, standing erect and dignified.

The Self Throughout the play, the self is a victim of the trap, with This Man imprisoned within the museum of modern art, within his own lifespan (that is, by death) and within the crowd. However, the self is also the ultimate trap in which This Man is caught. In the play, This Man comes onto the stage in anguish. In a long soliloquy at the beginning of the play, he bemoans his loss of freedom, the death of art, and, more importantly, the death of God. If God is dead, there will be no final judgment, and thus no obstacle to the establishment of the self. Yet the object of his anger is diverse and vague, and he seems to have no insight into the sources of his problem or any possible solution. Then That Man, seemingly impatient and unsympathetic with This Man, points out abruptly that “there’s no need for such ranting” (87), which indeed only suffices to prove that the speaker does in fact exist. However, it is precisely This

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Man’s existence that is at the root of his predicament. His problems are not purely random consequences of tough luck, but rather problems he has brought on himself. That Man directs the blame for his own predicament onto This Man, starting every part of his soliloquy with the pronoun “you” (87–93). He accuses This Man of having no sense of or control over his own subjectivity. The self of This Man is the trap in which he is continually held and which leads him into the various other traps. That Man’s role is thus that of the observer of the self, that of the alter ego of This Man, offering an assessment of the self. This dramatic use of the two characters, This Man and That Man, embodies Gao’s idea of subjectivity. In Preliminary Explorations into the Techniques of Modern Fiction, Gao proposes “split personality” as a possible way of vividly depicting the inner world of fictional characters. The term “split personality” carries neither positive nor negative connotations, but merely highlights the fact that the mind of modern man is complicated and multidimensional. Through abstraction (that is, by emphasizing a particular feature and relating it to the general idea of modern man) and projection, the writer can give shape to different aspects of a character’s subjectivity and represent these aspects as different persons in the story (Gao, “Stream of Consciousness,” 53). In The Man Who Questions Death, That Man is an externalized representation of the self of This Man. The playwright explicitly states that “sometimes the words they speak cut across one another as if they are engaged in a dialogue, but these are actually the monologue of the same character” (76). Before That Man appears, This Man uses only the pronouns “I” and “me,” obviously referring to himself. Afterwards, he starts to use “you,” yet still talking about himself, which shows a growing detachment from his subjectivity and a newly gained ability to engage in a dialogue with his self. That Man considers This Man as a second-person other, which is also how This Man sees himself. In this sense, the subjectivity of This Man is interrogated not only by That Man, but also by himself. That Man helps This Man into an understanding of his fear, situation, and subjectivity; only when This Man has acquired this understanding do the two appear to respond to each other’s words.

Otherizing the Self Gao suggests a possible solution to the trap situation and compares the state of freedom to a piece of paper drifting in the air, an image that appears three times in The Man Who Questions Death. The play contains a lengthy description of this image:

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That Man: [This Man feels bored. He takes out a small piece of paper from his pocket and blows on it, making it fly in the air. A small piece of paper is drifting in the air without rhyme or reason. It’s interesting to look at it before it touches the ground. Why? Not because there’s anything special about the paper itself, but because someone is looking. [While This Man is watching the falling paper, a projection of a plastic bag floating in the air appears at the top of the stage. Even if it were only a plastic bag, or just a garbage bag dancing in the wind, it’s still interesting to watch! The look in your eyes imparts meaning; otherwise, all the things in the world would be so boring, so mundane. (93)

A piece of paper, or a plastic bag, is light, flimsy, and almost transparent. It floats in the air, and flows with the air. It follows the direction and intensity of the wind with gay abandon. It makes as many moves as the wind allows, as beautiful as dancing. Gao does not specifically discuss freedom in The Man Who Questions Death, but the drifting paper image manifests his idea of freedom in many ways. In Chapter 35 of his novel One Man’s Bible, Gao gives a clear and concise statement on freedom, which echoes and explains this imagery.

Time Limit First, there is a time limit to the paper’s dance. The paper will touch the ground sooner or later. Its beauty is but transient. Similarly, “freedom is ephemeral” and “it is that flash of freedom that you want to capture” (One Man’s Bible 277). In other “trap” plays, the trap situation appears to be permanent and eternal. There is no hint of an end to the situation, nor is there any hope of a breakthrough or breakout. The Man Who Questions Death, on the contrary, presents many time limits. The story starts with a time displacement: This Man has missed his train and thus his appointment with his friend. He is trapped in the period between the present and the time of the next train. He then walks into a museum of modern art, but gets accidentally locked in, and is thus trapped within the period of time for which the museum remains closed. He has fallen victim of a time trap and lost his reason for traveling: “Even if you can get another train tomorrow, the person you were going to meet will have gone. There’s no reason for you to travel any more” (100). Human life can also be seen as a time displacement, a time trap between this life and the next life. The fact of mortality means the individual lives within a time limit. A set time frame represents a limitation of one’s freedom, because actions cannot go on indefinitely, and it imposes a sense of urgency and fatal-

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ism. The time limit is also a trap one cannot avoid. One can neither regain lost time nor extend the time limit. Yet one can make the most out of the limited time available: “You should live for today, just doing what you have to do and what you can do,” instead of regretting and repenting (96). The attitude Gao puts across is anything but defeatist. For example, knowing that he is trapped within the period during which the museum will remain closed, This Man decides to enjoy himself, looking around the museum, and investigating why “the so-called contemporary art museum has fallen so low” (80). His intention is to “make something out of nothing, a tiny bit of meaning out of meaninglessness” (105).

Gesture A piece of paper is virtually weightless. It blends well into the environment, and it moves in a lithe and graceful manner with the currents of air. The piece of paper is detached from, but responsive to the environment at the same time. The sight of the paper drifting in the wind is unproductive and meaningless, but the sheer beauty of its carefree movement makes its brief existence worthwhile. Gao compares it to the moment when you bend down and try to catch the moon, the fun parts of which are the posture you assume and “the aesthetic pleasure you’re looking for” (105). The paper is, of course, lifeless, with no subjectivity to speak of. It would seem illogical to compare an animate person to an inanimate object. The imagery of the piece of paper used in the play can be understood as a metaphor for the ideal state of the self, which should be light and unpretentious. The intention here is to diminish the self, or to relegate it to a less important position, from which one may attain the state of freedom. Gao thinks that “freedom is not conferred, nor can it be bought, it is your awareness of life” (One Man’s Bible 277). While self-awareness is important, too much self-consciousness or self-importance is an impediment to freedom (ch. 35). The drifting paper does not seek help from others, but simply takes advantage of the situation without calculation, and flies around nonchalantly. The self is not to be discarded, as “you still consider yourself the center of everything” (The Man Who Questions Death 105), but it should not to be taken too seriously.

Gaze The beauty of the paper’s dance is derived solely from the gaze of the beholder, because “only you can see it, and only you think you can still see it” (104).

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Any movement can be watched by others: what you can do is to ensure the independence of your gaze. Although other people may also see the paper floating about, you can decide for yourself how it should be interpreted. Although anything in the world can be seen as boring or mundane, Gao believes that “the look in your eyes imparts meaning,” so that a plastic bag dancing in the wind can still be interesting to watch (93). It is important to ensure that your interpretation is not unduly influenced by how other people might be seeing it. If the gaze is dominated by the commonly held views of others, the judgment will rest in their hands, and your freedom will be impeded. Similarly, one can also “otherize” and then observe oneself. In this way, one becomes both the subject and object of gaze, empowering oneself to be one’s own judge, and freeing oneself from the dictates of others. This is not tantamount to self-indulgence or self-importance, narcissism or ignoring one’s surroundings. On the contrary, “owning” the gaze on oneself brings about liberation in two ways. First, one is not obliged to take into account the approval or appreciation of others, or worse still, to pander to the views of the masses. In One Man’s Bible, Gao writes that “freedom takes no account of others and has no need for acceptance by others. It can only be won by transcending the restrictions imposed on you by others” (277). Second, and more importantly, one can be one’s own judge. Otherizing the self and putting it under one’s own gaze affords distance and discrimination. One should assume a position of detachment from one’s surroundings, conduct a quiet observation, and then adjust one’s strategy for dealing with the outside world.

The Finite and the Infinite A trap may limit freedom, but it does not necessarily prohibit or eliminate freedom completely. Gao believes that only when what is imposed on the self by others is peeled off, layer after layer, can one recognize and re-establish the values of the self, including the value of self-doubt. The man who is fully aware of his subjectivity is always on the run, away from the oppression of reality (Gao, “What Have We Gained,” 154). Using a similar rationale, The Man Who Questions Death dramatizes a private pilgrimage to the self. As This Man stumbles along on his way to death, he goes through one trap after another, each time gaining a new understanding of his subjectivity. The playwright is indeed stripping away the constraints and confusion imposed on the protagonist. The play is categorized as a “dark farce” (Gao and Fong 124). Although it examines the issues of death and mortality, the play is not a tragedy, or at

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least, the overall mood is not sorrowful, because it conveys no sense of regret concerning mortality. On the contrary, the serious themes – modern life, death, and subjectivity – are examined with sharp, relentless and amoral humor. The psycho-journey of This Man is thus a black comic burlesque. As the story develops, he becomes more able to mock the absurdity of every trap situation. Any “comic relief” from the intensity and seriousness of the subject matter comes from his proximity to the self and the possibility of liberation. While This Man may be described as plunging into a vicious circle of traps, he might also be deemed to be crossing the barriers in order to reach the self directly. The play is thus as much a tale of escape as it is a trap drama. As Gao says, escape is not the purpose of living, but is merely a means to preserve the self (“The Voice of the Individual,” 136). Gao’s idea of freedom is private and personal (that is, as opposed to public and collective). Freedom is a state of mind, irrespective of location or situation. What is important is the assumption of one’s authority to express the self and the assertion of the value of self-expression. A free person is an independent and intelligent soul who can create and control his own voice. Otherness is insignificant because one can never understand the truth about others. Although the self is also forever in chaos (Gao, “Dramaturgical Method,” 173), however, to understand the self is important since one cannot live without one’s own emotions and perceptions. While almost everything else might be discarded, the self cannot be. To give a clear and liberated voice to the self is important because it gives us a sense of existence and satisfaction (Gao, “What Have We Gained,” 154), and it also helps alleviate the morbid and deep-seated agony of being. Gao Xingjian’s notion of freedom, nonetheless, does not appear to be a state absolutely unhindered and uninhibited. For example, one of the prerequisites of personal freedom is respect for the freedom of others (“The Voice of the Individual,” 136). Otherness is a trap and a hindrance, but only through acknowledging otherness, as well as its ramifications and limitations, can one attain a thorough understanding of the self. The key to self-knowledge is transcendence and imagination. Gao’s idea of artistic freedom may be related to the idea of personal freedom, since art is a reflection of life. However, artistic freedom is not completely “free.” Artistic creation, according to Gao, requires the artist to break through existing constraints, as every art form inherently entails certain limitations. At the same time, the pursuit of truth is often hailed as the mission of artistic creation (“Another Kind,” 114). Such inherent limitations are also traps of a kind. However, Gao distinguishes between truth and reality; if the two were one and the same, every man and every object in daily life would be artwork. Such a perception of art is not unlike that represented

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by the modern art museum in the play. Therefore, artistic creation entails both the acceptance and the rejection of limitations. To reach for the infinite potential of art, the artist has to see beyond the limitations laid out before him to a fresh way to express the self. In order to break through traps, one has to maintain a neutral third-person gaze on everything. To “otherize” life, death, and the self is a way to make the most out of otherness; it is also a way to escape from otherness. Yet such an escape is indeed an escape forward, as expressed beautifully by William Butler Yeats and engraved on his tombstone: “Cast a cold eye on life, on death, Horsemen, pass by!”

Works Cited Bar-Tal, Daniel. “What Siege Mentality Is.” Beyond Intractability (2004): n. pag. Ed. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Web. 13 February 2012.

Chan, Shelby K. Y. “Falling into the Dusty Net: Situation, Trap, and Gao Xingjian” [Wu luo chenwang zhong: Chujing, kunju, Gao Xingjian]. Hong Kong Drama Review 8 (2009): 197–211. Print. Gao, Xingjian. “Stream of Consciousness” [Yishi liu]. Preliminary Explorations into the Techniques of Modern Fiction [Xiandai xiaoshuo jiqiao chutan]. By Gao Xingjian. Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe, 1983. 26–33. Print. — Without Isms [Meiyou zhuyi]. Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1996. Print. — “What Have We Gained in Exile?” [Liuwang shi women huode shenme?]. Without Isms [Meiyou zhuyi]. By Gao Xingjian. Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1996. 116–55. Print. — One Man’s Bible. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney: Flamingo, 2002. Print. — “The Voice of the Individual.” The Case for Literature. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Mabel Lee. Sydney: HarperCollins, 2006; and New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2007. 126–39. Print. — Escape & The Man Who Questions Death. Trans. Gilbert C. F. Fong. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2007. Print. — and Gilbert C. F. Fong. On Drama [Lun xiju]. Taipei: Lianjing, 2009. Print. — Aesthetics and Creation. Trans. Mabel Lee. Amherst NY: Cambria Press, 2012. Print. — “Another Kind of Aesthetics.” Aesthetics and Creation. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Mabel Lee. Amherst NY: Cambria Press. 89–158. Print. — Dramaturgical Method and the Neutral Actor.” Aesthetics and Creation. By Gao Xingjian. Trans. Mabel Lee. Amherst NY: Cambria Press. 159–77. Print.

Index of Works by Gao Xingjian “About My Painting” 35–37 Absolute Signal 23, 25, 57, 105, 111, 112, 123, 149, 153, 172, 188, 190, 193 Aesthetics and Creation 27, 76, 149 “The Aesthetics of the Artist” 37 “After the Flood” (essay) 38 After the Flood (film) 38 “The Agony of Modern French Literature” 80 Alarm Signal see Absolute Signal “Another Kind of Aesthetics” 27, 37, 147 Another Kind of Aesthetics 143, 145, 147 Ballade nocturne 30 “The Belated Arrival of Modernism and Contemporary Chinese Literature” 126, 127 Between Figurative and Abstract 36 Between Life and Death 31, 34, 112, 174, 180, 241 Bi’an see The Other Shore Bus Stop 8, 23–25, 57, 105, 111, 123, 149, 153, 172, 188–191, 193–194 “Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather” (short story) 37 Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (collection of short stories) 25 “Carefree as a Bird” 7, 139, 140, 142, 143, 145, 147 “The Case for Literature” 19, 123, 128, 129 The Case for Literature 76 “Cold Literature” 131 Collection of Gao Xingjian’s Plays 172 “Concerning Silhouette/Shadow” 37 Dialogue and Rebuttal 34, 112, 174, 183, 242 “Dramaturgical Method and the Neutral Actor” 31–34 End of the world 38 Escape, 19, 80, 81, 100, 117, 122n2, 129, 142, 178, 179, 241 Hades 7–8, 30, 34, 117, 150, 151, 154, 156– 167

Hiding from the Rain 25 “Huadou” 37 “In an Instant” 37 In Pursuit of Modern Drama see In Search of Modern Theater In Search of Modern Theater 31, 111, 151, 156, 167 “Literature and Metaphysics: About Soul Mountain” 27, 204 “Literature as Testimony: The Search for Truth” 124 The Man Who Questions Death 8, 9, 30, 37, 112, 117, 118, 171, 176–182, 242–255 “Me and Bertolt Brecht” 110–112 “The Modern Chinese Language and Literary Creation” 28–29 “Modern One-Act Opera” 156 “Night Talk at the Capital” 106, 108, 111, 113, 114 Nocturnal Wanderer 112, 171, 174, 178, 179, 182, 242 “Noted in Paris” 134, 135 Of Mountains and Seas 7, 30, 34, 112, 139– 142, 144, 145, 147, 150, 155, 156, 197 On Drama see On Theater On Theater 31, 76 One Man’s Bible 5, 6, 9, 20–21, 26, 29, 30, 61, 62, 73–74, 79, 81, 82, 84, 86–89, 93, 94, 99–104, 117, 142, 197, 198n6, 204, 205, 210, 217–221, 253–255 The Other Shore 25, 30, 34, 58, 80, 81, 105, 106, 115–118, 123, 149, 153, 175, 182, 183, 188, 195, 197, 198n6, 206, 210, 215n3 “The Position of the Writer” 125 “The Potential of Theater” 31 Preliminary Explorations into the Art of Modern Fiction 23, 80, 111, 123, 252 Preliminary Explorations into the Techniques of Modern Fiction see Preliminary

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Explorations into the Art of Modern Fiction Return to Painting 43 Silhouette/Shadow 37, 139 Snow in August 30, 34, 37, 66, 117, 118, 142, 150, 156, 183, 197 Soul Mountain 2, 3, 5, 9, 25, 27–30, 63, 79, 81–84, 88, 89, 99, 105, 116, 117, 136, 142–146, 174, 198n6, 204–212–219, 221, 226–239

“The Voice of the Individual” 256

Weekend Quartet 30, 112 “What Have We Gained” 255, 256 Wild Man 6, 25, 34, 105–119, 149, 150, 153, 154, 155n7, 171, 172, 188, 194 “Wilted Chrysanthemums” 23–25, 188, 189 “Without Isms” 121 Without Isms 27, 121, 122 “Why Write” 149, 150 “Wild Man and Me” 105, 111, 112, 114

Name Index Adorno, Theodor W. 69 Artaud, Antonin 32, 118, 152, 165 Ba, Jin 66 Bakhtin, Mikhail 3, 236 Balzac, Honoré de 219–221 Banu, Georges, 198–199 Beauvoir, Simone de 86 Beckett, Samuel 4–5, 57, 61, 64–65, 69–70, 172, 177–178, 182 Berlin, Isaiah 6, 76, 94, 96–97, 115, 118, 131 Bingyi 49–50 Brecht, Bertolt 4, 33, 57–66, 68–70, 111, 113, 118, 152, 191–193 Brodsky, Joseph 204, 206 Cao, Yu 23–24, 189 Carlson, Marvin 8, 186, 193–194 Chen, Haiyan 49 Chen, Xiaomei 111 Chu (King of Chu) 132 Fang, Lizhi 186 Feng, Menglong 28 Fong, Gilbert C. F. 175, 198, 205, 215n3, 248 Freud, Sigmund 15, 82, 232 Fromm, Erich 96 Gao, Qipei 66, 68n8 Giacometti, Alberto 36 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins 86 Greene, Gayle 207, 209 Grotowski, Jerzy 32, 60, 152, 198 Hayek, Friedrich August von 76 He, Jingzhi 23–24, 189n2 Hirst, Damien 46 Hoffman, Eva 206, 211, 212, 217 Hongwu (Emperor) 154 Howells, Christina 83 Hugo, Victor 212 Huineng 15, 77, 117, 133–134, 136 Jin, Shengtan 28

Kafka, Franz 214 Kantor, Tadeusz 32 Kristeva, Julia 44 Kundera, Milan 208, 214 Laozi 7, 15, 77, 133, 139 Lee, Mabel 198, 204–205 Lin, Zhaohua 23, 24, 58, 110, 112, 114, 189n3, 193 Link, Perry 186 Liu, Zaifu 20, 131, 179, 217 Lu, Xun 8, 193–194, Malmqvist, Göran 197–198, Mao, Zedong 21, 43, 44, 47, 187, 194 Mei, Lanfang 60 Milosz, Czeslaw 212 Mozi 63, 70 Nietzsche, Friedrich 3, 27, 64, 117, 126, 178, Píchová, Hana 204, 213–215 Plutarch 209 Proust, Marcel 69 Quah, Sy Ren 185, 190, 193–194 Rodchenko, Alexander 45 Rodin, Auguste 219–220 Said, Edward 208, 216 Sartre, Jean-Paul 5–6, 79–80, 82, 83–84, 85–86, 88–90, 125 Schopenhauer, Arthur 65, 69, 70 Shi, Zhiying 49 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr 125 Stanislavski, Konstantin 77 Tam, Kwok-kan 205, 217 Taylor, Diana 8, 185–186, 195–197 Valentin, Karl 69 Wang, Guowei 153 Whiteley, Brett 45 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 62, 69

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Yin, Guangzhong 155n7 Yixichang (luohan) 165 Zhang, Huan 47

Zhao, Henry Yi-heng 198 Zhu, Yu 47 Zhuangzi 7, 27, 132–133, 135, 139, 144, 146, 147n1