SOURCE: Burckhardt, Olivier. “Journey without End.” Quadrant 44, no. 9 (September 2000): 84-5.

In the following review, Burckhardt examines Gao's experimental use of narrative voice in Soul Mountain.

Lingshan (soul-mountain) is a quasi-mythological place “where wonderful things can be seen, where suffering and pain can be forgotten, and where one can find freedom.” There are many Lingshans in China but “soul-mountain” is also a Buddhist name for heaven.

Begun in 1982 when Gao returned to Beijing after a fifteen-thousand-kilometre journey through central and eastern China over a period of five months, Soul Mountain was finished in 1989 in Paris, where Gao currently lives. In its eighty-one short chapters, the novel alternates between an inner and outer journey. What begins as a search for the elusive mountain soon turns into an odyssey in the true sense of the word; a series of wanderings; a long adventurous journey where each episode creates a rhythmic unit...