One Mans Bible by Gao Xingjian
Engrossing
In the same circling, ruminative vein as his Nobel Prize-winning debut
novel Soul Mountain, Chinese expatriate Gao Xingjians fictionalized
memoir of his youth, One Mans Bible, is an attempt to capture the
Kafkaesque anxieties of the Cultural Revolution. As a budding writer, and
the son of a white-collar worker, the unnamed narrator soon realizes that,
no matter what useful friends he makes at school, he is vulnerable to
investigation by the restless, politically unstable Red Guard: Enemies had
to be found; without enemies, how could the political authorities sustain
their dictatorship? Punishment for real or imagined mistakes of thought
and behavior would have been death, imprisonment, or banishment to a
labor farm. The only answer, he came to believe, was to blend in with the
masses and to construct a mask of bland agreement with whoever
appeared to be in charge at the time. The bulk of Xingjians absorbing
narrative takes place in this bleak world of exposure, hysteria, and
reprisals, and from an appropriately distant third-person point of view. But
the act of recollection is spurred by a four-day-long affair with a near-

stranger in the mid-1990s. The narrator, long exiled from China, has been
brought to Hong Kong to help stage one of his plays. Here he runs into a
German-Jewish woman, Margarethe, whom he knew slightly from his final
years in China. For Margarethe, survival hinges on memory. It is she
who persuades the narrator to let his painful, rigorously suppressed
memories begin to thaw, and if not to drop his mask, at least to remember
that he is wearing one. --Regina Marler
Personal Review: One Mans Bible by Gao Xingjian
Gao Xingjian's second novel, "One Man's Bible" contains partially
autobiographical life story of a Chinese writer, who tries to find his own
place, peace of mind and right to writing and publishing in the Communist
China.
The writer, living in permanent exile from China, goes to Hong Kong to
attend a premiere of one of his theater plays. There, he meets Margarethe,
one of the women who had an impact on his life. Margarethe, a German
Jew, who stayed in Germant despite many doubts and reservations, is
enquiring about the writer's past and this triggers and avalanche of
memories. In fact, it is not a novel compositional trick, but because of
Gao's dream-like style, similar to "The Soul Mountain", it seems still fresh
and original here.
The chapters, which describe the Chinese past of the main character
during the Cultural Revolution are separated by the ones closer to the
present. The difference is stressed by the changes in narration between
second and third person.
Among enemies and friends, career wolves and people desperately trying
to preserve their individuality and self-respect, the young writer tries to
figure out his own place, which requires a lot of time and effort, many
schemes and being always a step ahead of the others. To write and
publish in the capital, one must escape the Party purges, must have a job,
a right to lodging in a tiny room in the communal apartment, an impeccable
past and a perspective of a career within the Party.
Initially, the protagonist manages quite well. He becomes a leader of
young rebels in yet another uprising, labeling the former previous party
officials as "The Snake Spirits" (name given to all enemies of the system).
He is also a lover of one of the Party leader's wife. Thanks to her warning
(apparently the proofs of his disloyalty have been found (in the form of the
information that in the remote past, just after the war with Japan, his father
was in the illegal possession of weapons), the writer finally realizes that he
will never be able to find for himself a safe place in the communist
structures, allowing him creative freedom. Only then he decides to escape,
initially hiding n the far away, mountain village, under the pretenses of
rehabilitation through physical labor. After a long period of creative
hibernation and waiting, he manages to leave China and stay abroad
permanently, getting the status of the political refugee.

This seemingly realistic plot is spiked with the descriptions of events from
emigrant times, the weird dreams pestering the protagonist and the
masterful portraits of people who he met in China (the whole gallery of
human types, from small cheaters, through people using their professional
positions to the good and bad purpose, to intellectuals broken by the
system) and outside (especially interesting are the female characters -
already mentioned Margarethe and Sylvie, a person whose personal
experience separates her like a chasm from the protagonist; it is
interesting to notice, how her character is the opposite to the writer's).
Various motivations and life attitudes are shown very clearly and
convincingly, so that the reader can rest assured, that in each regime
everyone has their own free will and our life choices depend on our will
only.
The parallels to Gao's life come to mind automatically during reading. The
protagonist is not from the working class (his father, like Gao's, works in a
bank), he is educated, writes and then destroys his writings, afraid that
they can be discovered and used against him (Gao had burned all his
manuscripts before leaving China), during his years in exile he cannot visit
China... It is hard not to wonder whether "One Man's Bible" is a kind of the
catharsis, as the writer is shown as a person who to reach his goal - to
write and publish - does not hesitate to become an opportunist. Although
he is trying to live in agreement with his conscience, he makes mistakes,
which he later regrets and which affect other people's lives. If Gao writes
here about himself, he definitely does not try to excuse his actions or to
show himself in the best light...
The autobiographical style makes "One Man's Bible" less contemplative
and looking more like a "traditional" novel than "The Soul Mountain", but
here again comes back the motif of integration with the rural people and
respect for the antique Chinese traditions - for example, the scene of
conversation with the old doctor and description of his handbook are
beautiful).
This novel is worth recommendation, especially, because the access to the
Chinese writers who describe the country's reality well and at the same
time their books present the high level of artistic achievement, is limited,
and Gao's works are banned in China (apparently, they are available on
the black market, but not published officially), therefore it is very likely that
they contain accurate observations (like the Polish, Soviet or other
emigrant writers, to which I can relate).
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