Customer Reviews
Compelling but flawed - By: E. Woollard, 03 Sep 2008 
A strange, disturbing book, One Man's Bible flits somewhat uneasily between the China of the Cultural Revolution & the protaganist's sexual encountersin the West, decades later.
Written by a self-confessed 'carnival performer with language', Gao Xingjian's latest work is at once a novel of freedom & repression, whether political or sexual, & a philosophical tome on the art of writing itself.
If the subject matter alone makes for a difficult read, the stylein which it is written compounds the problem. While the author's self-division into the 'he' of his early life (the work is apparently semi-autobiographical) & the 'you' of his later years is relatively simple to grasp, less easy it the disjointed narrative. The first few chapters follow a fairly regular pattern, alternating between the author's life as a young manin China & his encounter with a German woman, who had been raped as a child & who is now able to act as his muse, enabling him to reminisce on his past. However, this Margarethe disappears from the scene relatively early on, & we are left with a stretch of the novel that deals mainly, although apparently not always chronologically, with lifein Mao's China. And then suddenly we find ourselvesin Sydney, where the author is taking a young French woman for a walkin a national park. More strange still is the chapterin which the author has an imagined conversation with the dead Mao.
Perhaps this disjunction is intended as metaphor for the cultural dislocation experienced by a writer exiledin the West struggling to explain an alien past to a Western audience. Somehow, however, the recounting of the author's sexual conquests are never really explainedin the context of the rest of the book, & it is unclear as to exactly what kind of a work Gao Xingjian is trying to write.
One Man's Bible is certainly a compelling read, if only for its strangeness, but whether it is deserving of the Nobel Prize is another matter. Although one reviewer has compared Gao Xingjian to W.G. Sebald, I would suggest that Sebald, with his fluidity of prose & ability to capture the ghosts of the past, would have been a more suitable winner.
Of course it is you!! - By: Michael Gerlinger, 06 Dec 2003 
(Pardon me. This is not much of a review, but I found the ones already posted so revolting that I had to react immediately.)
4 not 5 stars because One Man's Bible lacks the uncanny zen-like qualities of the most wondrous parts of the deservedly noble-prize winning "Soul Mountain".
No this is no easy reading. It would be all too strange if a book about the devastations that a repressive regime (here:in the chinese cultural revolution) does to the human soul would be such a joy to read. Come across any easy reading about the holocaust lately?
If you can't stand the intensity of human feelings & hurt - go back to your Agatha Christie or whatever!
No it's me as well - By: , 17 Oct 2003 
I found this book incredibly hard to read. I think a lot of it must be down to the translation, as it was hard to work out which characters the author was referring toin a lot of it, & what was happening. I don't think you find out the name of the main character till about page 150 which doesn't help. I found the whole book incredibly vague & slow, which is a shame because it is such an interesting subject. This Nobel prize winner was not for me!
Perhaps It Is Me - By: taking a rest, 19 Oct 2002 The Nobel Prize for Literature is given to a writer for the body of work they have produced. I have wonderedin the past if the circumstances under which an author wrote, & or the danger their writing placed themin ever played a rolein their recognition as well. "One Man's Bible", by Gao Xingjian was a very trying book to wade through. I received a copy early & it took me almost 2 months to finally make my way through the work. This became a book I would read between others as opposed to a work I enjoyed enough to read for what it had to offer. The book is written as though it was produced as it came to the writer's mind, not organized, rather just a chronicle of a variety of thoughts & experiences.
There are a few issues which may detract from the possibility of enjoying this work including, my lack of knowledge regarding the various rebellions, revolutions, & counter revolutions that this tale chronicles. I am also unsure how easily the original workin Chinese translatesin to English. Much of the persecution the author describes is familiar to other repressive regimes that were basedin Soviet Russia, or a variety of European Countries. But even though the wretched behavior of whatever groupin power exerts over the weak is appalling, I have a harder time getting involved with the work. It is not a lack of empathy, but a lack of knowledge or perhaps a lack of understanding of Chinese history & culture.
This author has clearly had an impact on the literary world, & he may or may not have been recognized with The Nobel Prize if he livedin a nation that permitted freedom of expression. I don't have that answer, & that is why I do not rate the book as a poor one.
The part I really did enjoy was a chapter when the author wrote about writing & why peoplein general & hein particular write. While this was interesting it was confined to a single chapter, & this was not enough to keep me interested for any great length of time.
