The Other Shore Read Free

are all and everything in life through which man gets to know his own consciousness, even though words may be mangled, rendered nonsensical, or even useless. As he says, the unknowable behind the words contains the real human nature, and the absurdity of language is the same as the absurdity of living. [0-8]
    To Gao Xingjian, literature has no obligations—the moral and ethical controversies arising from literary writings are only figments of imagination trumped up by meddlesome critics and cultural officials. “Literature has no relation to politics. It is purely a personal undertaking, an observation, a look back at past experiences, a speculation, a cluster of sentiments, a certain expression of inner emotions, and a feeling of the satisfaction of contemplation.” Therefore he advocates a “cold literature” (冷的文學 lengde wenxue ), i.e., literature at its most fundamental, to distinguish it from didactic, political, social and even expressive writing. [0-9] However, a writer should not totally disassociate himself from society. While refraining from active intervention in social and political issues, he should “exile” himself but at the same time take a position on the margin of society, thus facilitating his undisturbed observations on life and the self. As such, “cold literature” is not art for art’s sake, which he despises as being tantamount to “cowardice,” [0-10] and which is only meaningful in so far as it is practised in a society which prohibits it. “Cold literature” survives by means of exile, and it strives to escape from the strangulation of society to conserve itself. [0-11]
    Needless to say, Gao Xingjian is ambivalent on the question of the relationship between a writer and his society, betraying a love-hate attitude to man’s involvement in society and detachment from it. Society is invariably made up of antipathetic masses, easily manipulated and prone to persecute the individual among them. But then what is a writer to write about apart from the society of which he is a member? This is Gao Xingjian’s dilemma, one that he tries to solve by placing himself on the outside, a stranger to his own community, and by retreating into the innermost depths of the individual, his consciousness. Therein lies his Chinese heritage, not so much in the superficial display of traditional Chinese theatrical conventions which occasionally crops up in his plays, but in his reluctance to totally cut himself off from humanitarianism in an effort to save the human soul, if not collectively, as individual beings. He is characteristic of the modern Chinese intellectual who rebels against his own Chineseness and yet rejects a Western individualism which pays no heed to society. According to his way of thinking, the latter is injurious to human nature—the negation of the very essence of life itself.
    Gao Xingjian does not purposely seek to construct a barrier between himself and his world. He is, so to speak, not much of a joiner; he only desires to seek his own personal peace and freedom. In one of his latest declarations, he proclaims the idea of “None-ism” (沒有主義 Meiyou zhuyi ) [0-12] , i.e., a refusal to believe in any of the “isms.” “No matter whether it is in politics or literature, I do not believe in or belong to any party or school, and this includes nationalism and patriotism.” [0-13] His “None-ism” advocates an unlimited and unbridled independence, so that the individual can empty his mind of all the shackles of convention to make the choices best suited to himself, to be sceptical of all blind acquiescence to authority, trendiness and ideological detainment, in other words, it is to be a liberation of the spirit. As a writer, Gao Xingjian steadfastly refuses to be categorized as belonging to any school, Chinese or Western. While he was still in China, he struggled to break free from realism and the Stanislavskian method which had dominated the Chinese theatre for