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One Man's Bible
One Man's Bible: A Novel | Gao Xingjian
2 posts | 2 read | 1 to read
One Man's Bible is a fictionalized account of Gao Xingjian's life under the Chinese Communist regime. Daily life is riddled with paranoia and fear, and government propaganda turns citizens against one another. It is a place where a single sentence spoken ten years earlier can make one an enemy of the state. But One Man's Bible is also a profound meditation on the essence of writing, on exile, on the effects of political oppression on the human spirit, and on how the human spirit can triumph.
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review
ValerieAndBooks
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Bailedbailed

Author(also an artist, that‘s his work on cover) won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2000, but I just couldn‘t get into this book. I did try but gave up halfway.
Reasons:
•constant shift between first and second person narratives
•constant shifts in present and past tense
•constant reference to women‘s bodies and their boobs, etc
•possibly all this 👆was how it was translated

Bailed, but I feel I read enough to count it as #LetterX #LitsyAtoZ

MrBook Great review, as always from you! 😁👌🏻 7y
Liz_M It could be the author. I tried reading Soul Mountain after he won the Nobel prize and found it impenetrable. 7y
ValerieAndBooks @MrBook aww thanks! Wish this had been a better book for me though 🤷‍♀️ 7y
ValerieAndBooks @Liz_M glad it‘s not just me. The blurb on the back of this said he‘s an “innovative “ writer...too much so, perhaps. I did really like his artwork though (viewed via google). 7y
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blurb
ValerieAndBooks
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Starting this for Letter X #LitsyAtoZ and not much caring for the constantly shifting personal pronouns to indicate past and present tenses — ie “you” if it‘s taking place right now, then “he” when it‘s the past. Also not sure I like this guy (based on author himself) that much.

DivineDiana Sounds confusing. 🤔 7y
ValerieAndBooks @DivineDiana Oh, it is 🙇‍♀️ 7y
Ms_T Not ideal 😕 7y
ValerieAndBooks @Ms_T Definitely not ideal 😒. I keep thinking about bailing but trying to stick with it because it‘s so hard to find a #LetterX for #LitsyAtoZ. 7y
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