2006-01-17 Wistful long prose poems

Gao Xinjian?s book is a wistful collection of writing. It is not so much a collection of short stories as a series of long prose poems. Each essay has no narrative structure, with beginning, middle and end. Instead the author describes scenes from ordinary lives, mundane but perhaps important moments for the characters involved. There are a honeymooning couple visiting a deserted temple, a day in the park, a swimmer with cramp, among other vignettes. In each case, the characters are glimpsed interacting with little apparent rhyme or reason as to why the story has chosen to access them at that particular moment of their day over any others. Their dialogue is often mundane and banal. The reader is consequently not being invited into a story, but rather simply to act as a voyeur into unremarkable moments in other people?s lives.
Although Gao is a beautiful writer, I have to admit that I just couldn?t get stuck in to this collection. The style doesn?t lend itself to involved reading, and my attention wandered easily. Though I often enjoy stories with no real narrative, they usually have some obvious theme or purpose. I struggled to see one in much Gao?s book. Nevertheless, he is obviously a skilled writer, and I would like to read more of his work, but, beyond the wistfulness of the style, I couldn?t find anything here to hold my attention. They were good as stand-alone prose poems, but it wasn?t the Nobel prize-winning stuff I had hoped for.