Nobel Laureate Gao Makes an Unconvincing ‘Case’

“The Case for Literature,” a collection of essays and lectures inspired by the 2000 Nobel Lecture of Gao Xingjian—the only Chinese author ever to win the Nobel Prize for Literature—is in many ways the author’s literary manifesto.

Gao, an intellectual who wrote his most well known novel, “Soul Mountain,” while in exile after the Chinese Cultural Revolution, is a self-described non-Communist, non-democratic, non-traditionalist non-modernist author. Rejecting the ideological dogmatism that defined the nation of his birth, Gao argues for the individuality of the writing process and for a view of literature as a spiritual endeavor rather than a political one.

It’s an original—even admirable—thesis, but unfortunately, the book lacks potency and persuasive appeal.

In contrast to the stringent maxims of Mao’s “Little Red Book,” much of Gao’s rhetoric is lofty and abstract. Despite the clarity of his prose, his argument, detached from all concrete reasoning, reads like a parade of non sequiturs.

In the first of the essays, “Preface to ‘Without Isms,’” Gao attempts to argue for writing “without isms,” by which he ostensibly means writing that is free from or unconstrained by ideology. But his own explanation of the concept is wholly unclear. As Gao describes it, the premise of “without isms” is “‘being without’; it is not premised on a void, because then there would be no premise, of course no conclusion, and not even any isms.” Huh?

The remainder of the essay details what “without isms” is not, but gets even more confusing. It is not empiricism but it is related to experience, it is not relativism but it is relative, it is not individualism but it affirms the individual. In the end, the essay never specifies what exactly it is to be “without isms.”

Literature is about the author, Gao insists—many, many times—and writing is something one does for one’s self, not for anyone else or for any idea.

Of all the essays in the book, “The Case for Literature,” the lecture which inspired the compilation, is by far the most polished, most authentic, and most comprehensive statement of this idea. Gao contends that a writer’s utmost concern is “the portrayal of truth in human life.”

However, in his view, the author’s work should be centered around neither a concern for verisimilitude nor a concern for creativity that may be “divorced from authentic feelings.” Purely imagined fantasies “can only end up insipid and weak,” he argues, but at the same time “literature is not simply a replica of reality.”

Interesting though it may be, Gao’s argument is poorly constructed. Rarely does Gao entertain possible counterarguments, and this hurts his “case.”

He is unequivocal in denouncing literature that has a political, social, or ideological purpose, but this view seems inconsistent with his advocacy of literature as a writer’s journey. If literature is truly an individual project, how can we label some literary purposes inappropriate? If an individual feels that her life has a particular political or ideological purpose, how can we exclude her writer’s journey from the realm of “literature”?

Moreover, given that all individuals are raised in a particular socio-political and ideological climate and have unique relationships with that background, literature will always be influenced by these factors and therefore is necessarily ideological.

Even Gao’s “rejection of ideology” seems to be a political philosophy formed in reaction to the Chinese Communist Party and subsequent democratic movements.

Gao’s thesis would be more powerful if presented as a personal conclusion drawn from his experiences, rather than as an argument for literature’s innate purpose. As Gao himself notes, “A writer does not speak as the spokesperson of the people or as the embodiment of righteousness. His voice is inevitably weak, but it is this weak voice that is the most authentic.”

These concerns aside, the essays contained in “The Case for Literature” do offer a couple of worthwhile insights. The most compelling is “Literature and Metaphysics,” an essay whose primary focus is not “the case for literature” but rather the interaction between language and literature.

Gao admits to being heavily influenced by Western literary giants Nietzsche, Beckett, and Barthes, but he rejects all three as “primary influences” because their use of language was “pure.” None of these authors pushed the grammatical and syntactic boundaries of the languages in which they wrote. Authors, in Gao’s view, should not be limited by the conventions of their language, but rather should “develop the potential of the language.”

For his own part, Gao’s writing, in particular “Soul Mountain,” has attempted to experiment with the musicality of the Chinese language as well as the use of pronouns. As Gao aptly notes, the auditory elements of language are often undervalued in literature, and oral communication preceded written communication in cultural history.

This sort of authentic voice, combined with Gao’s sincere purpose, can make these essays compelling. But they are not conclusive in their argument for literature as an individual, ideologically-free journey.

In a world where writing about writing is increasingly commonplace, “The Case for Literature” is little more than one more case to be considered.