Gao Xingjian - One Man

Lies are everywhere in the world, and you are similarly creating lies in literature. Animals do not tell lies but exist in the world no matter how it is, whereas humans need to use lies to adorn this forest of humanity, and it is this that distinguishes animals from humans. More cunning than animals, humans need to use lies to conceal their own ugliness in order to seek a reason for living: to articulate pain in order to alleviate pain seems to make pain bearable. In ancient times, the dirges at funerals in the villages had the effect of drugging the senses, and, like the singing of Mass in churches, the singing of these could be addictive.

Pasolini adapted for cinema Sade's exposes of the evil of political power and human nature; by using only the screen to separate the audience from reality, he made people feel that they were viewing the violence and evil from the outside. That there can be a tantalizing quality in violence and evil is probably the wonder of art and literature.

Sincerity is the same for the poet and the novelist. The writer hides like a photographer behind the camera, affecting impartiality and detachment behind an objective camera, but what is projected on the negative is still self-love and self-pity, masturbation and sadism. That eye with its pretense of neutrality is driven by all sorts of desires, and what is manifested is tinged with aesthetic taste while claiming to look with indifference upon the world. It is best that you acknowledge that your writing strives for reality but that it is separated from reality by a layer of language. It is by cloaking naked reality with a gauze curtain, ordering language and weaving into it feelings and aesthetics that you are able to derive pleasure from looking back at it, and are interested in continuing to write.

You articulate in language your feelings, experiences, dreams, memories, fantasies, thoughts, assessments, premonitions, sensations, as well as providing the music and rhythms for linking these to the existences of real people. In the process of linguistic actualization, the present and past history, time and space, concepts and knowledge, all become fused and leave behind magical illusions created by language.

The magic of literature lies in willingness on the part of the author and the reader. Unlike political frauds that even the unwilling are forced to accept, literature may either be read or not, there is no coercion. You do not choose literature because of a belief in its purity; for you, it is simply a means of release.

Also, you are not polemical. You do not extend or amputate according to the other person's height, do not tailor yourself to the framework of theories, do not restrict what you say to what interests others. Your writing is only to bring pleasure and happiness to your life.

And you are not a superman. Since Nietzsche, there has been a glut of both supermen and common herds in the world. You are, in fact, very ordinary, the epitome of ordinariness and practicality. You are relaxed and at ease, have a smile like Buddha's, although you are not Buddha.

You absolutely refuse to be a sacrifice, refuse to be a plaything or a sacrificial object for others, refuse to seek compassion from others, refuse to repent, refuse to go mad and trample everyone else to death. You look upon the world with a mind that is the epitome of ordinariness, and in exactly the same way you look at yourself. Nothing inspires fear, amazement, disappointment, or wild expectation, hence, you avoid frustration. If you want to enjoy being upset, you get upset, then revert to this supremely ordinary, smiling, and contented you.

You do not detest the world and its ordinary ways that will always be fashionable. By not exaggerating your challenge to those in power, you have survived to enjoy freedom of speech. You have also received kindness from others and, as far as you are concerned, the principle "I don't want others to owe me anything and I don't want to owe others anything" is wrong. You are indebted to others, and others are indebted to you, but adding together all the kindness you have received from others, you have certainly received much more than you have given. Indeed, you are very lucky, so why are you complaining?

You are not a dragon, not an insect, not this, not that, so, "are not" is thus you, but rather than negation, "are not" is a sort of reality, a trace, a cost, or a result. At the end point, that is, at the brink of death, you are merely an indication of life-expression and speech that confronts "are not."

You have written this book for yourself, this book of fleeing, your One Man's Bible, you are your own God and follower, you do not sacrifice yourself for others, so you do not expect others to sacrifice themselves for you, and this is the epitome of fairness. Everyone wants happiness, so why should it all belong to you? However, what should be acknowledged is that there is actually very little happiness in the world.

He saw no future in the total chaos of the times, so it was best for him to get out of danger. He wanted to retrieve that lost world, the startling beauty he had seen in the person of the landlord's daughter, the beautiful contour of her face and her slim figure. As the girl stood sideways outside his door, her pink fleshy earlobe was outlined in detail by the sunlight in the courtyard and her hair, eyebrows, and lips seemed to radiate light. Her beauty had entranced him, but the hatred in the girl's eyes was daunting. He wanted to dispel the girl's misunderstanding of him, so he went to the neighboring courtyard. He had imagined it to be a quiet courtyard complex with just the one family, which would be an isolated little paradise cut off from the chaotic world. The old man from next door had not come to collect rent for the street committee, so he went to pay his rent in the neighboring courtyard as an excuse to see the girl.

The small door on the street opened when he touched it, and the little courtyard inside the wall gave him a shock: it was a shambles, a clutter of odds and ends piled by the wall and under the eaves. An old woman was washing bedcovers in an aluminum basin at the top of the steps right in front of the main door, and there was a small child inside the house crying and making a racket. He thought he had come through the wrong door and was about to retreat when the old woman looked up and asked, "Who are you looking for?"

"I've come to pay the rent…"

"What?"

"I live in the courtyard next door, and I'm looking for the landlord. No one has collected the rent for months." He had come prepared with an explanation.

The old woman shook the soapsuds off her hands and pointed to the apartment at the side with a lock hanging on the door, took no more notice of him, and went back to washing the bedding in the basin.

He could only guess that something had happened to the landlord's family. It seemed that the whole place had been confiscated as public property and that the family had been relegated to occupying a side apartment. The hatred in the girl's eyes would now be even harder to erase, but he lacked the courage to return to the courtyard to look for her again.

In the early spring, in March, he went to Xiehejian in the Western Hills on the outer fringe of Beijing. He got on a train at Xizhimen, a station mainly for freight trains. It was a slow train to the outer suburbs in the mountain area of the northwest, and two hard-seat carriages had been coupled at the rear. The high tide of endless streams of students had passed, and the empty carriages were left with just a few passengers at the front and back. He sat down by the window of an unoccupied compartment. The train went through a series of tunnels and then began to wend its way through valleys. Out the window, he could see the old steam engine at the front puffing smoke and steam as it pulled a string of freight cars and this empty hard-seat carriage swaying at the back.