A book can also be a muddle. "You have slapped together travel notes, moralistic ramblings, feelings, notes, jottings, untheoretical discussions, unfable-like fables, copied out some folk songs, added some legend-like nonsense of your own, and are calling it fiction!" These are a few words quoted from Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian, a 560-page thick clutter which, for convenience is called a "novel". Gao certainly speaks rather mockingly of his own a