Gao Xingjian: Aesthetics and Creation By Gao Xingjian

they will feel unbearably alone. In this age of the present, politics and the media have become more and more noisy, but people are lonelier than in any previous age, and this is also the true situation of the modern human being. The solitary individual who becomes aware of his or her own existence will want to speak out in his or her frail voice despite being situated within the problems of society, and this requires strength. This strength primarily stems from the self-belief of writers, and they must believe in the need for the existence of this kind of literature, otherwise it would be impossible to persevere with this kind of writing.

It is thus predetermined that this must be a kind of cold literature because it is not used to expunge pent-up anger. The writer must dispatch momentary impulses or feelings of frustration before he can focus attention on the world. Commitment to this sort of writing requires a pair of lucid eyes or, one could say, a pair of cold eyes in order to dispassionately observe the living phenomena of the boundless universe.

Such a writer of course does not set out to be a celebrity of the times but will locate himself at the margins of society, and this is a prerequisite for this kind of writing. Only a modern-day recluse keeping some distance from society can maintain clarity in observations of the surrounding world and also gain abundant mental energy for introspection on humankind’s anxieties, worries, and delusions.

Under totalitarian systems such a choice is not allowed and often must be made at the cost of property and life. Under democratic systems such a choice is also difficult, because left or right factional politics leaves little space for choice. Key factors are whether the writer can transcend actual profit or loss, remain unperturbed, and endure the loneliness. When political storms totally engulf society, as during the twentieth century, when two world wars and global communist revolutions brought chaos and civil war, fascist fanaticism unleashed its mighty roar over the dust. At that time the individual was like a grain of sand in a storm, and whether he or she would have the capacity for independent thought was a stringent test.