"You" has long lived in the city, but yearns for a rural existence from the past[2] He shuns the idea of settling for "a peaceful and stable existence" where one wants to "find a not-too-demanding sort of a job, stay in a mediocre position, become a husband and a father, set up a comfortable home, put money in the bank and add to it every month so there'll be something for old age and a little left over for the next generation".

At this time Gao heard rumors of plans to have him sent to the hellish prison farms of Qinghai province, and thus quickly made the decision to flee Beijing.

The protagonist ostensively searches for Lingshan (Soul Mountain), but in fact the novel describes "one man's quest for inner peace and freedom" [6] The journey, both in the author's life and in the narrative, include visits to the districts of Qiang, Miao and Yi, located on the fringes of Han Chinese civilization; excursions into several nature reserves; and stops at Buddhist and Daoist institutions.

[8] The combination of traditional conformity and the "self-sacrificing" ideology of the Chinese Communist Revolution effectively silenced artists and writers who depended on their creativity of self-expression.

Thus, under these circumstances, Gao Xingjian left his native country to finish Soul Mountain in 1989 in Paris, and Mabel Lee describes the novel as "a literary response to the devastation of the self".

[9] In a review published in 2000, after Gao's Nobel win, The New York Times said "His 81 chapters are an often bewildering and considerably uneven congeries of forms: vignettes, travel writing, ethnographic jottings, daydreams, nightmares, recollections, conversations, lists of dynasties and archeological artifacts, erotic encounters, legends, current history, folklore, political, social and ecological commentary, philosophical epigrams, vivid poetical evocation and much else."

The Times continues: "A novel in theory, 'Soul Mountain' is more nearly a collection of the musings, memories and poetic, sometimes mystical fantasies of a gifted, angry writer.

[11] The Yale Review of Books wrote: "Blazing a new trail for the Chinese novel, Gao Xinjian's Soul Mountain combines autobiography, the supernatural, and social commentary".