Far river, far mountains

Author: Zhang Wei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: In this novel, Zhang Wei, with his magical and dreamlike prose, sketches a picture of people facing the fantastical and revered act of writing, as well as the almost animalistic harm, brutality, and meekness of the world beyond the paper. These humble or tragic little characters strive to live with dignity in that era. As happy readers, how could we not feel fortunate that we are more qualified to live in madness for a lifetime while reading this novel? It is an enlightening novel for bookworms and the best model for writing maniacs. The era depicted in the book, the people who keep writing and rely on writing to survive. They record the beauty of their personal experiences or the beauty of their tearful dreams; they often read their stories to each other in low, gentle voices, and those words form joyful streams that leap in the cold and lonely north. The novel blends Kafka's absurd and desolate fairy-tale style with the painful essence of Faulkner's characters, who are always struggling against certain dignity of life. Some say Zhang Wei is a writer obsessed with suffering. As the author delves into this novel, what one feels is not the embellishment of the story but a profound cry from the very essence of life. The novel tells the story of a person who depends on a "pen"—the reverent and worshipful posture of a writer facing words, and the mad, song and cry. In a not-very-wealthy era, a child is madly obsessed with writing, and his madness is not stopped by the tragic fate of his childhood friends, the early death of his beloved mother, or his reluctant decision to leave home and wander in a foreign land. The lack of material resources does not hinder his writing. All the stories unfold smoothly under the premise of searching for paper, themes, and characters. This is the novel with the most readers by writer Zhang Wei and also his most proud work. In 1996, it was published for the first time in Taiwan, causing a huge response in both Taiwan and mainland China. After eight years of accumulation and maturation, the author picked up his pen again, adding more than 40,000 words of "Epilogue," and presented the original book in the form of a "complete continuation" to readers for the first time.