Philosophy horror? A haunting combination. Soul Mountain's dark ambiguity chews you up and spits you out. There's no linear direction or plot in the book, which means that there's no telling what kind of adventure or emotional struggle you or the author will end up in next (yes, the author writes about himself and you- you are a part of the book!). In that respect it's a very subjective, artistic book. I think of each of the chapters as paintings, or separate works in a gallery with an underlying theme- that is a theme suggesting an inability to achieve Taoist and Buddhist principles. In Taoism this is an inability to achieve permanent unity between the self and the opposing self, and my interpretation is that the chapters with "you" and "she" are metaphors for this yin-yang dynamic. In Buddhism I think he's illustrating the illusion of self that posits separation of all selves in the world by making "I" and "you" the same person, so he can write about any experience he's had and make you a part of it.
For me the most memorable of these chapters were:
10: lost on the mountain
23: ultra-visual horrifying Taoist wet dream (best of the book, I think)
28: above the village after the bus
68: bizarre mysticism involving the mountain, a storm, and severed toads
72: unique introspection on the nature of literature
80: another bizarre mystical experience on the mountain- psychedelic, musical, snowy
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