Laozi
W.W. Norton & Co
29 October 2024
186 pages
eBook - PDF
Classics
ARC via Edelweiss
This bold new translation by two brilliant poets offers a contemporary perspective on a timeless masterpiece of Daoist scripture, introducing Dao De Jing to a new audience while retaining the majesty of the Chinese original. Composed of eighty-one short poems written by the sage Laozi in 400 BC, Dao De Jing is one of the pillars of Chinese thought. Acclaimed poet Li-Young Lee and poet and scholar Yun Wang illuminate Dao De Jing as a unified work of art. This revelatory and faithful translation—presented alongside the original Chinese text—reveals its enduring teachings in their profound simplicity, subtlety, and balance.
My reason for choosing to read this book is perhaps a strange one. Lately I am reading many danmei novels and a large proportion of these are xianxia and wuxia and thus feature daoist characters. I therefore thought reading this work would help me better understand the philosophy underpinning those characters' actions. As I read this excellent new translation, I could certainly see how some of the characters' words and acts reflected the teachings espoused in this book. I particularly liked having the side-by-side Chinese and English texts. I am learning some Chinese (slowly), so it was interesting to see which characters I could understand before moving on to look at the English rendering. This work would certainly be a good read for those interested in Chinese philosophy. I am giving it four stars.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment