https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5733429344

This isn’t a book I can leave much review for. It isn’t a book that is read once and then put to the side. For one, I’m not competent to review a book of poetry. And, these are thoughts on morals and power. Much of the translation appears simple, but sometimes the metaphors are hard for me to understand, but sometimes they are so simple that it gives me pause.

Each time I read poetry, I realize I don’t know how to read poetry. Especially poetry that doesn’t rhyme. Oh well.

I enjoyed and appreciated Le Guin’s notes throughout and at the end. My plan is to keep this on my desk and crack it open at random to think on one every once and a while. ( )

Ursula K. Le Guin is credited as the translator here, but she says a better word for what she did is "rendering." Her work and her notes on the process help reveal this venerable classic for western readers. ( )

I had been intending to read a different translation/interpretation of this, when I came upon Le Guin's version which is clean, exquisite and spare. I am wondering whether one will always favour the first version one reads. As well as studying this version more fully, next year I will read the version I originally planned to read, with its academic disquisition. ( )

LeGuin's translation is great. I don't know to what degree she adheres to the intention of the original text, but I found her translation profoundly inspiring and satisfying to read.

In her forward to "The Left Hand of Darkness" (1976) LeGuin writes: "The artist deals in what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words."

From that I infer that this [interpretation of the] text is the canonical Taoist foundation on which her speculative fiction rests, and perhaps that is one aspect which elevates hers above the pulp. ( )

a beautiful, much more poetic, and somewhat less comprehensible rendition of the Tao ( )

Went down a rabbit hole with reading differing translations of 78, Ursula renders it:
Nothing in the world
is as soft, as weak, as water;
nothing else can wear away
the hard, the strong,
and remain unaltered.
Soft overcomes hard,
weak overcomes strong.
Everybody knows it, nobody uses the knowledge.

Maybe ...nobody uses the time... Of course, water hurries too. ( )

I've given this four stars, which I think may be a little bit generous because some of Le Guin's language is quirkier than I'd like. In particular, there are a number of instances in which she translates "Tao" as "The Way" – but then, in other instances, she refers to "Tao" or more commonly "The Tao." My own personal preference would be that "Tao" remain untranslated; but if it's going to be translated, then be consistent. Furthermore, I do not at all like the use of "The Tao"; the inclusion of the definite object tends to objectify "Tao" in a way that seem really counter to Taoism.

I'm still giving this four stars, but for one reason only. I happen to have the first-edition hardcover, which includes two CDs of a complete reading (roughly an hour-and-a-half) by Le Guin herself. Le Guin's "translation" (or adaptation, or whatever) is still in print in paperback and I've seen it on-shelf at B&N, but the paperback doesn't include the CDs. This is definitely worth getting for the sake of Le Guin's reading, and it's on that basis that I'm giving the book four stars; but you'll have difficulty finding the original hardcover at an affordable price, and even if you do there's a risk that the CDs might not be included in a used book or that they might be defective.

Unless you're able to get hold of the hardcover with the CDs of Le Guin's readings, you might be better off with another edition like the Jane English translation. ( )

I read this as part of my research for a paper I'm will be presenting on Le Guin's [b:The Left Hand of Darkness|18423|The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle, #4)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388229638s/18423.jpg|817527] in January at Mythmoot III. I was surprised to find how short the book is, and was able to read it in one sitting — though, having done so, I suspect it is not the intended method of consumption. It seems better suited to small, daily chunks for rumination or meditation. It's unlikely that I will read it in that manner, but I suspect I will revisit it a couple times in the next month or so.

Overall, I quite enjoyed it. I read more for feeling than sense, and Le Guin's brief, sporadic commentaries seem to uphold such a reading. Much of it is the sort of short, enigmatic, oscillating verse that one might expect, but I was surprised to find how much of it is fairly comprehensible. Indeed, there's plenty of strangeness and a tendency toward epigrammatic enigma, but on the whole there's a simplicity to the sensibleness of many of the verses. It's hard to say how much of that is inherent in the text itself, and how much of it is Le Guin's rendering. She warns, in her notes at the end, that she did not translate it, but created her own version based on a dozen or so prior translations that she has studied over many years, working on it bit by bit, sometimes with decade-long hiatuses.

Anyway, if I have one criticism, it's in a single comment she makes on chapter 53, "Insight," the last stanza of which reads:

People wearing ornaments and fancy clothes, carrying weapons,
drinking a lot and eating a lot,
having a lot of things, a lot of money:
shameless thieves.
Surely their way
isn't the way.

Le Guin's comment: "So much for capitalism."

*sigh*

The obvious reply here is that when Lau Tzu (or whomever) wrote this, capitalism wasn't "a thing," so to call out capitalism in response to these statements is disingenuous at best. More to the point, the text seems to indicate that these things are not "the way" regardless of the political and economic situation one finds themselves. (In the prior stanza, there is a reference to splendiferous palaces, which seems distinctly anti-capitalist to me.) The idea that ornamentalism, ostentatiousness, warmongering, gluttony, greed and theft are solely the products of capitalism is simply absurd.

In fact, there are other moments in Le Guin's commentary that seem to favor capitalist — in particular, anarcho-capitalist — ideals. The author "sees sacrifice of the self or others as a corruption of power," she writes in her comment on chapter 13, "Shameless." "This is a radically subversive attitude. No wonder anarchists and Taoists make good friends." This idea is cognate with modern libertarian attitudes against so-called "crony capitalism," which is an oxymoron insofar as it isn't truly capitalism but more like fascism (in the original sense of the word). In chapter 57, "Being simple," are found the lines:

The more restrictions and prohibitions in the world,
the poorer people get
...
So a wise leader might say:
I practice inaction, and the people look after themselves.
I love to be quiet, and the people themselves find justice.

Le Guin's comment, in part, is, "No pessimist would say that people are able to look after themselves, be just, and prosper on their own. No anarchist can be a pessimist." Again, this fits well with libertarian/capitalist viewpoints. It was, after all, [a:Adam Smith|14424|Adam Smith|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1244624882p2/14424.jpg], the patron saint of capitalism, who wrote, "We may often fulfill all the roles of justice by sitting still and doing nothing."

Perhaps I've ranted too long. Overall I quite enjoyed the work. And bonus: I even found some stuff to use for my paper on Left Hand....


Edit: I feel compelled to add that I realize Le Guin's definition of anarchism is likely not anarcho-capitalism but rather anarcho-syndicalism. I mean, I have read [b:The Dispossessed|13651|The Dispossessed (Hainish Cycle, #5)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1353467455s/13651.jpg|2684122]. Still, my objections stand. ( )

This review is for Ursula K. le Guin's rendition of the Tao Te Ching. It's not exactly a translation (she didn't know Chinese) – she compared a bunch of translations and consulted experts, but also wrote poetry and what seemed right to her. A translation with more poetic license than usual. Some chapters have end notes with her interpretation – surprisingly (to me) I did not care for those at all. The book closes with notes on her choices of phrasing and with some specific comments for individual chapters, plus a short commentary on the translations she relied on, which I enjoyed to read.

I liked this book a lot. I have no basis for comparison, it was the first time I read any version of Tao Te Ching. But it was very clear, very poetic, and it reflected what I had gathered from secondary sources. A good read, very calming, and I'm pretty sure I'll return to it in the future. ( )

This is probably the third version of the Tao Te Ching I've owned, some more poetic, some more literal.
It presents a view on the spiritual that at gut level speaks to me more than other views.
It is as difficult and seemingly self-contradictory as any religious book, but more approachable.
Like most spiritual works, it uses aphorism and intuition instead of argument or reason.
It is usually terse, but still rambles in places, shorter than most religious books.
Tao Te Ching is more poetry than prose. Every translation is different.
It includes abstractions, analogies, advice to rulers, references to nature and work.
Its political advice is more problematical than other parts of the text.

I like Le Guin's version. She treats the book as poetry, says when she is uncertain about what a part of it means, references other versions, and uses simple, un-gendered language. ( )

I've read 3 translations and this one is by far my favorite. ( )

Lovely and unexpected. Slippery with playful twists and turns to upturn conventional logic. Thinking about how figuring out my own politics and how to exist in the death spectacle of capitalism has led me to many similar conclusions, especially where it concerns ambition, greed, envy, "being competitive", "being the best", "climbing the corporate ladder", "surviving the rat race", and other similar "common sense" notions that make me want to die.

Read it alongside A Wizard of Earthsea and it made me appreciate that book better despite having a bit of a rocky start with it. ( )

One Berkeley professor I worked for encouraged students to memorize poems so they could reflect on them while waiting in line. This was not just a throw-away piece of "do as I say, not as I do" advice--he would frequently come to class with a story about how he contemplated a stanza by Yeats (or whoever we were studying that week) while walking to his car (or something) and had a profound philosophical insight.

The poems of the Tao Te Ching are perfect examples of the kind of verse you need to mentally chew on over time, to revisit again and again (although I feel rereading can be as useful as memorizing the short lines). The messages are still strikingly relevant after hundreds of years.

It's comforting to know that people from many different ages have struggled with distractions and have struggled to be mindful (to live in the moment). Often, modern technology is blamed for the inability to quiet the mind. The people in Lao Tzu's time did not have social media, but there were enough distractions that he wrote about the need to free oneself from fame and material goods.

Overvaluing objects and money--what we now call late capitalism in that it rules our social, economic, and political spheres--is also not new. This too is comforting because we can look to what did and didn't work in the past to deal with the present incarnation of greed. The Way is there and here, then and now.

One of the finest, truest spiritual texts, and one of the best renderings of this classic Chinese work into English. Living through letting go. Both direct and poetic, with additional notes from Le Guin. ( )

It's taken me a while. Definitely one to reread and reread, and applicable to aikido.

Thanks to the bibliography, I've a couple of other versions/translations to look through.

A beautiful interpretation of the Tao Te Ching. She is always able to lend a gentle feeling of hope to her work. Less mystery and more nature in this version. ( )

In the introduction, Le Guin explains that the Tao Te Ching has been an influential book throughout her life, and that over the years she has made efforts at producing her own rendition of the classic. (She won’t call it a translation, since she doesn’t actually speak Chinese, but she has done extensive research— she provides copious notes on how she chose particular renderings in the back of the book— and produced this in collaboration with a scholar of the language.) Her goal has been to distill the clarity of the classic for a modern reader who is more likely one citizen among millions rather than a leader seeking sagacious insights for rulership. The result is quite good, with a penetrating brevity I haven’t seen in the other translations I’ve read. I actually wound up reading it with another translation to hand when I wanted to get another perspective on the occasional verse, but I think the simplicity of her rendering is a good place to start before going out looking for more nuance. ( )

A timeless treasure trove of ancient wisdom. Le Guin's version is fluid, digestible, and enjoyable - adding a pleasant accessibility while still remaining faithful to the text. ( )

The annotation makes this a true gem. ( )

Librarything apparently won't allow me to review each edition separately. Oh well. I keep the Waley edition for his notes and his bare, literal, somewhat political translation. The Feng-English has a good balance between poetics and literalism and generally comes in a nice edition with Jane English's photographs. The Le Guin edition has the most beautiful English poetry I've seen in a translation and she has an interesting take on the text. Her notes are also funny, humble, and helpful.

It's good to own multiple English translations, as the thing is basically untranslatable in any perfect fashion.

As for the Tao Te Ching itself... I've read many philosophical and religious texts, and this is the one that speaks to me the most. Simple, humble, strikingly conservative yet almost revolutionary in this day and age. I go back to it as often as I can. ( )