F00FC7C8 reads books occasionally reviewed Tao Te Ching by Laozi
A wise and thoughtful modern rendition of Laozi, but also a heavily Westernized one.
4 stars
Not a translation - rather, this is Le Guin’s personal rendition of the book, based on a verbatim translation by Paul Carus, commentaries on various other translations, and some help from J. P. Seaton, a professor of the Chinese language. As one might expect from a translation by an English novelist, Le Guin does a good job of keeping the text’s poetic form and even makes it more accessible in some ways. Unlike Stephen Mitchell, Le Guin never confabulates large parts of the text to make it more poetical, but sometimes she does stretch the interpretation beyond that which might be reasonable. She also deletes several passages that she considers to conflict with the meaning of the text. Her commentary is just as fun to read as the translation itself. I appreciate that where most translators gender the sage or Master as “he”, or switching between “she” and “he” as …
Not a translation - rather, this is Le Guin’s personal rendition of the book, based on a verbatim translation by Paul Carus, commentaries on various other translations, and some help from J. P. Seaton, a professor of the Chinese language. As one might expect from a translation by an English novelist, Le Guin does a good job of keeping the text’s poetic form and even makes it more accessible in some ways. Unlike Stephen Mitchell, Le Guin never confabulates large parts of the text to make it more poetical, but sometimes she does stretch the interpretation beyond that which might be reasonable. She also deletes several passages that she considers to conflict with the meaning of the text. Her commentary is just as fun to read as the translation itself. I appreciate that where most translators gender the sage or Master as “he”, or switching between “she” and “he” as Mitchell did, Le Guin eschews gendered pronouns entirely. Those seeking a literal reading, or looking for mystical truth, may be disappointed, but this remains one of the easiest versions of the Tao Te Ching to recommend.