Wise, messy, and incomplete
3 stars
I enjoy Alan Watts' expositions of Eastern philosophy and mysticism, and his final novel, Tao: The Watercourse Way, is no exception. However, it's a posthumously released book, which was not finished in Watts' life. The introduction promises two chapters on the importance of Taoism to the modern world, which would probably have improved my opinion of the book a lot, but alas, Watts died before he could write them. (As an aside - between the posthumous nature of the book, the introduction and notes by a second author, and the strange formatting that included Chinese calligraphy in face, I was getting House of Leaves flashbacks from this whole thing.)
All that aside, this book does a decent job of introducing Taoist ideas to a Western audience, and has flashes of intellectual brilliance that make the read eminently worth it, but it should not be relied on to understand the …
I enjoy Alan Watts' expositions of Eastern philosophy and mysticism, and his final novel, Tao: The Watercourse Way, is no exception. However, it's a posthumously released book, which was not finished in Watts' life. The introduction promises two chapters on the importance of Taoism to the modern world, which would probably have improved my opinion of the book a lot, but alas, Watts died before he could write them. (As an aside - between the posthumous nature of the book, the introduction and notes by a second author, and the strange formatting that included Chinese calligraphy in face, I was getting House of Leaves flashbacks from this whole thing.)
All that aside, this book does a decent job of introducing Taoist ideas to a Western audience, and has flashes of intellectual brilliance that make the read eminently worth it, but it should not be relied on to understand the history and practice of Taoism in China.