F00FC7C8 reads books occasionally reviewed Tao Te Ching by Laozi
Great book, below-average translation.
3 stars
Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching is by far the most approachable version I’ve read, but it comes at the cost of a highly, often deliberately Westernized text, far removed from the context of the original. Several chapters reference modern technology and science in lieu of Laozi’s metaphors, which are sometimes based on ancient Chinese ways of living - and sometimes this works, but sometimes it significantly weakens the text, as in chapter 49, where “horses hauling manure” is replaced with “factories making tractors and trucks” - which in my view is pointless and conflicts with the Daodejing’s naturalistic theme. Mitchell also “improvises” entirely new stanzas where he finds the source text to be unusually “narrow-minded”, which again makes the text more practical in some ways, but takes it further from anything that could reasonably be interpreted from the original Chinese.
(If you'd like a better translation of the …
Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching is by far the most approachable version I’ve read, but it comes at the cost of a highly, often deliberately Westernized text, far removed from the context of the original. Several chapters reference modern technology and science in lieu of Laozi’s metaphors, which are sometimes based on ancient Chinese ways of living - and sometimes this works, but sometimes it significantly weakens the text, as in chapter 49, where “horses hauling manure” is replaced with “factories making tractors and trucks” - which in my view is pointless and conflicts with the Daodejing’s naturalistic theme. Mitchell also “improvises” entirely new stanzas where he finds the source text to be unusually “narrow-minded”, which again makes the text more practical in some ways, but takes it further from anything that could reasonably be interpreted from the original Chinese.
(If you'd like a better translation of the Tao Te Ching, I suggest Red Pine's 2009 revised translation, which comes with several commentaries, or John C. H. Wu's pocket edition.)
