Customer Reviews

I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change -- The First Complete Translation with Concordance

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Karcher's interpretation is an interesting modern alternative to Wilhelm/Baynes neo-confused and Christian version. Unfortunately, Karcher adds more refuse and he has failed to access some contemporary translations. Compared to Lynn or Shaughnessy, Karcher rarely bothers to explain when he is using an unknown Chinese source and when he is making things up as he goes along. This slippery and highly creative way of translating gets even worse in his personal interpretation of Te Chuan. He is very good-willed, yet Karcher still has not learned the difference between the yin and yang-sides of his cash (Chinese coins)...

Many people feel that this book is difficult to wade through, there is much after the initial image that reads as though it is in another language, and frankly it is. This version of the I Ching is presented for those with a history of use of the text and a desire to go deeper into the hexagrams. I personally feel that this book represents the I Ching in a more accurate light than most other texts, it feels to me as a student of the ancient Chinese to be an exploration of how metaphor was a constant in the life of those who wrote and have used the system for millenia.
Though the text is scholarly in presentation, one can use it with little understanding or need to go into the limitless depths of mathematics or mystical underpinnings. One can simply throw the coins (though to be sure, the yarrow stalks are the preferred method with an entirely different mathematical system) and read the first image to establish a relationship with oracle.
The downside of the book is that it is time consuming to move into the language as Karcher attempts to write in English as one would write in pictographs, with words as metaphor. Though it can be trying, still there is much to be gleaned by this manner of exploration and i recommend this translation for the serious minded, but it is the system (Ba Gua) that students of the I Ching are studying, the words are but translations of the images whether in ancient Chinese or in modern English.