Customer Reviews

Dao De Jing: The Book of the Way

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Contains extensive introductory information, including discussion of recent archeoligical discoveries, and interesting endnotes (although I prefer footnotes - less fumbling with pages).

However, I found this translation to be a bit difficult. One of the reviewers on the back of the book refers to it as "poetic" - well, maybe; mostly I found it a bit of a struggle to make sense of it, and had to read through it with several parallel translations to figure out what Roberts was translating. However, in that situation, read with several parallel translations, this translation provides an worthwhile "spin". I find Mair's translation much cleaner, simpler, and more comprehensible. The two together are nice.

I own about 10 different versions of the Tao Te Ching. Recently, I was in a bookstore, and browsed through several versions I had not read.

I put the others back, and purchased this one. Based on the Mawangdui and Guodi texts recovered from tombs in the mid 1970's, the graves were believed to date back to 170 BC, and the texts possibly to 300 BC. If so, this Moss Roberts version is from the oldest recorded texts available.

As you might appreciate portions of text were missing or in different order, and so he has reconciled them with the received text.

I find this particular version to be excellent, the author, a lecturer in Chinese, took a great deal of care in his research. His original use of language, being different from popular translations, conjures up different potential meanings and interpretations. He includes a valuable commentary which gives a context of the time and the text, which facilitates further understanding.

Here is a selection from Verse 1, so you can compare:

1 The Way as "way" bespeaks no common lasting Way.
2 The name as "name" no common lasting name.
3 Absent is the name for sky and land's first life,
4 Present for the mother of all ten thousand things.

He also clearly has a high level of intellectual understanding of being and negation, which i find useful.

In any event, if I was going to a desert island and allowed 3 versions of the Tao, I would definitely choose this one, not necessarily because it's the best, but because I have already read and gotten the inspiration from other versions, and I would be more likely to get fresh inpsiration from this one.

I love this version, and I think you will too.

I hope this review was helpful to you.

This is by no means a bad translation.

But the translator clearly sacrifices clarity of meaning for preservation of poetry and rhythm.

For that reason, I would recommend this book only if it isn't your first copy of a translation of the Dao De Jing.

In spite of the author's intent, the translation is not very poetic: it is actually quite clunky, and convoluted. But the commentary is to die for. On my desert island I would take this translation for the commentary and use something like Lau's cleaner translation as my main source, and Jonathan Star's compendium edition for real work.

This book has affected my way of thinking and living more than any other book I have ever read. While I feel a few things in this book are outdated and can not be realistically applied to todays world the majority of what is written has made me a more accepting person and by changing my expectations I have found that I lead a more fullfilled life.

The Dao is perhaps on of the best philosophical books that I have ever read and it is something that everyone should read at least once.