Customer Reviews

The Life And Times Of Po Chu-I 772-846 A.D.

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It is depressing that this book is not currently in print: Arthur Waley practically invented China for the West (okay, okay...he had some help from Marco Polo a few centuries earlier). A hundred years ago he was busily producing incredibly thoughtful, scholarly, and yet somehow popular books on various poets that resonated enormously with the Edwardian and early 20th Century literary set. It's as if all this never happened.

I first read this book as a teenager, and it helped direct me to 8 years of study of Chinese Language and Literature in various universities and colleges. I gained a profound insight into China from Waley's various books, and that vision and appreciation has lingered decades later (my Chinese quite dormant now, alas! When I open up this book, however, it all comes rushing back!).

Po Chu-i is not considered one of the principal poets of China. He ranks fairly far down in the Chinese canon. But thanks to Waley, he lives and breathes again over a thousand years later.

If you have even a smattering of interest in Orientalia, and especially if you have an appreciation for the finer things in life (like serious literature--i.e., if you can read Jane Austen or sit through Hamlet without yawning), this book should captivate you. If you need to have chase scenes in the movies you go see, forget about it!