Tao Te Ching: The New Translation (Sacred arts) [Paperback]

Lao Tzu (Author), Man-Ho Kwok (Translator), Martin Palmer (Translator), Jay Ramsay (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1997 | Series: Sacred arts

For more than 2,500 years, the Tao Te Ching has been the major underlying influence in Chinese thought and culture. This outstanding collector's edition is a completely fresh translation, meticulously drawn from the earliest known Chinese manuscript, and rendered into a powerful text by poet John Ramsay. Illustrated in full color with calligraphy and 14th-century Chinese paintings.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English
Original Language: Chinese

Product Details

• Paperback: 189 pages
• Publisher: Penguin USA (P) (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852303220
• ISBN-13: 978-1852303228
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 7.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,524,264 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Translation, December 4, 2000

By 

Tom Basgen (Medford, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tao Te Ching (Element Classics of World Spirituality) (Hardcover)

This is a beautiful translation of the Tao Te Ching. It is not mechanistic, as is so common among English translations of this book, but attempts to flow with the beauty and prose of the original Chinese. I think the only other translation that compares to this is by Stephen Mitchell; side to side Stephen's is more scientifically accurate, but less poetic. What is commonly missed in translating this work is that the free flowing and beautiful prose plays a great deal to accuracy, but contra wise it is true that English attempts to translate this work into prose inevitably at times narrow down what should be open ended. :) If you have an interest in the Tao Te Ching, reading more than one translation helps to firmly grasp what beauty the text is in the original Chinese, and how it can be understood in various ways.

For beginners, this was my first book on Taoism. Although I am a computer scientist who enjoys logic, the Tao Te Ching brought me to the other side (dialectics), and while I keep the Mitchell translation close at hand to resolve problems in this translation, this is the translation that I go back and read time and again, not Mitchell's.

This book offers a 40 page introduction explaining the history of the Tao Te Ching and offers details of the task of translating. About it's prose and construction I can really say no more than it is beautiful, but here are two balanced examples of comparison to help (from Ch. 11 and Ch. 5 respectively):

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This translation: " Thirty spokes on a cartwheel / Go towards the hub that is the centre / -- but look, there is nothing at the centre /and that is precisely why it works!"

S. Mitchell: "We join spokes together in a wheel, / but it is the center hole / that makes the wagon move. [...] We work with being, / but non-being is what we use."

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S. Mitchell: "The Tao doesn't take sides; / it gives birth to both good and evil. / The Master doesn't take sides; / she welcomes both saints and sinners."

This translation: "Heaven and earth / are not like humans. / The Tao does not act like a human. // They don't expect to be thanked / For making life, / So they view it without expectation."

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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Susan Galey needs to learn little more Chinese and Asian art, November 28, 2001

By 

Weiqin Xie (New Jersey, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tao Te Ching: The New Translation (Sacred arts) (Paperback)

... Those pictures are 100% Chinese paintings and the difference between Chinese paintings and Japanese painting are very distinguished. (By the way, I am a Chinese American, and know both Chinese and Japanese cultures, including language and art, quite well.)

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best translation I have seen, November 28, 2001

By 

Weiqin Xie (New Jersey, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tao Te Ching: The New Translation (Sacred arts) (Paperback)

I have read countless translations of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching. This is simply the best.