Tao Te Ching: The Definitive Edition by Lao Tzu
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Book Reviews of Tao Te Ching: The Definitive Edition
Book Review: Consistently great service
Summary: 5 Stars
My experiences with Amazon are always positive and I would recommend the service to anyone.Book Review: almost definitive, yes
Summary: 4 Stars
Indeed this is a very nice edition of a very nice book. It helps the many of us who, bewildered by the differences between translations, try to find the real one. And it helps close the language gap.
But, mind you, I don`t think this is what a serious scholar would call definitive. The multiple meanings of a word are in its context and in the other contexts in which such a word is found. It comes from use and cannot be completely explained by a list of possible english equivalents. This is even more coplex (not simple) in an ideographic text like Chinese. The "do-it-yourself" approach is nice to play with, but for a serious study of the Tao Te Ching, you'll need additional support.
A definitive edition would have each line of each paragraph commented with relevant examples of the vocabulary used in other contexts, references to phylosophical concepts, and comparison between other translations (e.g. see Edward Conze's translation of the Heart Sutra). A true definitive edition, of course, would have to include a complete course in Chinese language, culture, and history.
But for the hurried american consumer, yes, I guess this will do.
Book Review: Hindu commentary on Taoist document
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a great translation, for all the reasons others have stated. However I was extremely disappointed to find that a large percentage of the comments on the text are from Hinduism!
For example the comment on entire comment on verse 69 talks about the Bhagavad Gita and Krisha! It barely mentions the Tao te Ching passage but instead is 10 sentences about Lord Krisha, the Pandava Princes, and dharma. The commentary on the next Tao te Ching verse, 70, consists of nothing more than a quote from "Mysticism in India".
In the first three pages alone, five Hindu texts are quoted at length! For a few moments I wondered if there was a printer's screwup which caused pages of a commentary about Indian religion to be added to the Tao te Ching book.
Besides being confusing, this heavy use of terms from other religions gives concern that the author has a theory that Taoism is just the Chinese version of Hinduism, and tilted his book that way.
Book Review: Disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
At a superficial level, this book looks amazing; introductory notes, translation, verbatim translation, notes on the translations, a long commentary on the first verse, and a collection of early translations of the first verse.
After reading the introductory notes, I was looking forward to what promised to be a very beautiful and insightful translation. Unfortunately, I found this translation to be contradictory at times (as opposed to paradoxical; there is a difference!) and, quite frankly, dull. Most of the notes on the translation and commentary on Verse One seemed to push an alternative view to Tao as being the consciousness behind all human beings which is consistent with Hindu religion, NOT a Taoist philosophy. Indeed, the vast majority of the "notes" in this book are quotes taken from Hindu texts such as Bhagavad Gita, and rather than noting, for example, interesting parallels between the two, Star seems to suggest that Tao Te Ching supports the other texts, which is similar to how Blakney seemed to use his translation to support the Christian faith. Personally, I don't think this is appropriate.
As for the positives, this book is definitely value for money. It is nicely printed, and contains a large verbatim translation of each character in Tao Te Ching. While it would be foolish to think you could interpret your own meanings based on this system (as the blurb claims), it still is quite interesting to get an insight into how the various translations of Tao Te Ching may have developed. Unfortunately (for me anyway, although a lot of people seem to really dig this translation) the bad points outweigh the positives, and, to be honest, if this was the first translation of Tao Te Ching I had read, I would have been turned off.
Book Review: Star's translation...
Summary: 2 Stars
...is really bad.
I'm sorry, but it's obvious that he doesn't really understand Chinese. I think what he's done is taken each character, looked at all of their possible meanings, and chosen a translation that best represents his own perception of what daoism should be like. But it's obvious that he doesn't understand the language as a whole integral unit and the way the language and characters interplay and form into longer units of meaning and passages. Even very simple things that I can understand fairly clearly in the Chinese are, I think, transformed into something that isn't what the original text was saying.
Perfect example from Verse 2 (Amazon won't show the original Chinese on the review, so look at the original Chinese if you want to compare):
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"Life and death are born together." (Star)
Inescapably this line really means: "Thus, having and not-having are born together"
The next few lines are weirder. ''''''''Go to Red Pine's excellent translation for this one. It's practically spot on. Compare it to Star's. The whole thing as Star translates it is not much like the Chinese, and translating the last two lines in this little bit with "one" is particularly troublesome and inaccurate.
I could go on, but on practically every line he has glaring misunderstandings of the original language itself. Just because the language of the Tao Te Ching is difficult and because Chinese itself is much different than English doesn't mean that the text is open for infinite interpretation. Maybe Star should go back to Rumi or Sanskrit.