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I Ching: The Book of Change: A New Translation Kindle Edition
by David Hinton (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
A master translator's beautiful and accessible rendering of the seminal Chinese text
In a radically new translation and interpretation of the I Ching, David Hinton strips this ancient Chinese masterwork of the usual apparatus and discovers a deeply poetic and philosophical text. Teasing out an elegant vision of the cosmos as ever-changing yet harmonious, Hinton reveals the seed from which Chinese philosophy, poetry, and painting grew. Although it was and is widely used for divination, the I Ching is also a book of poetic philosophy, deeply valued by artists and intellectuals, and Hinton's translation restores it to its original lyrical form.
Previous translations have rendered the I Ching as a divination text full of arcane language and extensive commentary. Though informative, these versions rarely hint at the work's philosophical heart, let alone its literary beauty. Here, Hinton translates only the original strata of the text, revealing a fully formed work of literature in its own right. The result is full of wild imagery, fables, aphorisms, and stories. Acclaimed for the eloquence of his many translations of ancient Chinese poetry and philosophy, Hinton has reinvented the I Ching as an exciting contemporary text at once primal and postmodern.
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Review
A master translator's beautiful and accessible rendering of the seminal Chinese text. --This text refers to the paperback edition.
Book Description
A master translator's beautiful and accessible rendering of the seminal Chinese text. --This text refers to the paperback edition.
From the Publisher
David Hinton's many translations of classical Chinese poetry have earned wide acclaim for creating compelling contemporary poems that convey the actual texture and density of the originals. He is also the first translator in more than a century of the four seminal masterworks of Chinese philosophy:<b> <i>Tao Te Ching</i></b>, <i><b>Chuang</b> <b>Tzu</b></i>, <i><b>Analects</b></i>, and<i> <b>Mencius</b></i>. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and has won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award, the PEN Translation Prize, and, most recently, the Thornton Wilder Prize for lifetime achievement from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. --This text refers to the paperback edition.
Review
"[The I Ching is] the only thing that is amazingly true, period . . . You don't have to believe anything to read it, because besides being a great book to believe in, it's also very fantastic poetry." ---Bob Dylan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
David Hinton's many translations of classical Chinese poetry have earned wide acclaim for creating compelling contemporary poems that convey the actual texture and density of the originals. He has won several awards, including the Thornton Wilder Prize for lifetime achievement from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
A veteran voice artist, Tom Zingarelli has produced and narrated many audiobooks in the last several years. He has also recorded books for the Connecticut State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. His voice was featured on the popular PBS children's television program Between the Lions. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Product details
ASIN : B00V38KBKW
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux (13 October 2015)
Language : English
File size : 1995 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 161 page
Amazon-Kunde
5.0 out of 5 stars I have many versions...
Reviewed in Germany on 22 December 2017
Verified Purchase
... and as a German reader also the ones by Richard Wilhelm - the man that with his translation turned this ancient chinese jewel into a mass phenomenon in the 30ies of the last century - and other German authors together with several English interpreters of this work are in my library. This one beats it all.
It's minimalistic poetic language allows the user (for user you should be) to develop a wealth of understanding contemplating the I Ching's counsel. He's found a number of translations for well-known chinese concepts - like wu-wei and even Dao - that may all of a sudden make new sense a cause deeper insight than any of the other translations have done in the last 40 years of my use of it.
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The Four Chinese Classics: Tao Te Ching, Analects, Chuang Tzu, Mencius
by David Hinton
4.16 · Rating details · 74 ratings · 9 reviews
The books collected in this volume represent the first time since the mid-nineteenth century that the four seminal masterworks of ancient Chinese thought have been translated as a unified series by a single translator. Hinton's award-winning experience translating a wide range of ancient Chinese poets makes these books sing in English as never before. But these new version
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Average rating4.16 · Rating details · 74 ratings · 9 reviews
Hesper
Jun 23, 2020Hesper rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: religion
This book is AMAZING and an absolute must read for anyone interested in Chinese history, religion, and philosophy. I honestly have no idea how to review such a beauty of a book, so I'm just going to put one of my favorite, headache inducing, quotes:
"Name or self: which is precious?
Self or wealth: which is treasure?
Gain or lose: which is affliction?
Indulge love and the cost is dear,
Keep treasures and the loss is lavish.
Knowing contentment you avoid tarnish,
and knowing when to stop you avoid danger.
Try it and your life will last and last." (less)
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Michael
Apr 02, 2017Michael rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
This is my first experience of classical Chinese thought, and it has made me hungry for more. The four texts in this anthology share several key themes, but are so varied in their ideas and style that it is hard to imagine a richer book of thought and wisdom.
The first text is the Tao Te Ching, traditionally attributed to Lao Tzu. Hinton's rendering of this famous work of spirituality is light and assured. In his translation, it is a perplexing and delightful work of meditative poetry, full of enigmas to tease you out of thought. This was probably my favourite of the four texts. Each 'chapter' is in the form of a short poem, usually of no more than ten lines. It is extremely concise, and each poem is a finely-wrought gem. I found Lao Tzu's fundamental proposition compelling, that the world is at bottom a 'way' or process, which can only be known negatively and which spontaneously gives rise to the 'ten thousand things' of the visible world. In his introduction, Hinton rightly draws comparisons between Lao Tzu's thought and contemporary ecology. He might also have mentioned quantum theory, with its notion of uncertainty, and its vision of the vacuum as a seething void of spontaneously emerging and disappearing particles.
Way is vast, a flood
so utterly vast it's flowing everywhere.
The ten thousand things depend on it:
giving them life and never leaving them
it performs wonders but remains nameless.
For me, Lao Tzu's greatest insight is that the Way is 'nameless'. The fundamental principle of reality can never be reduced to a concept, but only contemplated as a mystery. No sect, no dogma, no caste has the right or the ability to define it.
The second text is Chuang Tzu, a collection of stories and anecdotes about Taoist sages in the tradition of Lao Tzu. Disappointingly, this edition only includes one fifth of the work. Hinton's argument that only the first fifth of the work really matters rings a bit hollow. He argues that it is probably the most authentic part of the text, but so little is known about Chuang Tzu that it seems absurd to evaluate different parts of the text based on his supposed authorship. On the other hand, the anthology is already 560 pages long, so excerpting this text was probably a good idea. There are some delightful stories here, with swearing and scatological jokes and unexpected twists and turns. Its comic atmosphere is a nice counterpoint to Tao Te Ching's more sombre and religious tone. I found some of the stories a little hard to read because of the characters' strange literal names: Deer-Grace, Master Noble-Tree, Horizon-Imperial, Dame Crookback. Of course, these names were often amusing, and it is not always a bad thing to be made to read something again to make sure you've grasped it. Hinton has a graceful prose style, and the little stories at their best filled me with delight:
Long ago, a certain Chuang Tzu dreamt he was a butterfly – a butterfly fluttering here and there on a whim, happy and carefree, knowing nothing of Chuang Tzu. Then all of a sudden he woke to find that he was, beyond all doubt, Chuang Tzu. Who knows if it was Chuang Tzu dreaming a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming Chuang Tzu? Chuang Tzu and butterfly: clearly there's a difference. This is called the transformation of things.
The third text is Confucius' Analects. I must admit, I was actually a little disappointed by this text. It is essentially a book of proverbs. Some are wise, some are witty, most are thought-provoking—but they lack the profundity of Lao Tzu's little poems, and lack the detail of Chuang Tzu's little philosophical stories. The main value of reading Analects, for me, was that it prepared me for the final text, which was ...
Mencius, the second great classic of Confucian thought. This was my equal-favourite text in the anthology, along with Tao Te Ching. In a series of stories and anecdotes, Mencius systematises Confucius's thought, and applies it to a range of questions, especially political questions. He is the Plato to Confucius's Socrates, taking up Confucius's ideal of the sage, his concepts of Ritual, Duty and Humanity, and the Taoist notion of Way, and combining them all into a sound and moderate social philosophy. In terms of Western political philosophy, Mencius is a kind of communitarian, who believes that a shared sense of Humanity is the most important institution in society. He argues that we can achieve Humanity by following Duty and by observing Ritual. The most attractive aspect of his philosophy for me is his faith in human nature.
"We are, by constitution, capable of being good," replied Mencius. "That's what I mean by good. If someone's evil, it can't be blamed on inborn capacities. We all have a heart of compassion and a heart of conscience, a heart of reverence and a heart of right and wrong. In a heart of compassion is Humanity, and in a heart of conscience is Duty. In a heart of reverence is Ritual, and in a heart of right and wrong is wisdom. Humanity, Duty, Ritual, wisdom – these are not external things we meld into us. They're part of us from the beginning, though we may not realize it. ..."
Humanity, Duty and Way are inside us already, for our nature is good. Accordingly, to cultivate yourself, you only need to look within:
To fathom the mind is to fathom nature. And when you understand your nature, you understand Heaven. Foster your mind, nurture your nature – then you are serving Heaven.
Except that he argues that social convention—"Ritual"—is essential to self-realisation, Mencius could almost be Rousseau in passages like this.
The anthology is in beautiful covers, and Hinton's introductions to the four works are concise, astute, and passionate. I really found it a pleasure. There was occasionally some evidence that this was a reprint of four works originally published separately—there was a good deal of repeated material in the four introductions, and in the appendices. And Menius had quite a few typographical errors which seemed to be the result of repagination. But these errors were slight, and did not detract overmuch from the impact this book of fine philosophy can have on the mind. (less)
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Jon Drucker
Jun 13, 2018Jon Drucker rated it liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: ebooks
Great books, but I’m not fond of his translation of the Taoist classics.
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Landis
Jan 12, 2018Landis rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Best quote from the book:
"Instead of using a finger to demonstrate how a finger is no-finger, use no-finger to demonstrate how a finger is no-finger. Instead of using a horse to demonstrate how a horse is no-horse, use no-horse to show how a horse is no-horse. All heaven and earth is one finger, and the ten thousand things are all one horse.”
--from Chuang Zi (365 to 290 B.C.), one of the three classics of Taoism
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René
Sep 14, 2020René rated it did not like it · review of another edition
Shelves: philosophy
Began this book hoping to understand a bit more about Chinese philosophy. But short texts by Ancients with nothing more than reference to past Ancients and the importance of Rituals (to ensure nothing ever changes) does nothing to increase desire to learn more about it, sadly.
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Mark Saltveit
Feb 17, 2020Mark Saltveit rated it it was amazing
Shelves: daoism-taoism
Hinton translates four of the classic Chinese philosophical classics. His Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) is particularly inspired, as he translates the satirical names (Duke ParadeElegance, Master TimidMagpie) that the typical literal rendition of the names obscures.
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Eric Jun Xuan Ashitaka Zhang
Jun 16, 2021Eric Jun Xuan Ashitaka Zhang rated it really liked it
Enlightening
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Jeffrey Rubard
Oct 20, 2018Jeffrey Rubard rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
The cook put down his knife and replied: "Way is what I care about, and Way goes beyond mere skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, I could see nothing but the ox. After three years, I could see more than the ox. And now, I meet the ox in spirit. I've stopped looking with my eyes. When perception and understanding cease, the spirit moves freely. Trusting the principles of heaven, I send the blade slicing through huge crevices, lead it through huge hollows. Keeping my skill constant and essential, I just let the blade through, never touching ligament or tendon, let alone bone.
Chuang Tzu, from The Four Chinese Classics
A while back people used to talk a great deal about "Eurocentricity", but sometimes we do less about our issues with society than we can: it is actually not possible to be resident on planet Earth and not be dimly aware that China is one of the first-class civilizations of all time, but 'Western' philosophers still often think up excuses not to read its great thinkers. David Hinton, a translator of Chinese poetry, has provided the English "reading public" a compendium of four of the greatest names in ancient Chinese thought in The Four Chinese Classics: Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Confucius and Mencius are presented in one fell swoop.
This foursome contains a division, breaking down into the "mathematical" Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu and the "dynamical" Confucius and Mencius. Taoism, as articulated in the brief but unforgettable 81 sections of the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu's Inner Chapters, is a spiritual philosophy quite unlike anything else in the ancient world; particularly in the hands of Chuang Tzu, one of the great characters of literature of any age, its good-humored if wild insouciance about the problems of living is quite 'tonic' compared to the oppressive renunciation that characterizes the 'great' religions.
That being said, even 'Caucasians' oriented to Asian thought often do not properly appreciate that Confucius' Analects and Mencius' elaboration of Confucius' thought are actually still greater classics of Chinese culture; the intellectual-bureaucratic culture of the "Mandarins" that characterized Chinese society until the 20th century was shot through and through with the ideas of Confucianism, the philosophy of ethical governance contained within those works formed its 'warp and weft'. (If I may propose a characterization of the relationship between these two works, the Analects provides advice about advising and Mencius covers questions about 'consent', the relationship of actors within the polity to events in the government).
It would be beyond my competence to pronounce upon the quality of Hinton's translations from "Sinitic" or ancient Chinese, but the four complete works provided in this book make good English and Hinton's historical introductions and glossaries are helpful; questions of the relation of these authors to 'Western' philosophy are not covered, but I do see a bit of a hint of Heidegger's Ereignis in Hinton's speculative explanation of the Taoist concept tzu-jan as "occurrence appearing of itself". I strongly recommend this book. (less)
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