The Book Count 2024

[Drunk Monk]

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Ah, research. I've read it before. I thought I would read it again to gain a little insight into Taoism. The most helpful parts of this version were the afterwords and appendix. They did a deep dive into why they translated words a certain way and what those words meant. It was all fascinating but confusing.

I'm going to track down the Ursula K. LeGuin version to see if that makes it better.

Which translation did you read? I recommend Cleary. English (as in the ironically named translator Jane English) is the classic.

Also it’s Dao De Jing in pinyin, which is the standard romanization now.

LeGuin’s is terrible. Rumor is she just took several English translations and made up her own ideas about what she thought it was about. Not recommended.