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Tao Te Ching translated by Ursula Le Guin (1997)

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Re: Tao Te Ching translated by Ursula Le Guin (1997)

#21

While we're recommending other works by Le Guin, The Child and the Shadow is near the top of my personal list of Essays That Would Change the World if Only Enough People Would Read Them. It's a deep dive interpretation of a somewhat obscure Hans Christian Andersen story, and her insights about the nature of evil and what it means to grow up shook me and then reshaped my life. This paragraph is as decent a tl;dr as ca…

Christ, I think it might’ve taken me to my late 30s to really do that work - that’s a hell of a succinct summary of the art of growing up.

Re: Tao Te Ching translated by Ursula Le Guin (1997)

#23
I love Ursula Le Guin's writing so damn much. I am reading, "Lathe of Heaven" right now, such a great book to come off of Sula by Toni Morrison.

Maybe if I pull the right strings, I can get reincarnated as one of Luisito's nose hairs, https://luisurrea.com/2018/01/tolfink-was-here-on-ursula-k-l...

> Then she terrorized us by bringing Toni Morrison into the room to meet us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daf1FH7fWFk

Re: Tao Te Ching translated by Ursula Le Guin (1997)

#24

I have a feeling people who love Le Guin love the idea of her and didn't actually read her books. Her style is impersonal, robotic and kind of boring. Look at her most famous quotes for a snippet: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/874602.Ursula_K_Le_G...

I can't imagine anyone loving "the idea" of Le Guin who hasn't read her books. What an idea. It's not like she's famous enough to have acolytes who spout her stuff without having read it. And what's "the idea" of Le Guin? Just that she's a female sci fi writer? I'm missing the implication.

I love her books and have for over 20 years.

And I can't imagine that any author looks good when subjected to the "GoodReads snippets" treatment. Can you find an example of an author coming off well? What snippets get upvoted by people? It's all going to sound like trite stuff, for any author.

Re: Tao Te Ching translated by Ursula Le Guin (1997)

#25
post #17

I'll always remember from when I was a teenager, the visual symmetry of the first two sentences of the Tao Te Ching, echoing the "yin-yang symbol" 道可道, 非常道。 名可名, 非常名。 Here's a translation: The Dao that can be stated, is not the eternal Dao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. So much is lost when translating from Chinese.

Yes, so much is lost.

道可道

This is three words:

道 -- dao, it means literally a road or path; metaphorically, it used to mean a spiritual way of life

可 -- ke, this generally is used today to indicate capability, actuality or acceptability: something is possible or something is actually true

道 -- same as the first one

Now how do we translate this into ten or more English words?

Re: Tao Te Ching translated by Ursula Le Guin (1997)

#26
post #17

I'll always remember from when I was a teenager, the visual symmetry of the first two sentences of the Tao Te Ching, echoing the "yin-yang symbol" 道可道, 非常道。 名可名, 非常名。 Here's a translation: The Dao that can be stated, is not the eternal Dao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. So much is lost when translating from Chinese.

Yes, so much is lost. 道可道 This is three words: 道 -- dao, it means literally a road or path; metaphorically, it used to mean a spiritual way of life 可 -- ke, this generally is used today to indicate capability, actuality or acceptability: something is possible or something is actually true 道 -- same as the first one Now how do we translate this into ten or more English words?

How does that work? Where's the negation?

Re: Tao Te Ching translated by Ursula Le Guin (1997)

#28
post #5

I love Le Guin's writing in general, and her version of the Tao Te Ching, but it's very misleading to call it a "translation". There's even an endnote saying as much: > This is a rendition, not a translation. I do not know any Chinese. I could approach the text at all only because Paul Carus, in his 1898 translation of the Tao Te Ching, printed the Chinese text with each character followed by a transliteration and a…

The foreward (or was it an afterword?) in the edition I have on my shelf has quite a bit on how she produced it, and it is very interesting.

It was a process of very intensively studying and comparing all existing English translations she could find, using the Carus Chinese character-by-character translation as a sort of rosetta stone. While of course using her own literary sensibilities to phrasing too, as an author.

I could easily believe this would result in a product that is a more faithful conversion to English than many translations. It's interesting to think about how this in some ways can combine and synthesize various subjectivities over time in a way that you actually couldn't do if you read the original language and believed your "own" take on the original translation was the "correct" one!

In the forward she also names a scholar of the Tao Te Ching (who was able to read and study in the original language) she had been in communication with for advice, who had complimented and supported her work. (although of course LeGuin takes responsibility for all errors or misconceptions!)

I wonder if any other conversions/renditions/translations have been done of other works through similar method, I guess if any they would be to other ancient texts (the bible?) that have had many translations. [I don't think we really have a good word for what she did, since it's not really a thing done much, so I understand the poster using the word "translation" although OP does not and just says "English version by" -- but we jump to figure that means a "translation", right?]

It doesn't look like the foreward (I think unless it was an afterword, I don't have the book in front of it me!) that discusses this is included in this online (and presumably copyright-violating pirated?) copy? If you can find a copy (pirated or not I don't judge) of the foreward, which isn't very long, where she describes her process, I definitely recommend it! (Or is it here?)

Something about the process seems especially interesting to the HN crowd to me... I want to say it's perhaps about "abstraction"?

If you were to take Le Guin's rendition and compare it with any other English language translations of your choice, it would be in the spirit of her project, and I'm sure she would approve and think it would lead you to greater understanding of the work!

Re: Tao Te Ching translated by Ursula Le Guin (1997)

#29
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, so much is lost. 道可道 This is three words: 道 -- dao, it means literally a road or path; metaphorically, it used to mean a spiritual way of life 可 -- ke, this generally is used today to indicate capability, actuality or acceptability: something is possible or something is actually true 道 -- same as the first one Now how do we translate this into ten or more English words?

How does that work? Where's the negation?

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