From Three Chinese Books
1. The Master said, To learn and at due times to repeat what one has learnt, is that not after all a pleasure? That friends should come to one from afar, is this not after…
Tag: Arthur Waley
Four Analects, Five Translations
1.1 The Master said, “To learn, and at due times to practice what one has learned, is that not also a pleasure? To have friends come from afar, is that not also a joy? To…
Not So Random Entries, Commonplace Moleskine/10
111. Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction. –Simone Weil 222. When [Arthur Waley] was at work, all else was eliminated. –Ivan Morris 333. Whenever I…
Transmitting Beauty
Donald Keene, Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan Columbia University Press, 2008 The first sentence of George Steiner’s first book (on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky) reads: “Literary criticism should arise out…
2015 Chinese Poets in Translation Reading Group
Chris Wallach and I are starting a reading group in 2015 with the aim of reading one of the translations each month of such poets as Wang Wei, Han-Shan, Li Ch’ing-chao, Tu Fu, Su Tung-p’o, Bo Juyi,…
Appreciating Arthur Waley
for my multilingual friends and lovers of literature Notes on Ivan Morris, ed., Madly Singing in the Mountains: An Appreciation and Anthology of Arthur Waley Related Books Ezra Pound, The ABC of Reading; Anne-Marie Schimmel,…
Happy Every Day
I take both grace and insult With cheerful equanimity — Du Fu Dear Wendy, Congrats on your decision to move to China and, as Kerouac advised, be in love with your Shanghai life. I marvel…