This collection of drinking songs comes exclusively from the time period of the Yuan Dynasty, a time when China was ruled by Mongol Emperors. The songs, which read like poems, capture the unease of the times and answer the question of what should we do in times of strife? Kuan Yun-Shih says "I loosen my robe, leave things alone, drink the bowl dry." If you love Taoism and are looking to see it a different way, this is the book for you. Peaceful reading.

Like other reviewers, I have read some translations of the Tao Te
Ching (Daodejing) and looked at many others. Like Mrs. Le Guin points
out in her note at the end of the book, I also believe that the one by
Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English is the most satisfactory in a literary
sense. However, sometimes it lacks the simplicity and immediacy which
this rendition gives to Lao Tzu's "very easy to understand"
words. Also, Mrs. Le Guin stayed with me throughout the book, and what
she had to say amounted to a fantastic commentary to the wisdom of the
Tao. Take for example Chapter 11 in page 14. At the bottom is a note
that says: "One of the things I love about Lao Tzu is he is so
funny. He's explaining a profound and difficult truth here, ....[and]
goes about it with this deadpan simplicity, talking about pots."
This kind of comment conveys, in my opinion, exactly the essence of
Taoism as predicated by Lao Tzu. There's nothing complicated, nothing
intrincate about Taoist wisdom. And Mrs. LeGuin sticks to this
(taoist) simplicity throughout the book. Being a translator myself, I
dare say that some of Lao Tzu's translators became obsessed with
"extracting" deep meaning from the Tao Te Ching, trying to
retain the tone, now looking for complicated words to convey
"exact" meaning, now glossing over a passage, losing the
reader along the way. As Mrs. LeGuin points out in the introduction to
this book "Scholarly translations of the Tao Te Ching as a manual
for rulers use a vocabulary that emphasizes the uniqueness of the
Taoist "sage", his masculinity, his authority." The
result is dry, unsatisfactory, nihilistic, detached. This rendition
is, like Ursula Le Guin says of the original, "...the purest
water....the deepest spring". I daresay that if Lao Tzu could
read all the modern English versions of his work, he would enjoy
Ursula LeGuin's the most, laughing heartily at every page. There is no
way that someone who reads this version will not want to re-read it,
or fail to come out of the reading with a new perspective on life, one
that recognizes the simplicity, unity, and changeable nature of
everything. Thank you, Ursula Le Guin, for rendering Taoism for the
modern Western rader. This book is my bedside companion, I have given
it to everyone I love, and recommend it to anyone who has ever
wondered about Taoism, and to all other translators, not for its exact
use of English equivalents for Chinese words, but for the perfect way
in which the idea behind the words has been committed to
paper. "...I was lucky to discover [Lao Tzu] so young, so that I
could live with his book my whole life long" says Ursula LeGuin
in her introduction. I think I was very lucky to read her version,
which has helped me see the beauty, the magic, the simplicity, the
Tao.

I've bought several versions of the Tao Te Ching over the years, my favorite being that by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. Le Guin's "rendition" startled me with its everyday language and showed the Tao in a new light.

Translations of this work vary considerably, so I was particularly impressed with Le Guin's inclusion of material explaining what led her to this undertaking and why she cast Lao Tzu's ideas the way she did. This honesty and the bare, simple beauty of her language seem to me very much an expression of the Tao.

In a world where everything seems so strident and competetive, this simple account of what one person found in this very old and much-loved book is more valuable to me than shelves full of scholarly, definitive, acclaimed, or approved translations.

This book not only talks about the Tao, it exemplifies the Tao.

I've read a handful of Tao Te Ching translations and examined many more, but this one is by far my favorite. It's not because of its accuracy to the original text. Le Guin says up front that that wasn't her intention. Still, I find it a more faithful translation than most of the classics, which Le Guin discusses in the book's appendix. The reason is because Le Guin has captured the spirit of Tao. Her spare, gorgeous language goes to the heart. I came upon her version at a giant bookstore with dozens of Tao Te Chings. I wanted one, but I didn't know which. So I picked up a bunch that looked interesting and read the first three "chapters" of each. Le Guin's won hands down. It moved me in just that short of a time. Also, perhaps it's relevant, that I'm an anarchist (an issue that Le Guin coincidentally touches on in the book) as well as an atheist. This book connected with the sense of inner peace I get from these two beliefs.