The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature

'The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature,' Edited by Victor Mair, is a very large book of over 1300 pages which offers the reader "a broad selection of expertly translated texts from the widest possible variety of sources." The selection, which seems on the whole to have been very well done, has been arranged in five main divisions: Foundations and Interpretations; Verse; Prose; Fiction; and Oral and Performing Arts. Besides the familiar, readers will find here much interesting material they may not have seen before - for example: extracts from Shang Divination Records, Bronze Inscriptions, wonderful Buddhist stories, and so on. As for the translations, Mair tells us that almost all of them were done by "professional sinologists teaching in American universities." These lightly annotated academic translations range in quality from the excellent work of scholars of the caliber of Burton Watson and Leon Hurvitz, through to the rather pedestrian efforts of the less inspired, in fairly equal balance. The selections are preceded by an interesting and informative 10-page Preface by the Editor, and a double-page Map of the Provinces of China. The book is rounded out with a table of the Principal Chinese Dynasties and Periods, and a Wade-Giles to Pinyin conversion table. Since this information is readily available elsewhere, neither of these tables are really necessary, though Mair is to be commended on his decision to employ a modified Wade-Giles system of transcription throughout the anthology, in preference to the "extremely repulsive" (Needham) Pinyin so beloved by most modern sinologists.Since Mair felt that they would be "useless and out of place," no Chinese characters (sinographs) have been given for any of the Chinese names, book titles, etc. A far more serious omission is the complete absence from this book of an Index. We are given neither an Index of Names, nor an Index of Titles - not even a General Index in which they could been bundled together. We have not even been given a List of Contributors (there are over one hundred) except on the back of the dust-jacket where we learn that among the non-academic translators are luminaries such as Pound, Snyder, and Rexroth. This makes the book extremely difficult to use. Locating specific items involves repeated and tiresome searches through the 14-page 258-item Table of Contents. For example, Mair tells us in his Preface that because of its great popularity he has included some selections from Lin Yutang's translation of 'Six Chapters of a Floating Life.' But it will take you some time to find out where they are. And if, as I am, you happen to be interested in a specific translator such as Lin Yutang, since the translators' names are not shown in the Table of Contents, you will have to leaf through all 1300 pages to find their contributions. It will also take you a lot of searching to determine, for example, whether or not Lu Chi's 'Wen fu' (Essay on Literatu

The Columbia Anthology provides a fascinating glimpse into the work of traditional Chinese masters and novices alike for those of us who are armchair Sinophiles. The book is broken into genres which satisfies the academic and offers enough raw material to be somewhat overwhelming, hence the difficulty that arises in most anthologies. However, it is impressive in both scope and simple, poignant beauty with revealing insights into the Chinese world of court gentry and peasants toiling in the fields. Somewhat akin to the Norton Series of Western literature, the Columbia Anthology is not a venture to be transversed lightly. But in toil comes the sweeter stuff of dreams and traditional Chinese literature is the world of heavy eyelids drifting into mystical worlds both human and otherwordly. This book is highly recommended but not if you have an appointment to keep shortly after straining your arm dragging this beheamoth from the front porch. Tread lightly into this wonderful world but, dear reader, please tred.