Book Description
tr Weinberger, w/Bishop, Blackburn, Levertov et al ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Collected Poems of Octavio Paz
This is an excellent edition of the collected poems of Octavio Paz, with English translations facing the Spanish originals. I purchased this as a gift for my Spanish teacher and she was delighted! My favorites are his poems written when he served as a Mexican diplomat in India and Japan. His sensitive mind absorbed the nuances of place and religion, which are recreated for us in the poems. His efforts at haiku en espagnol are enlightening, pun intended.

excellent poetry
I bought this book after reading an excerpt of one of Paz's poems at a camp. I didn't know what poem it was from, so I bought the book and scoured it until I found the poem. It was Brotherhood. The poetry is beautiful and moving. It is the type of poetry you can read and enjoy no matter if you understand what it is saying, the writing is that beautiful

Sing the Voice Fantastico
Octavio Paz has since passed through this world leaving behind a beautiful web of words with the tapestry of things seen and unseen.Paz does an ambidextrous job of mixing in elements of surrealism with the bone of natural objects and that which is very real.His, and the translator Eliot Weinberger ... along with the help of other poet translators to include Bishop, Levertov, Tomlinson--all of their words come alive with beautiful language.The translation seems true to the intent.

What is essential about this book is that each poem comes with the bilingual translation in English and accompanied by the original works in Spanish.Two years of high school Spanish, as well as two years in college, has rendered me with a woefully inadequate ineptitude of all words and understanding of that language.But I don't think that the translation can ever capture the sound, the alliteration, the true tongue/la lingua and fluid language that Paz meant in his original Spanish.Even if I don't understand a lick of what's on the left side of the page in Spanish at least it can be read for it's beautiful sound. Listen to this, "Through the conduits of bone I night I water I forest that moves forward I tongue I body I sun-bone Through the conduits of night" and then on the even-numbered page, "Por el arcaduz de hueso yo noche yo agua yo bosque que avanza yo lengua yo cuerpo yo hueso de sol Por el arcaduz de noche."

What are you doing still sitting here reading my crappy writing when you could be reading Ocatavio Paz?Go get the book...you'll see.

Obra poética.
Example 1: "Un cuerpo, un cuerpo solo, sólo un cuerpo,/un cuerpo como día derramado/y noche devorada". Example 2: "Lates entre la sombra/blanca y desnuda: río." Octavio Paz is one of the first voices of the xxth century mexican poetry. He is the most important blend between clasicism and the modern trends in poetical expresion. He lived in France and thus, he experienced surrealism and mingled with the likes of Breton, Éluard, et al. In México he estimulated the literary critic and reviews to new standars of excelence. Read O. Paz.

Elegant
Paz' poetry is sublime, and elegant. The words and ideas simply slip off the page. Its like taking a bath in chocolate.

Paz consistently suprises the reader with new ideas, form, language. Paz creates an atmosphere that is soothing, and enchanting. I would highly recommend this work. ... Read more

Amazon.com
First published in 1950, The Labyrinth of Solitude addresses issues that are both seemingly eternal and resoundingly contemporary: the nature of political power in post-conquest Mexico, the relation of Native Americans to Europeans, the ubiquity of official corruption. Noting these matters earned Paz no small amount of trouble from the Mexican leadership, but it also brought him renown as a social critic.Paz, who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, later voiced his disillusionment with all political systems--as the Mexican proverb has it, "all revolutions degenerate into governments"--but his call for democracy in this book has lately been reverberating throughout Mexico, making it timely once again.Book Description

Customer Reviews (14)

A man of electric intelligence
Octavio Paz was a spirit who united an originality of vision with an intellectual rigor; a poet and political essayist deeply read in Western/Eastern thought as he was in the philosophical traditions (indispensable for knowledge). His razor-sharp mind immediately captured my attention with his witticisms, his irreverent reflections, his arbitrary opinions, his culture, and his valiant, insolent sincerity. This is the first of various books of caustic and penetrating essays of his country and fellow countrymen. Perhaps is too prolix for a foreigner who is not interested in all the details of Mexican politics, nonetheless it contains remarkable passages that illuminate the history of modern Mexico with another light, crueler but more real. Some of his passages are like the corridors of a lavish, sinister, and endless dream. This is somehow his philosophical and moral testament that is both moving and makes us reflect.

Classic text but badly outdated
Prior reviewer Scott Henson is correct, this book does not adequately reflect modern Mexico of the 1990's to present.Some elements of Mexican character as described by Paz remain true, but generally this book does not describe modern middle class Mexicans very well at all, who, while still small as a class, are nevertheless very Western in their general lives.

Reading this now without an actual awareness of life in today's Mexico, you would think that the country is still populated by stoic indigenous peoples at the mercy of fates they don't understand.

While that is true for some sectors of the population, the country has become as modern as many European countries. In fact, Modern Mexico reminds me of post WWII Italy in so many ways. One foot in the future and one foot in the past, and struggling to keep their balance.

Try reading this book and then watching Y tu mama tambien or solo con tu pareja to see the differences, as well as the continuities, with Paz' essay...

Worth a read, but no longer so relevant as it was once. And don't be fooled into thinking that this is the Mexico you will find upon visiting.

Interesting Book
The writing in this book is a bit thick and meandering, but it does give some interesting insight into a culture many Americans have a hard time understanding at a time when we need to understand the most. If you can handle the frequent revisiting of the same topics throughout the essays, you will learn quite a bit.

Well Done, Octavio Paz!
Looking at this book through a young American male, undergraduate student, double-majoring in Integrated Social Studies (Education) and History's eyes, this book was challenging to read. However, as I once read recently in an education text, "if anything is odd, inappropriate, confusing, or boring, it's probably important" (Developing Readers and Writers in the Content Areas: K-12/Moore, Moore, Cunningham, and Cunningham, 2003, p. 28).

I am currently in a Latin American history class, and decided to read this book for an assignment. Not having a background in this area made reading some sections difficult and dare I say, boring (important)! However, I enjoyed reading the original book "The Labyrinth of Solitude" and his "Mexico and the United States" essay.

Some aspects that sparked my interest in particular in "The Labyrinth of Solitude" include his discussion of the following: the characteristics of Mexican men and women in comparison to their American counterparts, democracy, socialism, the Mexican economy in the late 1960s, love, and wealth in relation to birth.

The other section that captured my interest was his prose comparing the U.S. and Mexico. In this work, Paz writes about several of the major general differences between the U.S. and Mexico, including the subjects of religion, history, economics, their different ties with European countries, language, and the men/women of the two countries.

Hence, looking at The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings from an American viewpoint, there appears to be much of interest for the reader to learn about not only American culture and possibly some things wrong with it, but why Mexicans act the way they do and is their society as big of a mess as it seems from the outside looking in?

Magisterial, profound and provocative
Like all great books, Paz' exploration of the Mexican soul begins with concrete historical and cultural detail and exfoliates into something complex, profound and ultimately moving.

Paz sets his book at the junction where historical experience, ritual, myth, the Mexican sense of interior solitude, Mexico's European, Maya and Aztec roots, and its incredible legacy of art and writing intersect.The book-- in gleaming prose-- describes Mexico from both personal and historical points of view.His thesis is that, despite much of its horrific historical baggage and the mess that its twentieth-century governments made of it, Mexican culture understands that North American materialism and individualism are "nightmares reflected in the torture chambers of reason."Paz' eye, of course, is critical-- Mexico is here as scrutinised as its northern neighbour-- but his book shows that underneath what often appears to observers as a macho and weirdly tacky culture there is a powerful and enduring old wisdom.

This is a remarkable book-- a great intro to Mexican culture for those who've read the historical basics. ... Read more

Book Description
In this series of essays Paz explores the intimate connection between sex, eroticism, and love in literature throughout the ages. Rich in scope, The Double Flame examines everything from taboo to repression, Carnival to Lent, Sade to Freud, original sin to artificial intelligence. “Brimming with insight, thoughtfulness, and sincerity” (Kirkus Reviews). Translated by Helen Lane.
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Customer Reviews (7)

Eroticism: In Its Finest Form
The big bang of my holiday reading began with ever-enigmatic Octavio Paz's another master piece, "The Double Flame". A three hundred sixty degree recount of history and genre of Love & Eroticism. During his diplomatic job at India, being inspired by the Buddhist erotic statues of Karli (alas the other Mecca of history & culture that I never had a chance to visit), Octavio wanted to write a 100 page polemic on this subject. He waited almost 15 years. Finally in 1993, wrote this 276 page authoritative, eclectic, mesmerizing and fascinating book. I found Paz always dwells on this interesting issue. In his poems about India such as Mathura and Vridabaan, Octavio brings the erotic images of ancient India as living objects. But through this book only I discovered the depth and breath of his reading on this occult issue. Beginning with Plato's Symposium, Paz gives us a short history of love and eroticism in literature throughout the ages. From Greeko-Alexandria to Roman-Europe to Tantrik Bengal, Octavio swims us through every current and under current of human sexuality. To him, eroticism to sexuality is same as poetry to language. The courtly love in Heian Japan to twelfth century amorous lit of France, Paz is everywhere. It helped me understand Baudelaire better. It explains the erotic nuances of Madame Bovary and Ulysses. The Double Flame is translated to English by Helen Lane and published by Harcourt Brace & Company.

Insights from one of Latin America's greatest poet-essayists
"The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism," by Octavio Paz, is an impressive prose exploration of the title subject. The book has been translated from Spanish into English by Helen Lane.

In this extended multi-part essay, Paz considers the presence of love, eroticism, and related phenomena in literary works that span many cultures and centuries: the biblical Song of Songs, the writings of the Marquis de Sade, Joyce's "Ulysses," Murasaki Shikubu's "Tale of Genji," Mohammed Ibn Dawud's "Book of the Flower," the poems of Sappho, and much more. Paz also considers a wide range of other social and scientific phenomena that are relevant to his project: the "Big Bang" theory, the AIDS crisis, artificial intelligence, the Buddhist concept of Nirvana, the "Luciferian" movement in art, and more.

Occasionally, Paz seems to be a little too full of himself; he sometimes issues pronouncements on highly debatable points as if they were undebatable facts. But his overall passion and intelligence make these occasional lapses forgivable.

"The Double Flame" is also rich in what I call "Pazisms": characteristically witty, wise, and highly quotable statements. Here's one of my favorite Pazisms: "Love has been and is still the great act of subversion in the West" (from the 5th chapter, "A Solar System"). If you are interested in love and eroticism, in the art of nonfiction prose, or in Latin American literature, check out this book.

a wonderful mystery
Reviewer: luismendez@codetel.net.do from DOMINICAN REPUBLIClove is awonderful mystery and this book takes a good love at all sides, fromchinese and budhism, to western society and courtly love. this collectionof essays is spellbounding and magnificent. it is reallly the work of amaster at his best. this is the first time i read a book by him , but itcertainly won't be the last. the scope of this book is enormous and itmakes us feel that we are not alone in feeling a sensation we cannot fullyaccount for. i recommend it for everybody, specially for the people whowant to learn something in the art of living. --

LUIS MENDEZcrazzyteacher@hotmail.com

a wonderful mystery
love is a wonderful mystery and this book takes a good love at all sides, from chinese and budhism, to western society and courtly love. this collection of essays is spellbounding and magnificent. it is reallly thework of a master at his best. this is the first time i read a book by him ,but it certainly won't be the last. the scope of this book is enormous andit makes us feel that we are not alone in feeling a sensation we cannotfully account for.i recommend it for everybody, specially for the peoplewho want to learn something in the art of living.

Double Flame: Love is still all that matters
Spellbinding in its scope, the Double Flame strips humanity of every tradition and circumstance and presents it at its most ritual level, which is the act of love itself. In a nutshell, sex is the root, eroticism is thestem, and love is the flower that blooms as a result of the two.OctavioPaz simply gives it a soul, injecting new life into an entity that seems togrow more trivial as nature succumbs to change. Its a definite shot in thearm for an increasingly technocratic society. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

El libro mas importante de las obras de Paz
Paz, el ganador del Premio Nobel de 1990, escribo tantos libros destacados-Sor Juana, El arco y la lira, pero este representa el cumbre de su poder artistico. El escribe sobre el hombre mexicano en todas sus formas y tribulaciones. El libro es, al mismo tiempo, un ensayo(o mejor, un libro de ensayos), un analisis, una historia, y, sobre todo, una pregunta-en que consiste este hombre cuyo origen forma parte de la conquista de America, un proceso ya en proceso.

Empieza la obra discutiendo "el pachuco"-una figura del medio siglo XX que representaba la ambiguedad y la frenesi del hispano en los estados unidos durante ese periodo. Despues de esta discusion, continua explicando la cultura hispana desde la epoca precolumbina hasta la revolucion mexicana. Termina la historia con este evento, y la unica cosa que le hace falta a la obra es un analisis de la historia contemporanea.

Este seria el primer libro que le recomienda sobre Mexico al nuevo estudiante.

I read this in college.
I found the Spanish easy to understand, though his philosophy went over my head!

Un libro extraordinario
Octavio Paz, el escritor que haya definido nuestra vida como "olvidado asombro de estar vivos", nos habla de sus ensayos escritos más que hace cincuenta años. Su "La Dialéctica de la Soledad", uno de sus ensayos más destacados, presente sus puntos de vista sobre la soledad no solamente mexicana, sino también la de hombre presente mismo. Paz trata varios temas ensayísticos con la cristalina claridad y persigue un proyecto casi filosófico:muestra la alma mexicana con sus raíces aztecas, su plaza en la vida antigua y contemporánea y, finalmente, su visión de "soñar con los ojos cerrados". Justamente por este ensayo mismo atrevo a recomendar todo el libro tratando de la soledad, cuya presencia en nuestra vida diaria es tan obvia. Además, un interesado en la obra de Octavio Paz debería leer su discurso que había pronunciado en el año 1990 con el motivo de agradecer el galardonar de Premio Nobel. Leyendo Paz, uno descubre que Paz ya contestó muchas de nuestras cuestiónes inquietantes ...

Hommage to a great Man of Letters
Octavio Paz wrote the definitive sociological book that deciphered the Mexican character. He correctly diagnosed that, in fact, the Mexican was stuck in a labyrinth and condemned to find a way out, and in many respects is still trying to find that way out.He understood that he would receive harsh criticism and he did. However, he stayed true to his calling as a man of letters and delivered a book that must indeed be read by anyone wanting to understand the make-up of the Mexican or the serious scholar searching for understanding in the field of Mexican history. I strongly and without reservation recommend this book, it will change your outlook on this important country and most importantly on the inhabitants and descendants of it forever.

Una Obra de Arte
Aunque no estes de acuerdo con todas las ideas de Octavio Paz, las reflexiones y los analisis de esta mente birllante ayudan a entender nuestra magnifica raza. La escritura lleva al lector al pasado y al presente, para poder entender la condicion de Mexico y su gente. Todos los Mexicanos deberian de sentarse a devorar este libro que clarificara las costumbres de nuestra gente y nos ayuda a entender que tiene que cambiar en nuestra politica para tener un pais mas prospero. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Insightful and ingenious!
I came across this book after reading some reviews of Pablo Neruda's works.After reading only 2 chapters, I really got into the work.Paz's essays are incredible insightful, and he is able to analyze not only his own culture but also myriad other cultures and draw semblances between them.Topics wander through art, language, occasionally politics, and even love and eroticism.I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in art, international affairs, philosophy, or especially anthropology.Read it, and you won't be disappointed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Absolutely brilliant.
Octavio Paz, A Draft of Shadows (New Directions, 1979)

I am kicking myself for having had this book in my collection for long enough that I donýt remember buying it and not getting around to it until now. Paz is the most exciting poet Iýve run across since discovering the work of Ira Sadoff five years ago. His work, more than capably translated here by Eliot Weinberger (with a few translations from others thrown in for good measure), is a perfect blend of the art and craft of poetry. It is also the finest overtly political work I have read since Aime Cesaire last put pen to paper. Paz understands that if the poetry is good enough, the message of the poetry will come out on its own, something nine hundred ninety-nine out of every thousand political poets never grasp. Those who would dispute it need only read the title poem here and hold it up against the best works by inferior political poets. The difference is stunning, and obvious.

When Paz won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1990, the committee stated that his writing was characterized by ýsensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity.ý Indeed. This is poetry the way itýs meant to be. **** 1/2

One of the best books of Spanish poetry
Excelent translation. Like "Eagle or Sun", "A Draft orShadows" is the best Paz's poetry. Without doubt, some of the bestpoems I have ever read. East and West, Water and Stone, White and Black...encounter each other... on the other side. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Uncertainty stalks Octavio Paz. In Light of India is Paz's return to issues addressed in his poems of India that were inspired by his residence there three decades earlier. The paradoxes of a troubled nation are persistent, and Paz revisits the unfathomable facets of India with an eye on his Mexican homeland. Beneath the sensuous veneer of modern India lies a complex lattice of religious tendrils that reach into and influence Indian history, society, literature, and art. Paz follows these tendrils as well as anyone can, piecing together a nation of beauty, profundity, and enigma. Profundity aside, if Paz were writing about dust particles, he'd be worth reading.Book Description

Customer Reviews (13)

Lyrical remembrance of time spent in India by a poet
This book is a lyrical remembrance of the time spent in India by Octavio Paz, a celebrated poet, who served briefly as an attaché in the Mexican embassy in India. It is a fascinating exposition of the country's landscape, history and the rich tapestry of culture. In spite of being caught between two worlds, his native Mexico and India, which assumes mythic proportions, he notices such a plethora of details.

"The Antipodes of Coming and Going" is a poetic journal of his days in India. He notices with such clarity the extraordinary richness of sight, sound, smells and effect of India. "Religions, Castes, Language" gives an overview of India but has some factual errors. The occassional factual errors like "The British Empire, for the first time in Indian history, united all the people under its domain, something their predecessors-the Maurya, the Guptas, the Mughals-could never achieve" doesn't bother at all.

"A Project of Nationhood" is where Paz compares Islamic,Hindu and Western civilization in their relation to India. This and the last section "The Full and the Empty" where he celebrates the soul of India - these two sections reveal the genius of Paz.

His last question "In what time do we live"? is ever relevant in India.

In search of India -- through the lens of a Mexican poet
This book is an odd medley of genres and has a distinct "entre deux mondes" quality. It briefly starts as a travelogue, as Octavio Paz, describes his sea journey during the 1950s from his diplomatic posting at the Mexican Embassy in Paris to his first assignment in India where he would later return, in the 1960s, as Mexican ambassador. In many ways, I enjoyed these thirty odd first pages, replete with images from the crossing of the Suez Canal to the docks of Bombay and over rail tracks to Delhi, much more than the rest of the book.

The bulk of the book is an impressionistic, enigmatic, and often confusing essay on Indian society, religion, castes, languages,and cosmology. Many of these difficult topics are treated too superficially for this book to be a serious historical or sociological analysis of India. While not the central thrust of this book, comparisons between Indian and Mexican history become inevitable as, for example, when Paz considers different outcomes from what he sees as a common experience in Mexico and India of an indigenous polytheistic culture colliding with an invading monotheistic faith. Or when he analyzes the impact of what he sees as two secular institutions supposedly brought to India and Mexico by colonizing forces - the civil service and army. It is rare for two important, but spatially and historically distant civilizations, to be analyzed next to each other in such a personal way. The reader will not escape a sense of forced comparisons by the author of very different historical and social settings.

But the author does not claim rigor in his analysis of India, acknowledging that "this is not a systematic study, but a more or less ordered gathering of the reflections, impressions, and objections that India provoked in me." For the reader who can view these impressions of India from a Mexican diplomat and Nobel laureate in literature on a less obvious level, this self-conscious disavowal of profound insight into India makes the book intriguing. The author may shed less light on India than he does on his native Mexico,or Latin America, more generally. Perhaps, this is his real intention.

The final pages return to the biographical style at the beginning of the book, giving glimpses into how Octavio Paz historically situates demands for political reforms which were emerging in Mexico in the late 1960s, from his vantage point in India. Ultimately, these political convulsions in Mexico, notably the student riots, culminate in his resignation as a representative of the Mexican Government in India. "I decided I could no longer represent a government that was operating in a manner so clearly opposite to my way of thinking."

Readers of his classic on Mexican society "The Labyrinth of Solitude" will sense echoes in "Light of India" which Octavio Paz concludes with a short and tender poetic swan song to his diplomatic assignment in India, invoking the Hindu deities Shiva and Parvati.

A poetic Journey
Octavio Paz has recorded his experience in India in a great way. I simply call it poetic. Because of the great distance between Mexcio and India, there has been very little interaction between these countries. The linguistic difference has not helped either. Therfore a book by Paz on India from his eyes as a Mexcican, is welcomme addition to the literature. It is definitley a book to have and cherish.

A book that bridges continents
"In Light of India" is a book-length, multi-part essay in which Mexican poet Octavio Paz discusses the complex political, religious, and artistic worlds of India. Paz, who had served as his nation's ambassador to India, writes with insight and obvious affection for his subject.

Paz is a masterful prose writer. His style is smooth and clear, and full of sage-like statements. Consider this observation: "Dialogue between a poet and a saint is difficult because a poet, before speaking, must hear others--that is to say, the language, which belongs to everyone and to no one. A saint speaks with God or with himself, two forms of silence" (p. 118).

Paz covers many topics: India's ancient history, the conflict between Hindus and Muslims, the caste system, classical Sanskrit poetry, and more. But, as he notes, the book is not meant to be an exhaustive scholarly treatise. Rather, it is a very personal view of India: "this book. . . is the child not of knowledge but of love" (33). And as such, the book is rich in interesting anecdotes and fascinating insights, from Paz' account of his meeting with the guru Mother Ananda Mai to his reflection on the influence of Rabindranath Tagore upon Pablo Neruda.

"In Light of India" is a marvelous companion volume to Salman Rushdie's "The Jaguar Smile": in that volume of essays, a writer from the Indian subcontinent reflects upon a Latin American country (the reverse of Paz' project). But on its own, Paz' book is a wonderful volume both for fans of Latin American literature and for those interested in India.

Just brilliant.
A welcome change to see things through a great poet's eye.Brilliant comparisons of the cultures of two great countries Mexico and India, aculture that died and a culture that still lives and is thriving. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Exquisite Poetry in English y Espagnol
This bilingual text enhances the experience of reading Paz's poetry.His poetic form can be as spare and suggestive as tanka/haiku or dense with visual imagery as in the poem, A Fable of Joan Miro.The meditative tone of many selections suggests that beyond the accomplishments of art, literature and music, the essential composition is of oneself: "to learn to see so that things will see us and come and go through our seeing." Highly recommended.

A stunning achievement by a giant of 20th century poetry
Octavio Paz wrote some of the most remarkable poetry and prose of the 20th century. The collection of poems entitled "A Tree Within" represents one of his most memorable achievements. A remarkable diverse blend of short lyrics and longer, Whitmanesque creations, "A Tree Within" is definitely a collection that bears careful reading and re-reading.

The book is richly studded with multicultural references and allusions--to Epictetus, Buddha, Gilgamesh, Jack the Ripper, the Aztecs, Don Quixote, and many, many, more. But Paz is not merely trying to dazzle us with his knowledge. He is also introspective and revealing. He struggles with deep questions about language, love, and other concerns.

Paz seems to be searching both for an ideal poetic language, and for a form of connectedness that transcends language--a paradoxical quest, yet pure Paz. When he writes "Man's word / is the daughter of death" (in the poem "To Talk"), it strikes me as both a tragically naked confession of inadequacy and a moment of serene liberation. At other times, Paz seems, like Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, to be groping towards the creation of a sort of "secular scripture" for the (post)modern age.

In the poem "I Speak of the City," Paz writes, "I speak of our public history, and of our secret history, yours and mine." The histories recorded by this visionary genius are certainly some of the most important literary creations of the 20th century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

making the impossible seem easy
Any attempt to translate poetry from one language to another is fraught with difficulty, and that is increased many times when the languages and non-comensurate ones like Chinese and American.This little book does not take long to read, but deserves close study in order to tease out how different (western) minds have attempted to put Chinese into American.This book shoud be in the library of anyone interested in poetry in general and Chinese poetry in particular.

Amazing wee book
I checked the book out of the local library a couple of weeks ago and have not stopped reading it since.The library volume is due back, so I just purchased it.My only complaint is that the last poem is Gary Synder's from 1978.I would like to see Mr Weinberger reissue the volume with latter translations such as Arthur Sze or Sam Hamill.And if any one is looking for a most needed project, a translation of all of Wang Wei's Wang River poems.

Nothing is more difficult than simplicity
Poetry, said Robert Frost, is what gets lost in translation.
Poetry, says Eliot Weinberger in the introduction to this small volume, is that which is worth translating.
Both, of course, are right. That is what I like about poetry. It tolerates different points of view, a multitude of interpretations. A poem, or its translation, is never 'right', it is always the expression of an individual reader's experience at a certain point in his or her life: "As no individual reader remains the same, each reading becomes a different - not just another - reading. The same poem cannot be read twice."

"Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei: How a Chinese Poem is Translated" contains a simple four-line poem, over 1200 years old, written by Wang Wei (c. 700-761 AD), a man of Buddhist belief, known as a painter and calligrapher in his time. The book gives the original text in Chinese characters, a transliteration in the pinyin system, a character-by-character translation, 13 translations in English (written between 1919 and 1978), 2 translations in French, and one particularly beautiful translation in Spanish by Octavio Paz (1914-1998), the Mexican poet who received the 1990 Nobel Prize for literature. Paz has also added a six-page essay on his translation of the poem.

Wang Wei's poems are fascinating in their apparent simplicity, their precision of observation, and their philosophical depth. The poem in question here is no exception. I would translate it as:

Empty mountains
I see no one

but I hear echoes
of someone's words

evening sunlight
shines into the deep forest

and is reflected
on the green mosses above

Compared to the translations of Burton Watson (1971), Octavio Paz (1974), and Gary Snyder (1978), this version has a number of flaws. My most flagrant sin is the use of a poetic first person, the "I", while the original poem merely implies an observer. The translation reflects what I found most intriguing in the original text. First of all, the movement of light and sound, in particular the reflection of light that mirrors the echo of sound earlier in the poem. Secondly, the conspicuous last word of the poem: "shang"; in Chinese it is a simple three-stroke character that today means 'above' (it is the same "shang" as in Shanghai ' the city's name means literally 'above the sea').

This is a very simple poem. The simplicity is deceptive, though. What looks very natural, still wants to make a point. The point is that looking is just one thing, but being open to echoes and reflections is what really yields new and unexpected experiences. Wang Wei applies the "mirror" metaphor in a new way in his poem. This metaphor was very popular in Daoist and Buddhist literature, and says roughly that the mind of a wise person should be like a mirror, simply reflective and untainted by emotion. Wang Wei seems to have this metaphor in mind when he mentions echoes and reflections in his poem. A Buddhist or a Daoist, for that matter, would also recognize the principle of "Wu Wei" (non-action) here: nothing can be forced or kept, everything simply "falls" to you and will be lost again. In this sense, a person cannot "see" (as in the activity of seeing); a person can only be "struck" by the visible (as in being illuminated - the "satori" of Zen Buddhism).

"Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei" is a light, unscholarly book - and I mean this as a compliment. It is a pure pleasure to read the different translations together with Weinberger's lucid comments. Weinberger has a wonderful sense of humor to accompany his analytical mind; and he is allergic to pomposity. He enjoys mocking the pompous. This is what he has to say about one translator's misguided efforts to rhyme Wang Wei's poem: "line 2 ... adds 'cross' for the rhyme scheme he [the translator] has imposed on himself. (Not much rhymes with 'moss'; it's something of an albatross. But he might have attempted an Elizabethan pastoral 'echoing voices toss' or perhaps a half-Augustan, half-Dada 'echoing voices sauce')."

In the translation of Chinese poetry, as in everything, Weinberger notes, nothing is more difficult than simplicity.

Simplicity is particularly difficult for certain academics, it seems. A professor, who had read Weinberger's comments on Wang Wei's poem in a magazine, furiously complained about the "crimes against Chinese poetry" Weinberger had allegedly committed by neglecting "Boodberg's cedule." Weinberger later discovered that this cryptic reference was to a series of essays privately published by professor Peter A. Boodberg in 1954 and 1955 entitled "Cedules from a Berkeley Workshop in Asiatic Philosophy" ('cedule' is an obscure word for 'scroll, writing, schedule'). "Boodberg ends his 'cedule' with his own version of the poem, which he calls 'a still inadequate, yet philologically correct, rendition ... (with due attention to grapho-syntactic overtones and enjambment)':

The empty mountain: to see no men,
Barely earminded of men talking - countertones,
And antistrophic lights-and-shadows incoming deeper the deep-treed grove
Once more to glowlight the blue-green mosses - going up (The empty mountain...)

To me this sounds like Gerard Manly Hopkins on L S D, and I am grateful to the furious professor for sending me in search of this, the strangest of the many Weis."

An Amazing Look At the Relative Human Mind
The multiple translations of Wang Wei's poem are a door into the incredible spectrum of human thinking.This small delicate poem and its translations show how culture, translation and individual thinking change a work of art.I found myself writing a "translation" of the poem to discover yet another prismatic dimension of this jewel of a poem.

For anyone with an interest in translations
This book takes a 4 line poem in Chinese, then looks at 19 translations ofthe poem and provides a commentary on what works, does not work, is added,is omitted ... for three of the translations - Octavio Paz, Gary Snyder andFrancoise Cheng comments of the translator are also given.This is awonderful case study on the art of translation.

Outside the aspect oftranslation, the volume also gives the reader ample opportunity to becomefamiliar with Wang Wei's poem and with its Buddhist content. ... Read more

Product Description
Esta selección de textos pretende dar cuenta, intelectual y hasta dramáticamente hablando, de la unidad e interdependencias que vertebran las huellas de un Octavio Paz que devendría la fuerte personalidad y la vigorosa presencia que conocemos a partir del rito de pasaje que significó para él, a los 23 años, la Guerra Civil española. La revolución política que se desdobla en vanguardia artística, la lealtad a una causa que no rebaja su actitud crítica, la defensa de una libertad que no admite credos unánimes ni la invasión estatal, la búsqueda de una democracia que profundice en sus propias potencialidades , el diálogo con unas izquierdas muchas veces monologantes o sordas, la comprobación de una suerte de falla moral en el alma intelectual y, por encima de todo, la soberanía de la visión poética sobre cualquier otra, son las estaciones que dan forma a estas páginas. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Observances & Philosophical Insights From A Fine Poet.
A series of poems from one of Mexico's best prose writers presented here showing his skill in the medium of verse.His best poems are the one's with intense lyrical touch; a highlight of grandeur & marvel at the poet'srelationship with the creation of the word & the world around him. Thebest works lie in the shorter efforts.My rating for this is 3 & a halfstars. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Could be better...
The reason I picked this book up was to read Octavio Paz in the Spanish (which I appear to be having a difficult time locating a spanish language, as opposed to bilingual, collection of his poetry.but anyway...).I give the poetry itself, as Octavio Paz wrote it, 5 stars.I give the translation about 2 stars.Understandably, translating poetry is always difficult, and I am trying to take that into account as I review this work.However, there are quite a few outright errors in this book.For instance, (let the reader beware that I haven't figured out how to make accent marks in Amazon, so some words must of necessity be misspelled) in the poem titled "Fabula" I count 4 separate errors, 2 of which I must consider inexcusable.line 12: Aquel arbol cantaba reia y prefetizaba.The translation reads: And as it grew it sang laughed prophecied.A more accurate one:That tree sang laughed and prophecied."Grew" doesn't appear anywhere in the spanish.line 13: Sus vaticinios cubrian de alas el espacio.The translation: It cast the spells that cover space with wings.(What?Where is the translator pulling this stuff from?)Should read: Its predictions covered space with wings.line 20: Son las palabras del lenguaje que hablamos.The translation: They were the words of the language we speak.Apparently the translator doesn't know how to conjugate his verbs, because "Son" means "They are" not "They were."And last but not least, line 21 is missing from the translation entirely.Inexcusable.Thank God I can read Spanish.Anyway, buy the book for his poems, ignore the translations.Cheers.

A great poet's early work
"Early Poems 1935-1955," by Octavio Paz, is an excellent collection of work from this important Latin American writer. This is a bilingual edition, with Paz' Spanish originals on each even-numbered page, and English translations on each odd-numbered page. The translations represent the collaborative work of several individuals: Muriel Rukeyser (who also wrote a foreword), Paul Blackburn, Lysander Kemp, Denise Levertov, and William Carlos Williams.

The poems in this book represent a mix of short, haiku-like verses; prose poems; and longer poems. Although Paz is a distinctive and original talent, some of his work seems to echo the spirit of such earlier poets as William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane.

Paz often writes about writing and language, often with a metaphysical, reality-warping perspective. His poems include a multicultural mix of interesting references: Polyphemus, Buddha, Tlaloc, the Tower of Babel, etc. He uses much striking imagery, and frequently his writing has a prophetic tone.

There are many fine poems in this collection, but I was particularly impressed by "The prisoner," his stunning homage to the Marquis de Sade: "The letters of your name are still a scar that will not heal, / the tattoo of disgrace on certain faces." If you are interested in Latin American literature or 20th century poetry, I recommend this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
Paz's great poem, tr Eliot Weinberger, bilingual ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Sunstone: Life of A Crystalline Muse
What if God were the world, the stars, lust, sex, trees, rivers, water, salt, and crystal? What if the world were the poet's fecund Mexican lover? To Octavio Paz, Mexican poet and Nobel laureate, God, the totality, is all of this, and more. To Paz, the reality of daily life is - on the descriptive surface - quite surreal, very vibratory, illusory and refelective. Things sparkle and song is everywhere. To even comment on this vibrational reality is a stop-start, humbling obsession for the poet. This poem is a much needed break for those too bored with European views of reality. This book opens doors to Mexican poetry and to Paz' great career as a poet and essayist. Be prepared to be changed.

Michael James Hawk
http://www.sculpture.org/portfolio/sculptorPage.php?sculptor_id=1001229

Este es un poema necesario.
Paz ha creado una joya de incalculable valor. Con toda la plasticidad que un genio puede brindarle a un texto, San Octavio recorre en Piedra de Sol todos los grandes temas de la poesía y con ello, del hombre. Es tan naturalel desempeño de sus letras que es necesario hacer un esfuerzo para asimilarque nos han llevado de un confín a otro, de la magia a la realidad, de lamujer a la soledad, del río al dolor. Gracias a la serenidad del texto laforma (son 584 endecasílabos) no se percibe en la lectura: así emergen losgigantes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Cincuenta annos de poesia
"Libertad bajo palabra" es una coleccion de textos publicados alo largo de la vida del poeta. Un gran libro. ... Read more

Book Description

Mexico's leading poet, essayist, and cultural critic writes of a Mexican poet of another time and another world, the world of seventeenth-century New Spain. His subject is Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the most striking figure in all of Spanish-American colonial literature and one of the great poets of her age.

Her life reads like a novel. A spirited and precocious girl, one of six illegitimate children, is sent to live with relatives in the capital city. She becomes known for her beauty, wit, and amazing erudition, and is taken into the court as the Vicereine's protégée. For five years she enjoys the pleasures of life at court--then abruptly, at twenty, enters a convent for life. Yet, no recluse, she transforms the convent locutory into a literary and intellectual salon; she amasses an impressive library and collects scientific instruments, reads insatiably, composes poems, and corresponds with literati in Spain. To the consternation of the prelates of the Church, she persists in circulating her poems, redolent more of the court than the cloister. Her plays are performed, volumes of her poetry are published abroad, and her genius begins to be recognized throughout the Hispanic world. Suddenly she surrenders her books, forswears all literary pursuits, and signs in blood a renunciation of secular learning. The rest is silence. She dies two years later, at forty-six.

Octavio Paz has long been intrigued by the enigmas of Sor Juana's personality and career. Why did she become a nun? How could she renounce her lifelong passion for writing and learning? Such questions can be answered only in the context of the world in which she lived. Paz gives a masterly portrayal of the life and culture of New Spain and the political and ideological forces at work in that autocratic, theocratic, male-dominated society, in which the subjugation of women was absolute.

Just as Paz illuminates Sor Juana's life by placing it in its historical setting, so he situates her work in relation to the traditions that nurtured it. With critical authority he singles out the qualities that distinguish her work and mark her uniqueness as a poet. To Paz her writings, like her life, epitomize the struggle of the individual, and in particular the individual woman, for creative fulfillment and self-expression.

Customer Reviews (3)

Sor Juana--17th century genius
This is a balanced, penetrating examination of Sor Juana and the elements that shaped her life. She understood that her passion was the pursuit of knowledge and that she could never fulfill her life's work unless she became a nun. In addition to describing Sor Juana Paz enlightens his readers about the masculine society into which she was born. She was a brave, talented woman who spoke up for what she believed in.

The book that started my love affair with a Mexican nun...
Over ten years ago, this book completely changed the course of events in my life for months. Let me explain!: I was wiling away the hours with nothing to do during a 2-week hospital stay in Madrid, going over the notes for my master's thesis about Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo, when someone suggested I read this masterpiece about a Baroque Mexican nun to pass the time. At first I thought the suggestion was absurd, hardly a book that would help the hours go by quickly, but I gave the book a chance (the Spanish-language version, of course) and soon met Sor Juana Inés, with whom my only previous encounters had been on a Mexican banknote.

Sor Juana Inés was so far ahead of her time that it would have been a miracle for her NOT to have been persecuted and ejected from the society of her times. Octavio Paz (could anything less be expected from such an author) makes her life even more fascinating than it probably was in reality, as he examines her comings and goings from birth to death, or at least as much as can possibly be known, since his study is probably the most thorough that exists. Sor Juana's biography is amazing and caused me to drop my thesis and change topics entirely. I spent my whole hospital stay engrossed in her tale of love, erudition and ill-fated struggles for equality. I can't shower enough praise on this book, which opened up my appetite for knowing more about her...since then I have read more and more, as well as all of Sor Juana's works, and never get enough. If you want to see what is was like to know that women deserved full equality, to have the intelligence beyond comparison and be forced to use that intelligence with the utmost care so as not to violate strict social norms, and get away with it for years, sor juana will be your heroine, as she should be for so many more women in this world who are unfamiliar with her.

This would be a great text for any hispanic literature, women's studies, gay and lesbian studies, mexican history or a wealth of other courses, or just as a text of interest to women and people in general.

The amazing life of Sor Juana
This book by the Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz is a great account of the life of one of the best writers of Hispanic literature.Sor Juana createdastonishing poems about life, love, and people.It is a pity that onlylittle is known about the facts of her life.As with Shakespeare, must ofwhat we know about her comes from her literary legacy.Octavio Paz is ableto solve some ofthe mystery that surrounds Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The book that started my affair with a Mexican nun...
Over ten years ago, this book completely changed the course of events in my life for months. Let me explain!: I was wiling away the hours with nothing to do during a 2-week hospital stay in Madrid, going over the notes for my master's thesis about Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo, when someone suggested I read this masterpiece about a Baroque Mexican nun to pass the time. At first I thought the suggestion was absurd, hardly a book that would help the time go by quickly, but I gave the book a chance (this Spanish-language version, of course) and soon met Sor Juana Inés, with whom my only previous encounters had been on a Mexican banknote.

Sor Juana Inés was so far ahead of her time that it would have been a miracle for her NOT to have been persecuted and ejected from the society of her times. Octavio Paz (could anything less be expected from such an author) makes her life even more fascinating than it probably was in reality, as he examines her comings and goings from birth to death, or at least as much as can possibly be known, since his study is probably the most thorough that exists. Sor Juana's biography is amazing and caused me to drop my original thesis and change topics entirely. I spent my whole hospital stay engrossed in her tale of love, erudition and ill-fated struggles for equality. Tomes could be written just on her correspondence with all the scholars and thinkers of the day. It is amazing to read how she manages to combine a life in the convent with a life of study, another of cultural activity, a social life rubbing elbows with Mexico's leadership class, and awareness and intellectual relations with countless (male) thinkers of the 17th century.

I can't shower enough praise on this book, which opened up my appetite for knowing more about her. Since then I have read more and more, as well as all of Sor Juana's works, and never get enough, with a special love for her "Response to Sister Filotea de la Cruz," a treatise on the equality of women's mind centuries before such ideas came into vogue. If you want to see what is was like to know that women deserved full equality, to have intelligence beyond comparison and to be forced to use that intelligence with the utmost care so as not to violate strict social norms, and get away with it for years, Sor Juana will be your heroine, as she should be for so many more women in this world who are unfamiliar with her.

This would be a great text for any hispanic literature, women's studies, gay and lesbian studies, Mexican history or a wealth of other courses, or just as a text of interest to women and people in general, so that they can get a practical case study in what women like Sor Juana must have suffered for centuries (and maybe even today in many places) when they tried to go beyond the boundaries that church, state and family had set down to keep them in their place.

transported in time
I'm not a particular fan of history or biography but couldn't put this book down. For all the information it offers the reader it's an incredibly un-dull read. It paints such a vivid picture of her life that I felt like I was there. Details were always fascinating, never tedious.

This is the book to read if you want the real thing
Octavio Paz, Nobel laureate, poet and one of the best writers of essays in the Spanish language, can give people seriously interested in learning about Sor Juana invaluable information in this beautifully researched book. Everything that is really known about her biography (not anachronistictwentieth-century storytelling and fantasy) is here; and, very importantly,authoritative background information on Colonial Mexican history andculture, social organization, religious practices and norms, and readingmaterials and habits.Sor Juana is a complex woman, a great reader andthinker that has to be understood in context.This book provides this, andalso a sensitive and informed reading of her work. It is also a very goodread. Modern-day fictional accounts are deceptive and will short-changeyou.Don't fall for them.This book is the real thing. ... Read more