Where Du Fu Socks You in the Gut

Du Fu: A Life in Poetry by Du Fu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When evaluating the impact of Tang era Chinese poetry in translation, it's hard for me to separate the poet and his poetry from the translator and his contribution. I do have an opinion of sorts (which I will dare to supply), but speaking first of my holistic take, I have to say that I found the collection as emotionally affecting as it is artistic, and I recommend it to any readers of poetry.

This collection is subtitled "A Life in Poetry," and it succeeds on that level, as a sort of biography. The poetry is organized according to the distinct periods in the author's life, and that is augmented with general biographical information about his career, his moves, and his family. This works well together, as the poet inserts himself in much of his poetry; the political situation, his family life, his career, and his circumstances in general are prominent in these verses. Unusually for his time (as I am informed) he writes about his wife and children and their lives, reflecting on the way his success and failures, his traveling, his uncertain health, his drinking, and his ambition impact his family.

Returning from a long posting away from home, he writes:

...thinking ahead to my wife
trying to cope with this weather

desperate to be with my family
I arrive at last to learn

my little son has died
probably from sheer hunger

and I stand and weep in the street
the neighbors crowd round me, weeping

my shame overwhelms me, a father
who couldn't feed his family...

He often writes about his friends visiting, drinking wine, and discussing poetry, and he writes about his hikes along the rivers, visiting monasteries, and seeking the quiet of the wilderness. All of this is normal for the time and expected. But then he mentions a sister who he has not seen in years, and writes about brothers who he learns have survived a breakout of war far away, and then he's back to his wife and children, revealing their sorrows after their rising fortunes have fallen again:

Well, now I'm coming home
from troubles of my own

and with my hair gone white
I wonder if they'll know me

here's my wife at last
wearing a much-patched dress

crying to see me here
sighing like wind in the pine trees

sobbing uncontrollably
like any tumbling brook

and here's my boy, all pale,
the jewel that crowns my life

he turns his back to me
ashamed of his own weeping

I see his dirty feet
he has no shoes or socks

and there are my two daughters
their clothes all patched as well

too small for them, with images
all crazy and mismatched

a dragon and a phoenix
turned upside down for mending...

The pictures he paints of good times and bad times--of a life more fortunate than most but still filled with grief and difficulty--is so human that the distance between us and him is erased. We follow his career ups and downs and watch him as he grows old, losing friends, seeing too many wars, living long enough to learn that everything good eventually is taken away, and our participation in that life is heartbreaking and comforting at once.

Du Fu shows a tendency toward liberal thought as he speaks up for the poor and their lot and describes the cruelty of war. He opposes the excess of the court, and he is so uncomfortably aware of his privileged state, even when passing through periods of poverty, that he connects more with the peasants in the country than the scholars and officials of his own class. A lot of his criticisms (surprising takes in a Confucianist society) could still be leveled at institutions today, which gives his poetry additional relevance.

As far as the translation, and I speak as an absolute amateur in every way, it is, IMO, good enough. I mean no criticism by this, or not much. If the language isn't exciting, it also doesn't go too far. I might have liked it more if reworked with a little more poetic license, but no doubt that would bother other readers, so--good enough. Comparing poems here with those found in another collection, I'd have to say that they are simpler here, with plainer language, and I was a little disappointed.

David Young's translation of "Song of the War Carts" in this volume:
have you seen how the bones from the past
lie bleached and uncollected near Black Lake?

the new ghosts moan, the old ghosts moan--
we hear them at night, hear them in the rain.

That's pretty awesome, but here are the same verses in a translation by Peter Harris:

Haven't you seen
By the shores of Kokonor Lake,
The white bones from of old
that no one's collected?
The new ghosts, they complain
and the old ghosts sob,
Gibbering in the wet rain
under a dull sky?

I find the second more compelling, I'll admit. But perhaps that translator's taken more license with the text. I'm not sure. Still, to repeat myself--the translation here is good enough, and maybe that's the best we can hope for. The poet shines through, 1200 years on. His life, his thoughts, his concerns and fears and beliefs, are a gift to us, presented in clear language, with enough contextual aids to make sense of it where it might be difficult. This allows us to make a human connection, which is the art Du Fu excelled at.

Recommended.



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