Where I Belabor the Point

The Selected Poems of T'ao Ch'ien by Tao Qian
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It appears that most other people really liked this. I didn't.

It's not the poet--I think I might like him. And it's not exactly the translation. That seems okay.

It's the format. Drove me crazy. I couldn't read it in this form without having my understanding disturbed every second line by the way it was presented on the page. Maybe it doesn't affect other people like it does me. I really wonder.

Let me ask you a question as an aside: when you read something written in italics, like maybe a letter or something inside a novel, does it sound different in your head than the rest of the text does? It sounds different to me, like a different voice is reading, usually higher and a little sing-songy, and it has a negative impact on my comprehension. I can't seem to change that. If it goes on too long, I sometimes have to reread to get the parts I missed the first time through. It's like a radio slightly off the station that takes extra concentration to hear.

Other formatting differences have a similar effect on me. For example, in this book, the poetry is written with seemingly random line breaks, gathered in pairs lines as if he's translating a poem written in couplets. I already don't prefer poetic lines to wrap around to the next line, though I've made me peace with that... But to have the line break across separated lines made me nuts. Like this:

At this distant, bramble-woven gate, my
wanderings come to rest, the world and I

let each other go. Not a soul in sight.
At dusk, who knows my gate sat closed

all day? This year-end wind bitter cold,
falling snow a thick, day long shroud...

I can't read those lines, especially across the gaps, *without* a pause in my brain, a change in tone, a stumble, and it made me go back time and again to reread it as it was meant. Trying to read across those gaps as if they weren't there was like trying to read while being bounced in the back of a car.

Anyway, with effort, I read and enjoyed the poetry some. Maybe 3 stars worth. But I'm not exaggerating the effect the format had on my reading, the way it disturbed the flow for me, and I only wonder how everybody else can read it fine. The issue was front and center for me every time I opened the book. (I still would ask--what purpose did the breaks serve? I don't think it was the end of the original lines, and it doesn't seem to align with meaning. Meter? I tried to impose a rhythm on it, maybe tetrameters or something, but I couldn't make that work. So I dunno.)

If everything I wrote here sounds nuts, you'll probably enjoy this translation fine. But I see that Red Pine has a translation of this poet coming out later this year. I'm gonna try that one.

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