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The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Penguin Classics)
Free Ebook The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Penguin Classics)
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About the Author
Anne Birrell teaches Chinese at Cambridge University and is the author of Popular Songs and Ballads of Han China and Chinese Mythology: An Introduction.
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Product details
Series: Penguin Classics
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics; Published in Penguin Classics, 1999 edition (January 1, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0140447199
ISBN-13: 978-0140447194
Product Dimensions:
5.1 x 0.7 x 7.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
3.2 out of 5 stars
9 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#453,375 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Classic of the Mountains and Seas is a geographical gazetteer of ancient China and a catalogue of the natural and supernatural fauna and flora allegedly dating back to the 8th century BCE and spanning a period of perhaps a millennium. It is also a repository of strange spirits, curious folkways, medical beliefs, and other related oral and written traditions of earlier origins.In many ways, this Chinese classic bears some similarity in content and theme to the Hippocratic treatise "Airs, Waters, Places," although it is not commonly associated with being a part of the Chinese medical corpus as the latter is in Greek medicine. For, like this ancient Greek treatise, The Classic of the Mountains and Seas is based upon a philosophical and scientific premise of nature--the Chinese "Weltanschauung." The Chinese quest for a harmonious union between themselves and their biophysical and socioanthropological environment gave rise to such a "world concept" in which people and their way of reasoning were conceived of as being an integral part of the cosmos and intrinsically interjoined with the spiritual, physical, and moral "influences."Dr. Birrell's translation makes for an interesting read, with her scholarship enhancing our appreciation and understanding of this fascinating work. Her detailed Introduction is most helpful in acquainting the reader with the historical background of The Classic of the Mountains and Seas. Its shortcomings lie in its lack of numeric footnotes, a more specialized bibliography, a concordance with Romanization and Chinese equivalents, and her rendering of the place-names and denizens found in this zoomorphic setting.One can never be too careful when it comes to the translation of ancient Chinese words, for it is not uncommon to find that many of them have been vitiated by the bland assumption that they meant then what they mean in later dynastic periods; accordingly, such assumptions can be distorted or entirely false. One of the pleasures found in ancient languages lies in their implicitness, whereas, modern languages revel in their explicitness. Fortunately, the rich resources of English are capable of coping reasonably well with the varigated shades of the implicity found in the former. Dr. Birrell has attempted to avoid this pitfall, although I question some of her renderings as being too much of an effort to appeal to a more popular readership.For those readers wanting to further explore the many ethnographic features of this setting, the following works are recommended:(In Russian) E.M. Ianshina entitled, Katalog gor i morei (Shan Hai Tszin), or "A Catalogue of Mountains and Sea: The Classic of the Mountains and Seas."(In Chinese) Yuan Ke's Shan hai jing jiao zhu, or "A Critical Commentary on The Classic of the Mountains and Seas."(In French) Rémi Mathieu's two-volume Étude sur la Mythologie et L'ethnologie de la Chine Ancienne.(In English) Richard E. Strassberg's A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas.
amazing imagery, endless fantastical realms populated with mythical creatures
The book is great, though one of the corners was slightly bent during shipping.
The reviews I read here for this book bamboozled me into buying it. I can only assume they are full time academics: no other explanation can be offered for their myopia.The book is admirably done, and the freeish rendering of Chinese mythological names is fine. The difficulty is that this is nothing but an extended catalogue, without stories or plot. It's a list. The descriptions are so unbelievably wierd that it's much fun to read for a page or two, but it's all so much the same, that after two paragraphs you've read it all. To call this a major source for Chinese mythology is simply untrue. Those interested in that subject should get a copy of The Journey to the West, or Chuang Tzu, or the stories of Pu Song Ling. To offer this to the reader as any sort of a narrative is an outright lie.The academic twits who have reviewed this so far do not seem to appreciate that just because a book's content is fictional doesn't make it fiction.
This ancient book is mythology, but in a different form. It is written like a geography, going from mountain to mountain and sea to sea. Like any reference book, it is not a cover-to-cover kind of read, but I found reading a little a day over morning espresso was habit forming. The translator uses literal translations for the names, which I prefer over the Pinyin names, since I can't read Chinese. So as we move through the mountain ranges, we meet such people as "the Corpse of Girl Deuce - she was born living, but the searing heat of the sun killed her. Her land lies north of the Grownman country. With her right hand Girl Deuce screened her face." For aspiring fantasy writers who want to get away from the same old tropes, this book has plenty of "new" material. For example, "there in the wilderness of Alldieyoung the Wonderbird sings freely and the Divine Wind bird dances freely." And: "The people of Alldieyoung hold an egg from the Divine Wind bird in each hand and eat it, while the two birds, the Wonderbird and Divine Wind, stay ahead of the people, leading them forward." There are also interesting new concepts, such as the worker gods. Why don't we have those? For purists who want the Chinese Pinyin names, such as San-shen (Threebody, country)there is an ample index at the back that covers the mythology in alphabetical order and includes Pinyin. I found that when I finished the book (it took a while) that I missed it over morning espresso. It was a very unique reading experience.
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