Book Review: David Hinton's I Ching Translation

[tacrab]

I've just posted a review of David Hinton's I Ching: The Classic of Change to http://www.contemplatingiching.wordpress.com. There are comments on another thread on Online Clarity about this book.

Barbara

 

[bradford]

Pretty loose translation, with lots of gratuitous words and idiosyncratic glosses.

 

[fyreflye]

Hinton is a poet and the most distinguished translator of Chinese poetry today. His version is a poetic translation, not a scholarly one. The only important question IMO is how useful it is as an oracle. I'm interested in finding that out.

 

[hmesker]

The only important question IMO is how useful it is as an oracle.

In that case you can use ANY book, as all literature can be used as an oracle. The way you state it sounds as if it doesn't matter how good or bad a translation is as long as it works. If that is your criterion then what is your interest in the Yi? You would find that Daemon Goodhope's The Time Traveller's Guide to the Future works just as well, even though it is a horrendous rendition of the Yi. Just like Angelika Hoefler's I Ching. Why bother studying the Yi if every version is accepted as long as it is useful as an oracle?

 

[fyreflye]

In that case you can use ANY book, as all literature can be used as an oracle. The way you state it sounds as if it doesn't matter how good or bad a translation is as long as it works.

Yes, that's my contention. It doesn't matter how good or bad a translation is as long as it works.
What's wrong with that?

 

[fabio galassi]

Stephen Field write (quoting Eric Cline) about the "scientific use of imagination" in translating YiJing.
Stephen L. Field, The Duke of Zhou Changes, Harrassowitz, p.XI

This kind of approach it seems to me do not make use at all of poetry skills, but an intriguing and almost new genre of literature, Harmen Mesker could be an ideal (and freely accessible) pioneer.

 

[charly]

Yes, that's my contention. It doesn't matter how good or bad a translation is as long as it works.
What's wrong with that?

Hi, Fireflye;

I believe that nobody says that Hinton's book be not good, but that a translation must be a fair intent to render an original text into another language.

Maybe Hinton's work is not fair play unless he provide a dictionary or a concordance between his book and another chinese text, be it or not the received, although if it, better.

May be interesting to do that work for him, but it would be a lot of work.

All the best,

Charly

 

[charly]

David Hinton has a webpage with samples of H.1 and H.2 of the Changes.

This is Hinton:

From: http://www.davidhinton.net/#!profile/c91h
​

... and his page, from where the portrait was taken, is:

http://www.davidhinton.net/​

Something about him:

... Hinton started his intensive journey into the realm of translation when he discovered that he was capable of “looking at older volumes of translated Chinese poetry and seeing how the already translated words could be made even clearer if someone looked at them closer.”

From: Chinese scholar David Hinton intrigues with his translations. By Alanna Robertson-Webb, Guidon Staff Writer
Link: http://thenorwichguidon.org/2013/10/chinese-scholar-david-hinton-intrigues-with-his-translations/

I don't know if original, but not a bad idea, I believe.

I'm wondering if something smells bad, but that's another story ...

Ch.

 

[tacrab]

Hinton and Minford translations are reviewed in recent New York Review of Books:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/02/25/what-is-the-i-ching/?sub_key=56d071044a62f

 

[charly]

Hinton and Minford translations are reviewed in recent New York Review of Books:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/02/25/what-is-the-i-ching/?sub_key=56d071044a62f

Hi, Barbara:

Imagine who of the three is John Minford ...

Charly

 

[fyreflye]

Hi, Fireflye;

I believe that nobody says that Hinton's book be not good, but that a translation must be a fair intent to render an original text into another language

Charly

There are by now multiple dozens of yijing translations into many languages. Hardly a year seems to go by without the appearance of a new and supposedly improved translation. And yet every one of those many translations has someone to claim that his/her preferred version works well as an oracle. Why do you suppose that is?

 

[charly]

There are by now multiple dozens of yijing translations into many languages. Hardly a year seems to go by without the appearance of a new and supposedly improved translation. And yet every one of those many translations has someone to claim that his/her preferred version works well as an oracle. Why do you suppose that is?

Hi, Fireflye:

There are many new translations of the Changes, but that each translation is improved with respect to the previous is mere supposition.

Sometimes new translations only try to catch the wave of fashion based on promises often false. Like more accuracy in rendering the (unknown) «original» text or its features. How could anybody translate a book that nobody knows? Even maybe never existed. In a book grown through the time like a tree on the earth, what step is the original?

The preclasical chinese that we know has a too free syntax, the characters are highly polysemic, the meanings evolved in the history and there is nobody that living in the Zhous' time, be still alive for talking with her or him.

The use as an oracle depends more on the skills of the user than on the accuracy of the translation. We can feel comfortable with one or another rendering for different reasons but the quality.

If you have Hinton's book, look at the page XV and followings. If not, you can look it at Google Books.

WELL, NOBODY'S PERFECT!

Source: http://sietevecesarte.blogspot.com.ar/2011/09/nobodys-perfect.html​

Yours,


Charly

 

[fyreflye]

As I pointed out here before, Hinton is a most distinguished translator of early Chinese texts. He's published translations of all the Chinese Classics as well as single volumes of the best known Chinese poets and an anthology of those translations. Why do so many here challenge his yijing translation when they can't read ancient Chinese and others who can have done nothing to equal to his professional accomplishments?

 

[hmesker]

As I pointed out here before, Hinton is a most distinguished translator of early Chinese texts. He's published translations of all the Chinese Classics as well as single volumes of the best known Chinese poets and an anthology of those translations. Why do so many here challenge his yijing translation when they can't read ancient Chinese and others who can have done nothing to equal to his professional accomplishments?

If you could read Chinese AND were familiar with the history and development of the Yi through the ages then you would understand why I think Hinton's translation is not very good. But since you said that you are not interested in whether a translation is good or bad I wonder why you object to the criticism. Why do you think one should use Hinton's book?

 

[cjgait]

As I pointed out here before, Hinton is a most distinguished translator of early Chinese texts. He's published translations of all the Chinese Classics as well as single volumes of the best known Chinese poets and an anthology of those translations. Why do so many here challenge his yijing translation when they can't read ancient Chinese and others who can have done nothing to equal to his professional accomplishments?

Ok, let's take a concrete example of this 'great' translator's work. From hexagram 21:

"Bring people together through the biting foresight of shaman-flower sticks, and you'll penetrate everywhere. Exact the proper punishments and you'll bring forth wild bounty."

What in the name of the Gods does that drivel have to do with the Chinese text of hexagram 21?

I'd like to give a more precise location of the text, since it is impossible to determine from the translation what that might be, but I've consigned Hinton's work to such an obscure corner of the collection that I can't find it.

This has been previously discussed here, so I invite you to go over the examples and judge for yourself.

http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/archive/index.php/t-21543.html

 

[Sixth Relative]

Why do so many here challenge his yijing translation when they can't read ancient Chinese and others who can have done nothing to equal to his professional accomplishments?

Let's start a Yi-had! There is only one Yi, and Hinton is His translator

 

[cjgait]

Let's start a Yi-had! There is only one Yi, and Hinton is His translator

Now that...is funny!

 

[charly]

Let's start a Yi-had! There is only one Yi, and Hinton is His translator

Hi, Sixth:

I believe that there were many Changes and that only God could understand all.
Then, the unique YI, say, the received traditional text had many translators. Maybe the uniqueness of Hinton resides in his strange, creative version.

All the best,

Charly

 

[Sixth Relative]

Hi Charly

That was sarcasm and it wasn't about Hinton's translation but about fyreflye's attitude against anyone critic to Hinton's translation

Best

ps. darn, when one need to explain one's sarcasm it means one has failed

 

[charly]

Hi Charly

That was sarcasm and it wasn't about Hinton's translation but about fyreflye's attitude against anyone critic to Hinton's translation

Best

ps. darn, when one need to explain one's sarcasm it means one has failed

Don't worry, Sixth:

I was aware of your sarcasm, only that sometimes I cann't resist the tempation.

Nobody's perfect!

Yours,

Charly