Karcher Yi translation - alone or with Ritsema

[john]

I want to pick up a copy of Karcher's translation of the Yi but have seen here a suggestion or two that the original edition edited by Ritsema is preferable. Any opinions on this? What are the advantages/drawbacks of each? Is the Karcher-Ritsema edition issued by Barnes & Noble in 1995 identical to the Element edition? (All the older editions, though out of print, can be found used on Amazon.com.)

While I have your attention, let me add a recommendation for Jack Balkin's "The Laws of Change." It's a remainder now and can ve picked up for around $20 online.

My first post - don't ignore me ;-)

-John

 

[willow]

The new Karcher-only version has a couple of paragraphs of his commentary for each hex, and a couple of lines of commentary for 95% of the lines.

The old version only has the character-by-character translation (with all the many associations and layers of each character). I don't know if there is any change in the translation part from one version to the next (haven't compared them).

 

[frandoch]

I use two of Karcher's books, amongst other authors' works.

'I Ching' ISBN 1-84333-003-2. First published 2002.Vega. UK £16.99. US $19.95. Canada $29.95.

This comes complete with Concordance. It's not a book to read, as it's set out almost as a Theasaurus, but it's very useful as a reference work.

'Total I Ching' ISBN 0-316-72431-9. First published 2003. Time Warner Books. UK £12.99 Canada $39.95. No US pricing.

This one fuses the two interpretations of the usual Confucian text with that of the Zhouyi. It combines the 'original' with the mythology of the period.

Michael F.

 

[hilary]

Hello John!

The 'Total I Ching' is a completely different animal to the old Ritsema/Karcher book: very high ratio of (unique) commentary to text, and the text itself elaborated/ unfolded (several words or even phrases per character), and occasionally changed (text moved from one line to another, or just plain altered).

The edition with Concordance that Michael mentions is Karcher's reworking of the R&K original. These two are very similar: both have the same lists of associated meanings and the hugely useful concordance. Advantages of the new (Karcher only) version: there are commentaries from him attached to each hexagram and line. And the translation is considerably more 'user-friendly'. Advantages of the original: it is 100% pure, unadulterated character-by-character. The revised version does have some changes.

So 'better' is a matter of what you're looking for. Having got used to the original's language at a formative sort of stage, I still keep that one on the desk and the new edition on the shelf.

Balkin is also on my desk. I paid more than $20 for the book, though...