TAO: The Watercourse Way

by Alan & Al Chung-liang Huang Watts ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1975

A gaily highhanded, epicurean book, as Watts was increasingly inclined to produce in his later years, and boxed in as it is between collaborator Al Chung-liang Huang's worshipful and pained fore- and afterwords, it is a gem to remember Watts by. As Huang explains, the text was allowed to write itself, in the spirit of the Tao, which means in practice that a footnote can be omitted and the interpretive tendency is latitudinarian; and Watts takes care to beg off as a scholar ("". . . meticulous explorations of cultural anthropology have their virtue, but I am more interested in how these ancient writings reverberate on the harp of my own brain, which has, of course, been tuned to the scales of Western culture""--la!). Yet there is a flamboyant and fascinating display of learning (more interesting than the fine Western tuning, which pulls its strongest signals from the 1960's) and complex indications of a personality that seems to have resisted inner pacification. Lively, sweeping momentum, with ideograms by Huang, bibliography and streamlined notes. Good introduction to the Tao.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1975

ISBN: 0394733118

Page Count: -

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1975

Categories: NONFICTION