The influence of the Tao Te Ching pervades Le Guin's work, quite extensively in novels such as A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness. It is no surprise, then, to learn that she has been studying it since she was a teenager, seeking out and comparing different translations. She herself knows no Chinese and what she offers here is a rendition rather than a translation; she has also taken the liberty of leaving out verses she feels are inconsistent with the others, as likely intrusions. This is not then a scholarly edition, and no longer a guide for rulers, but a powerful and accessible Book of the Way, "the most lovable of the great religious texts, funny, keen, kind, modest, indestructibly outrageous, and inexhaustibly refreshing". Le Guin's commentary (some footnotes, mostly endnotes) is also valuable, and the whole is packaged in an attractive volume.

October 1997

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- books by Ursula K. Le Guin
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