The Art of War - The Barnes & Noble review
I do not doubt that Sun-Tzu's The Art of War is a classic worth studying, and a great source of wisdom on military tactics and strategy. Just do yourself a favor and skip this translation by Thomas Cleary.
Mr. Cleary seems enamored of himself as a translator. I have no doubt he knows how to translate, but I wanted to read Sun-Tzu, not Thomas Cleary translating Sun-Tzu and hosts of others so I could appreciate how clever Mr. Cleary is.
The book is laid out so:
- Sun-Tzu said this.
- Here's a translation of So-and-so who says this about this.
- Someone else I translated says this.
- A few other persons I also translated have this to say.
- Sun-Tzu said this, too.
- Here's a translation of what So-and-so says....
- ad infinitum
- ad nauseum
This is truly annoying when one wants to read only what the original author has to say. I tried going through and reading only the Sun-Tzu parts, but that didn't work well at all. This would be a good book for those who really want to get into the whole philosophy and study the various perspectives with which Sun-Tzu's words have been attributed throughout the centuries. This was not my purpose, so this book didn't suit me.
SET - 10/24/2000