The Art of War (Penguin Classics)

Rating:
Summary: Best if read by Chinese generals
Review: If a classic is a book that everyone wants to have read but no one wants to read, then what do you call a book that everyone wants to quote but no one notices is not really relevant to much of anything? Sorry for the downer of an intro, but after hearing about Sun-tzu's The Art of War for so long, I didn't find the end product to be very enlightening. Sure, it was rather fun to read through, and the commentary told me a bit about ancient history in China, but ultimately it wasn't really a very life-changing read. A lot of it is repetitive. A lot is obvious: "Attack where he is unprepared; Appear where you are unexpected." And a lot is strange, like the six types of terrain: Accessible, Entangling, Deadlock, Enclosed, Precipitous, Distant. Geographers would point out that after reading the explanations, the grouping is very odd indeed. These descriptions do not exactly partition the landscape. And in case there's not enough confusion, the next chapter covers nine types of ground.

I don't mean to be too sarcastic. This should be an interesting book for anyone with an interest in ancient warfare or in Chinese history. As a strategy manual, it condenses a lot of useful hints in one place so the general is less tempted to forget important points. But this has been quoted from at length, and often appears to be some sort of ultimate guide to survival in modern times, in business for example. I think Michael Douglass's character in Wall Street was supposed to read it, though I barely remember that movie so I can't confirm this. The thing is it's really not like that. Much of the writing is irrelevant unless you happen to be in command of an ancient army (it doesn't have to be Chinese, though it would help). I suppose if I was transported back in time and found myself commanding the army of Wu against the army of Yue and could only have two books with me, this would be one (the other being a good Chinese dictionary).

In this version of the text, Sun-tzu's original text is presented first, and then is repeated verbatim with extensive commentary from historical writers, some contemporary with master Sun, and others in much more recent times. Unless you plan to study it carefully first and then read it a second time with notes, this means a hundred pages are extraneous. On the other hand, these commentaries are quite interesting, and can fill in a lot of the historical detail that is missing from master Sun's Spartan text. This, to me anyway, was more interesting material. Those kingdoms of that era were certainly living in interesting times. I don't know how many stories are real and how many are folklore, but they certainly are fun to read about. So buy and read the Art of War, but please do so for the right reason. I think anyone who claims this as his or her guidebook for life is just doing some historical and literary name-dropping. This is a book best appreciated on its own terms.