Inscribed Landscapes: Travel Writing from Imperial China

Rating:
Summary: Finding China
Review: The editorial review is quite complete as to the contents of "Inscribed Landscapes", but I'd like to give future readers a more general impression that I was left with:
I throughly enjoyed Richard E. Strassberg's book as an introduction to the combined arts of chinese travel writing, calligraphy, painting, and woodcut print making. Many of China's greatest writers are represented in cronological order, sometimes yielding interesting results when the same place is described centuries apart. I am not an expert in chinese literature, so I compared impressions with my chinese friends. Their only reservations were the translations of the poetry, which is always problematical. The translations in this book are good for description but one might want to compare other translations for different perspectives. (See "Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres" by Wai-Lim Yip to gain a broader appreciation of chinese literature and the difficulties of its translation).
This book, unexpectedly, piqued my interest in the art of calligraphy, as well as that of landscape art, too. Richard Strassberg judiciously uses examples of some of China's best art work to illustrate many of the described landscapes.
Finally, I now find myself harboring a deep desire to vist, in person, many of the inscribed landscapes and picture them anew. This is a book that will encourage you to vist both a long lost China, and that which you can still find.

Rating:
Summary: Finding China
Review: The editorial review is quite complete as to the contents of "Inscribed Landscapes", but I'd like to give future readers a more general impression that I was left with:
I throughly enjoyed Richard E. Strassberg's book as an introduction to the combined arts of chinese travel writing, calligraphy, painting, and woodcut print making. Many of China's greatest writers are represented in cronological order, sometimes yielding interesting results when the same place is described centuries apart. I am not an expert in chinese literature, so I compared impressions with my chinese friends. Their only reservations were the translations of the poetry, which is always problematical. The translations in this book are good for description but one might want to compare other translations for different perspectives. (See "Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres" by Wai-Lim Yip to gain a broader appreciation of chinese literature and the difficulties of its translation).
This book, unexpectedly, piqued my interest in the art of calligraphy, as well as that of landscape art, too. Richard Strassberg judiciously uses examples of some of China's best art work to illustrate many of the described landscapes.
Finally, I now find myself harboring a deep desire to vist, in person, many of the inscribed landscapes and picture them anew. This is a book that will encourage you to vist both a long lost China, and that which you can still find.