Myths and Legends of China

Rating:
Summary: China at it's worst
Review: Filled with intellectual babble and snide personal comments of the Chinese culture, this author definitely sheds an angry light on Chinese culture. If you must buy this book head straight to the stories because the first half of this book is more suited for the opinion section of a newspaper and will leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Rating:
Summary: pre-modern orientalist perspective; excellent depth, breadth
Review: To appreciate this book you must take it with a grain of salt (or several). The author is a an old school orientalist, writing in the days when the Chinese Empire still had an emperor and was thoroughly infilitrated by colonial powers (fyi, thats before WWII). To a modern reader Werner seems condescending, but you can tell he has a genuine love for Chinese culture and people even when he is moralizing about the failures of their society at the time. In any event, the depth and breadth of the compilation of myths and tales is excellent, as is the historical context that the author provides. The only flaw is that the order and index is not quite as clear as you might like - several tales are told together in a single chapter, and references to characters in other tales are not always clear due to the numerous names used for some mythological figures. If you can get a version with the original color prints, its a real plus.