Sound sound!

Excellent reading by Nigel Hawthorne, well worth getting. An easy to listen to voice giving a fine interpretation of ancient words of wisdom.

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3 people found this helpful

Whimsical, unapologetically unstructured Tao philosophy

I love the delivery of this book - it really captures the nature of the subject IMO. I listen to 10-20 minute segments regularly, and the lack of narrative structure lends itself to this. In this way the Tao washes over you and slowly starts to become familiar. I have not found a better way yet, and am on my third repeat. For ‘firm theory’ around this I am reading Alan Watts’ ‘The Way of Zen’. That is much more involving.

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Beautiful Performance By Nigel Hawthorn

My only small criticism is that l would have liked the numbers read as in the original text. Other than that wonderful!

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Shades of Satire...

One who cooks good food?
Nope - that's Nigel Slater or Nigella Lawson.

Is he one of those Shakespearian actors who narrates audiobooks?
Well, he does do Agatha Christie, but he is not Brian Blessed or Ian Richardson.

No, this Nigel Hawthorne is none other than Sir Humphrey Appleby (from Yes Minister & Yes Prime Minister) - the Late Master of Posh, Cynical Irreverence narrating arguably the greatest philosophical work in history.

With a hint of skeptical wisdom & an ironic sense of Real politik, the Tao is given a whole new angle through one of Britain's finest actors. Each verse is compelling, yet also has that evasive quality that the Tao has which cannot be grasped, only allowed.

And best of all the whole work is condensed to a mere 76 minutes, meaning that the whole book can be listened to in one car journey!

This is, however, the one problem with it. The Tao Te Ching is rich & dense in content & one verse can last you a whole day of thinking. Crammed into one download (with only two or three word titles per verse) isn't really enough to explore the text's meaning.

Furthermore, this text is not the best translation of the Tao. Every translation is different & has different meanings but this one, if anything, seems a bit too literally translated.
As an example, there is the line on the back cover 'The Tao goes on forever doing nothing And yet everything gets done'. Why not 'The Tao does nothing, but leaves nothing undone'? Translation is no barrier to economy of language.

Despite this, this is (as the cliche goes) exactly what it says on the tin. It is a raw, pithy version of the Tao & is a good condensed version of the work.

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2 people found this helpful

classic - well narrated

If you could sum up The Tao Te Ching in three words, what would they be?

Very abstract, but have listened to it many time. Shame it is abridged

Who was your favorite character and why?

Those who speak, do not know, Those who know, do not speak.

What does Nigel Hawthorne bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Great actor, gives a very good performance of a classic text

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2 people found this helpful

Memorable quotes

Real food for thought here. The audiobook tells us how to live in accordance with Dao (follow the Dao, do not go against the Dao).

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Very good

It's "too short" running length for such a spanning work. But it still manages to lift up attention and there are plenty to ponder...for weeks and weeks. And it's short length makes it easy to make a repeat listen and familiarize!

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classic recording of a national treasure

excellent performance of superb translation of immortal wisdom teaching - always loved it, always will

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To the point, but not the best translation.

I really enjoyed this audiobook because of it's simplicity, but it's not the best translation I've heard.

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