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The Chinese Pleasure Book, by Michael Nylan. New York: Zone Books, 2018. Pp. 456. US$ 37.95 (hardcover).
The Chinese Pleasure Book appears to be the culmination of a research arc that has spanned nearly two decades, though readers should hope that this will not prove to be Michael Nylan's final word on the subject. Even so, this new study is sure to become the seminal statement on the matter of pleasurable pursuits and their integral relationship to physical, mental, and social well-being in early China. While The Chinese Pleasure Book does not always deliver fully on its many promises, by virtue of its daring and scope, this study should prove to be of tremendous value to a wide audience. At times it reads very much like a "self-help book" that appeals to the general readership while commenting on the renewed academic interest in mindfulness, at others an exercise in etymology and translation studies; certain chapters when considered together offer a sort of apocryphal history of Pre-Qin thought, and students of literary studies, musicology, and comparative philosophy will find much to glean throughout.
"Coming Attractions," the first chapter of the study, is largely given over to the setting of terms, matters of translation, and problematics of comparative ethics and aesthetics. This reviewer was particularly stuck by the engaging etymological discussion of le Ш (pleasure) that dominates the opening pages; the challenges posed by translation are a frequent subject of Sinological research, though few are the studies in which authors catalogue these struggles and the rationale informing their choices so meticulously. This alone allows for the possibility of fruitful discourse regarding not only the subject at hand, but how future "genealogies of ideas" of early China might find their beginnings with nuanced exploration of translation and its consequences. Many may not agree with the rejection of "joy" or "happiness" as apt renderings of le, but this study would have been much diminished if the author had been unwilling to grapple with the problem so openly.
This lays the groundwork for a surprisingly compelling defense of hedonistic ethics, a branch of philosophy which the author notes has been generally ignored by Sinologists, and often viewed with suspicion elsewhere. Professor Nylan accomplishes this by presenting an interpretation of the...