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4.21 AVERAGE
4.21 AVERAGE
I had always assumed Rumi was a modern day poet known for his classical poetry usually revolving around love. Extremely ignorant of me, yes. But then, I'm very grateful we studied two of his poems for our English Literature class - both translated by Reynold Nicholson. And I have to say, I'm in awe. Even though the works were translated (that too very proficiently), they had a magical feel to it. All along, it felt like you were reading it in its original form and the divine mysticism kept seeping through. Soul touching. Unbelievably incredible. Rumi happens to be one of my favorite poets now.
Loved spending time with a 13th century mystic, but I was thrown off a bit wondering how much of each poems is truly Rumi, and how much is Coleman's reinterpretation?
Read to skim, particularly for love poems, but I didn't find huge chunks of Rumi's works to be nearly as good as when taken in pre-selected tidbits. But we did find some rather bawdy stuff, none of which is particularly appropriate for, say, a wedding ceremony. Kind of a bummer.
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I should've done my research on the translator before I started reading this version. It's also sad that the religious context has been erased in the translated versions of Rumi's works.
I picked this up off my mom's shelf today on a lark. I read maybe one page before I began to have serious doubts. The choppy syntax, absence of imagery, aphoristic structure, lack of meter, and inability to string together a single compelling line of what I would call poetry made me wonder: was this really poetry per se, was this Rumi?
I do not speak or read Farsi, and I didn't want to make any rash assumptions about what 13th-century Persian poetry could or couldn't look like, so I kept reading, for another ten pages, maybe twenty, just to give the book a chance. At this point the monotony had not relented for even a single line. The egregious use of exclamation points, a rarity in literary writing of most any language, let alone in a script that does not usually make such distinctions, further contributed to this unease. More than any of this, however, I found it hard to accept that one of the world's most esteemed poets could be so, well, flat.
As it turns out, my instincts were right for once—a fast Internet search will reveal that Coleman Barks does not know a word of the Persian language. If The "Essential" "Rumi" reads like New Age pap you'd find in a fortune cookie or on a bathroom wall in Santa Cruz, that's because you very well might. What Barks has cobbled together in this book is, as his own dust jacket reveals, an "interpretation" of Rumi—meaning he paraphrases other English language translations of Rumi, bowdlerizing these already quite often inferior texts, and often scrubbing any mentions of Islam. A white hippie who used to live in Berkeley (no offense meant, I am from San Jose, but Bay Area residents will know the type), Barks was turned onto Rumi by a similarly dubious poetaster as a young man. That ought to say all we need to know.
Translation is a tricky business, and one that requires some scruples; we ought to have faith that what we're reading is at least what it purports to be. But it's a shame, a high literary injustice, that this is most Anglophones' introduction to Rumi. Not only is it not Rumi's words or spirit, it is not poetry either. This book is the basest kind of orientalism, like Coelho's The Alchemist, another book I will never attempt to finish, and one most likely with a very similar fanbase. (How strange it is to say books have fanbases! That ought to be a warning.) Whatever wisdom I might find in this book, if I combed through it as if I were rereading Hamletmachine, would be projecting onto Barks' deliberately enigmatic, sanitized fetishization of Islamic art. I am saddened by the knowledge that my mom bought this edition on a friend's recommendation—though I am not surprised in the least, given Barks' popularity.
Did not finish. Would not recommend. Until I learn to read Persian, I will seek out Mojaddedi's translations instead.
I do not speak or read Farsi, and I didn't want to make any rash assumptions about what 13th-century Persian poetry could or couldn't look like, so I kept reading, for another ten pages, maybe twenty, just to give the book a chance. At this point the monotony had not relented for even a single line. The egregious use of exclamation points, a rarity in literary writing of most any language, let alone in a script that does not usually make such distinctions, further contributed to this unease. More than any of this, however, I found it hard to accept that one of the world's most esteemed poets could be so, well, flat.
As it turns out, my instincts were right for once—a fast Internet search will reveal that Coleman Barks does not know a word of the Persian language. If The "Essential" "Rumi" reads like New Age pap you'd find in a fortune cookie or on a bathroom wall in Santa Cruz, that's because you very well might. What Barks has cobbled together in this book is, as his own dust jacket reveals, an "interpretation" of Rumi—meaning he paraphrases other English language translations of Rumi, bowdlerizing these already quite often inferior texts, and often scrubbing any mentions of Islam. A white hippie who used to live in Berkeley (no offense meant, I am from San Jose, but Bay Area residents will know the type), Barks was turned onto Rumi by a similarly dubious poetaster as a young man. That ought to say all we need to know.
Translation is a tricky business, and one that requires some scruples; we ought to have faith that what we're reading is at least what it purports to be. But it's a shame, a high literary injustice, that this is most Anglophones' introduction to Rumi. Not only is it not Rumi's words or spirit, it is not poetry either. This book is the basest kind of orientalism, like Coelho's The Alchemist, another book I will never attempt to finish, and one most likely with a very similar fanbase. (How strange it is to say books have fanbases! That ought to be a warning.) Whatever wisdom I might find in this book, if I combed through it as if I were rereading Hamletmachine, would be projecting onto Barks' deliberately enigmatic, sanitized fetishization of Islamic art. I am saddened by the knowledge that my mom bought this edition on a friend's recommendation—though I am not surprised in the least, given Barks' popularity.
Did not finish. Would not recommend. Until I learn to read Persian, I will seek out Mojaddedi's translations instead.
It took my many months (or maybe more than a year) to finish the whole book. Mainly because I could read a few poems at a time, and allow myself to be distracted by other books, and then come back to it.
Another (perhapse more important) reason is that I found that the translations do not match his Islamic scholarly background. The popularity he has in the West made me wonder how they appeared to have forgotten that Rumi was a Muslim. When I found out that there is another version of translation by a Muslim, I did not hesitate to get my hands on it.
Even with Coleman Barks’ translation, I loved some of Rumi’s poems. I believed they are not well translated. I learnt long after finishing the book that Coleman Barks does not even know Persian, and many of his books were translated that language. So how does one translate poems he does not even understand?
If you ever want to read Rumi’s poetry, please do not start with Coleman Barks’ translations. For educational purposes, of course you can read them. However if you don’t have much time, like myself, but want to see what Rumi’s poems are like, I’d recommend you to read Muhammad Isa Waley’s translation instead.
There is an article in The New Yorker titled The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi, written by Rozina Ali, published on 5th January 2017. I’d suggest you to go through this article to understand why Coleman Barks’ translation is indeed not the first book you should read when it comes to Rumi.
Another (perhapse more important) reason is that I found that the translations do not match his Islamic scholarly background. The popularity he has in the West made me wonder how they appeared to have forgotten that Rumi was a Muslim. When I found out that there is another version of translation by a Muslim, I did not hesitate to get my hands on it.
Even with Coleman Barks’ translation, I loved some of Rumi’s poems. I believed they are not well translated. I learnt long after finishing the book that Coleman Barks does not even know Persian, and many of his books were translated that language. So how does one translate poems he does not even understand?
If you ever want to read Rumi’s poetry, please do not start with Coleman Barks’ translations. For educational purposes, of course you can read them. However if you don’t have much time, like myself, but want to see what Rumi’s poems are like, I’d recommend you to read Muhammad Isa Waley’s translation instead.
There is an article in The New Yorker titled The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi, written by Rozina Ali, published on 5th January 2017. I’d suggest you to go through this article to understand why Coleman Barks’ translation is indeed not the first book you should read when it comes to Rumi.