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A review by persimmon_lover
Existence: A Story by David Hinton
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
2.5
Overall, I didn't enjoy this book, but it had some really good information in it that makes it warrant a read, I think. Basically, it is about Daoist and Chan Buddhist thought through the lens of Chinese calligraphy, painting, and poetry, and in particular a single painting by the late Ming painter Shitao. I thought that the analyses of poetry, painting, and calligraphy were excellent. The author clearly knows what he is talking about and has great insights, both artistic/material, grammatical, linguistic, historical, everything he says gives a lot of context to the way that the art was made, what and how it may communicate or show something to us, and how it exemplifies the spirituality and philosophy of Daoism nad Chan Buddhism.
What I didn't like was first, the style of the book. It is written almost as a prose-poem, with very "evocative" and shifting language that isn't very clear, and feels more "inspirational" or revelatory than academic and expository, which is fine, but which I didn't really enjoy and didn't find informative or helpful for the book. I think the same thing could have been communicated in a better way, that may have had less "inspirational" flair, but conveyed more to someone like me who very much doesn't believe in the worldview that Hinton describes and seems to want you to accept as fact, but still has interest in it as a historical and philosophical idea that can help to interpret these great works of art. The other was just how much time is spent meandering through these considerations about existence, the weird terminology used throughout, and many times the lack of context to what is said. Although historical context is given occasionally, lots of times it just feels like philosophical musing that, in my opinion, isn't very clear, doesn't really go anywhere, etc.
That said there is a decent structure to the book focusing on continually revising and revisiting the poem written on the main painting the poem looks at, despite several meandering sections, and lots of interesting points and ideas, for example about how "meaninglessness" in Chinese art functions within this system of thought, how pictorial forms in Chinese paintings exemplify the energetic coming into being and coming out of being of the cosmos, how mythological storytelling about Daoist principles and the perspective of humans is depicted in poetry and painting, and the importance of anti-perspectival visual representation for these paintings. So despite all of this super valuable stuff, I'm still giving the book a fairly low score because I felt myself rolling my eyes often, getting bored and/or annoyed, and wishing that the good parts were more fully expanded and more central to the book, rather than being used as examples to support the philosophical musings of the author. That doesn't mean the book is bad per se, but it did significantly prohibit me from enjoying it more.
What I didn't like was first, the style of the book. It is written almost as a prose-poem, with very "evocative" and shifting language that isn't very clear, and feels more "inspirational" or revelatory than academic and expository, which is fine, but which I didn't really enjoy and didn't find informative or helpful for the book. I think the same thing could have been communicated in a better way, that may have had less "inspirational" flair, but conveyed more to someone like me who very much doesn't believe in the worldview that Hinton describes and seems to want you to accept as fact, but still has interest in it as a historical and philosophical idea that can help to interpret these great works of art. The other was just how much time is spent meandering through these considerations about existence, the weird terminology used throughout, and many times the lack of context to what is said. Although historical context is given occasionally, lots of times it just feels like philosophical musing that, in my opinion, isn't very clear, doesn't really go anywhere, etc.
That said there is a decent structure to the book focusing on continually revising and revisiting the poem written on the main painting the poem looks at, despite several meandering sections, and lots of interesting points and ideas, for example about how "meaninglessness" in Chinese art functions within this system of thought, how pictorial forms in Chinese paintings exemplify the energetic coming into being and coming out of being of the cosmos, how mythological storytelling about Daoist principles and the perspective of humans is depicted in poetry and painting, and the importance of anti-perspectival visual representation for these paintings. So despite all of this super valuable stuff, I'm still giving the book a fairly low score because I felt myself rolling my eyes often, getting bored and/or annoyed, and wishing that the good parts were more fully expanded and more central to the book, rather than being used as examples to support the philosophical musings of the author. That doesn't mean the book is bad per se, but it did significantly prohibit me from enjoying it more.