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A review by flijn
Tao van Poeh by Ernest H. Shepard, Benjamin Hoff, Hilde Bervoets
1.0
The good parts were taken from the original Pooh stories. The little Taoist analogies were quite interesting.
Everything else was just plain annoying.
Hoff tries to use the innocence and kindness of Pooh to illustrate the way of the Tao. He does this in two ways: firstly by creating a dialogue between (the all-knowing) author and (ignorant) Pooh, and secondly by quoting from the stories to show examples of Taoist concepts in action.
For example: when something bad happens (Rooh falling into a stream), one can panick (Piglet), tell others what to do (Rabbit) or accept the inevitability of bad luck (Eeyore), but one can also not do all these things and get the poor thing out of the water by using what's on hand (Pooh).
Who'd have thought?
I found the dialogue to be painfully unfunny and forced (though I'm sure translation did not help here).
The implicit lessons in the stories were dragged into explicitness and repeated until any room for creative interpretation was filled with the author's opinions.
But even more off-putting was the way Hoff explained Taoism by using strawmen of comic proportions. Apparantly the world is filled with Knowledge-Obsessed scientists who spit on wisdom; Materialistic Thrill-seekers who cannot for the life of them find meaning, and others who seem in dire need of some Eastern calm & acceptance (and are for some reason Over-Capitalized). Yes, at one point he states that everyone has parts of all these extremes, but it did nothing to expell the air of superiority over all those people who happen to not adhere to Lao Tze's truths.
Ironically, I think you can learn more about Taoism by reading [b:Winnie-the-Pooh|99107|Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh, #1)|A.A. Milne|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1298440130s/99107.jpg|1225592] than from this pedantic pseudo-philosophical piece.
Everything else was just plain annoying.
Hoff tries to use the innocence and kindness of Pooh to illustrate the way of the Tao. He does this in two ways: firstly by creating a dialogue between (the all-knowing) author and (ignorant) Pooh, and secondly by quoting from the stories to show examples of Taoist concepts in action.
For example: when something bad happens (Rooh falling into a stream), one can panick (Piglet), tell others what to do (Rabbit) or accept the inevitability of bad luck (Eeyore), but one can also not do all these things and get the poor thing out of the water by using what's on hand (Pooh).
Who'd have thought?
I found the dialogue to be painfully unfunny and forced (though I'm sure translation did not help here).
The implicit lessons in the stories were dragged into explicitness and repeated until any room for creative interpretation was filled with the author's opinions.
But even more off-putting was the way Hoff explained Taoism by using strawmen of comic proportions. Apparantly the world is filled with Knowledge-Obsessed scientists who spit on wisdom; Materialistic Thrill-seekers who cannot for the life of them find meaning, and others who seem in dire need of some Eastern calm & acceptance (and are for some reason Over-Capitalized). Yes, at one point he states that everyone has parts of all these extremes, but it did nothing to expell the air of superiority over all those people who happen to not adhere to Lao Tze's truths.
Ironically, I think you can learn more about Taoism by reading [b:Winnie-the-Pooh|99107|Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh, #1)|A.A. Milne|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1298440130s/99107.jpg|1225592] than from this pedantic pseudo-philosophical piece.