Finding Them Gone: Visiting China’s Poets of the Past by Red Pine (PDF)

Description

“A travel writer with a cult following.”—The New York Times “There are very few westerners who could successfully cover so much territory in China, but Porter pulls it off. Finding Them Gone uniquely draws upon his parallel careers as a translator and a travel writer in ways that his previous books have not. A lifetime devoted to understanding Chinese culture and spirituality blossoms within its pages to create something truly rare.”—The Los Angeles Book Review To pay homage to China’s greatest poets, renowned translator Bill Porter—who is also known by his Chinese name “Red Pine”—traveled throughout China visiting dozens of poets’ graves and performing idiosyncratic rituals that featured Kentucky bourbon and reading poems aloud to the spirits. Combining travelogue, translations, history, and personal stories, this intimate and fast-paced tour of modern China celebrates inspirational landscapes and presents translations of classical poems, many of which have never before been translated into English. Porter is a former radio commentator based in Hong Kong who specialized in travelogues. As such, he is an entertaining storyteller who is deeply knowledgeable about Chinese culture, both ancient and modern, who brings readers into the journey—from standing at the edge of the trash pit that used to be Tu Mu’s grave to sitting in Han Shan’s cave where the Buddhist hermit “Butterfly Woman” serves him tea. Illustrated with over one hundred photographs and two hundred poems, Finding Them Gone combines the love of travel with an irrepressible exuberance for poetry. As Porter writes: “The graves of the poets I’d been visiting were so different. Some were simple, some palatial, some had been plowed under by farmers, and others had been reduced to trash pits. Their poems, though, had survived… Poetry is transcendent. We carry it in our hearts and find it there when we have forgotten everything else.” In praise of Bill Porter/Red Pine: “In the travel writing that has made him so popular in China, Porter’s tone is not reverential but explanatory, and filled with luminous asides… His goal is to tell interested foreigners about revealing byways of Chinese culture.”—New York Review of Books “Porter is an amiable and knowledgeable guide. The daily entries themselves fit squarely in the travelogue genre, seamlessly combining the details of his routes and encounters with the poets’ biographies, Chinese histories, and a generous helping of the poetry itself. Porter’s knowledge of the subject and his curation of the poems make this book well worth reading for travelers and poetry readers alike. It’s like a survey course in Chinese poetry—but one in which the readings are excellent, the professor doesn’t take himself too seriously, and the field trips involve sharing Stagg bourbon with the deceased.”—Publishers Weekly “Red Pine’s out-of-the-mainstream work is canny and clearheaded, and it has immeasurably enhanced Zen/Taoist literature and practice.”—Kyoto Journal “Bill Porter has been one of the most prolific translators of Chinese texts, while also developing into a travel writer with a cult following.”—The New York Times “Red Pine’s succinct and informative notes for each poem are core samples of the cultural, political, and literary history of China.” —Asian Reporter Poets’ graves visited (partial list): Li Pai, Tu Fu, Wang Wei, Su Tung-p’o, Hsueh T’ao, Chia Tao, Wei Ying-wu, Shih-wu (Stonehouse), Han-shan (Cold Mountain). Bill Porter (a.k.a. “Red Pine”) is widely recognized as one of the world’s finest translators of Chinese religious and poetic texts. His best-selling books include Lao-tzu’s Taoteching and The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain. He lives near Seattle.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The premise is simple, the results are brilliant. Bill Porter (aka Red Pine), with nothing better to do, takes a thirty day trip on backroads from Beijing through western China and then east again. From Qufu and Mt. Taishan, he follows the Yellow River from Kaifeng, Zhengzhou, Luoyang and Xian, through the Qinling mountains to western Sichuan. At Chongqing, he traces the Yangtze River to Wanzhou, the Three Gorges, Yichang, Lake Dongting, Wuhan, Lake Poyang , Nanjing, Suzhou, to the Huangshan mountains and Hangzhou.Along the way Bill visits offtrack places past poets dwelled, from Confucius to Laotze, Li Bai, Tu Fu and Wang Wei, Cold Mountain (Hanshan), Stonehouse (Shiwu) and many others in between. As translator of these poets and old China hand, he’s an expert guide to the history and culture of the places visited. This is no dry and dusty literary exercise, and he hasn’t lost his sense of humor or adventure either. The gelatinous donkey hide appetizer served by the new bullet train leads him to a beautiful bathroom on board.Bill treats us to a wealth of information about ancient and modern doings. We learn about his escape from food stamps through his writing, and of his many Chinese readers. He encounters the ghosts of China’s past in the words of poets written many centuries ago. Published in 2016, the trip is more recent than his prior travelogues and reflects China’s development underway. Easily blending past with present, it is an entertaining and edifying experience. It ranks with the best of Bill Porter, but becomes a bit repetitious at times.

⭐Wonderful book, engaging and enchanting. The poetry is subtle, beautiful, spiritual.The prose transports you to a serene place with humor and wisdomI love this book and author!

⭐This was an excellent travelogue of Red Pine’s pilgrimage to visit long-gone Chinese poets who live on in their poetry. You could sense Red Pine’s affection for these poets, the times in which they lived, their aspirations, sorrows, and joys. Sometimes the detail of how Red Pine arrived at a poet’s locale could be tedious, but it did provide a sense of the locals, the routes, and the character of the towns. I would read more of Red Pine’s books.

⭐A wonderful tour of China, both past and present.

⭐I’ve been reading Chinese poetry in English translation since my undergraduate days when I bought the anthology _ The White Pony _ edited by Robert Payne. Because my wife is Chinese we’ve been back to China several times and Porter’s descriptions of contemporary China jibe well with our own experience. Plus he’s describing poets whom I’ve read in translation for years. I have studied Chinese (both modern and classical) but I’m still too much of a neophyte to read the poems straight through in Chinese. I just limp along as best I can using the translation as a guide. But for anyone who loves both China and Chinese poetry Porter’s books are treasures.

⭐You feel you are travelling with Red Pine – it is a wonder-full book .He is a great writer In the tradition of Thoreau. Poems I had forgot about he brings them back and better than I recalled them! So if you are up to an adventure go along with Red Pine as he Huffs and Puffs he way up the mountains and you sit in your armchair -you might feel the need to offer him a cup of Bourbon as HIS price for taking you along-

⭐This is not a dusty academic tome on Chinese poetry, hence it is quite subversive. It is much more edifying than one of those; it’s fun. Written by someone who loves his subject, the verses speak to his heart and that shows through, page after page. Only someone enthralled and following his passion would subject himself to a regimen as rigorous as Porter’s—30 days of chasing and honoring Chinese ghosts. You will be all the wiser for what he went through. Want a lover’s guide to Chinese poetry? This is it. Buy it. You’ll thank yourself. (There is even humor here. Imagine that.)

⭐Red Pine truly unveiled the Tao Te Ching for me, especially with the well-chosen commentary. In his new book, a travelogue of his pilgrimage to the homes and gravesites a great Chinese poets and philosophers, he has created an entertaining account of his daily experiences and carefully chosen interesting poems with his own commentary on the poets and their poems. It was great fun to read his experiences as organized day by day.

⭐A gem of a book. I love both the many poetry translations interspersed into the text as well the astute observations on traveling in China. Bill/Red Pine no doubt by now has established himself as a first class travel writer and commentator on the complexities of the country and its culture.

⭐Red Pine (Bill Porter) once again goes to the heart of Chinese poetry, with deep personal sensibility & contemporary views.

⭐Red Pine ist sowohl ein großartiger Reiseschriftsteller als auch ein ausgewiesener Kenner der chinesischen Geistesgeschichte. Immer wenn ich seine Bücher lese, sitze ich innerlich auf gepackten Koffern ….

⭐Not found.

⭐lovely poetry and poetics

⭐So thrilled to have the new Red Pine! Will read it on the road [where else].

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