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FEATURES E. Bruce Brooks and A. Taeko Brooks, translators and commentators. The Original Analects: Sayings ofConfucius and His Successors. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. x, 342 pp. Hardcover, isbn 0-231-10430-8. Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr., translators and commentators. The Analects ofConfucius: A Philosophical Translation. NewYork: Ballantine Books, 1998. xv, 327 pp. Hardcover, isbn 0-345-40154-9. Few books—especially those already long available in multiple translations—have the distinction ofbeing translated into English four times within a two-year period.1 The Lun yu, or Analects, is one such work. Of course, being a historical text, the Lun yu has been garnering commentary and interpretation for two thousand years. What distinguishes the two most recent translations-cum-studies of the Lun yu—the subjects of this review—is the effort the authors have made to move beyond the constraints of traditional interpretation. The first ofthese, The Original Analects: Sayings ofConfucius and His Successors, by Bruce and Taeko Brooks, is the most exciting study of the Lun yu yet published in a Western language. Its potential implications are monumental, ranging from a rewriting of our understanding ofWarring States texts and classical philosophy generally to major revisions in our understanding ofearly Confucianism and the nature ofintellectual transmission in early China. The authors have been working on this and other Warring States (479-221 b.c.) texts for a quarter ofa century, developing a sophisticated developmental chronology in which there emerges a pattern ofintellectual interaction on a scale previously uncharted. Their findings have been honed as the result ofthe input and criticisms of an international network of scholars (largely based in the United States) who are affiliated with the Warring States Working Group Project (formally inaugurated in June 1993). The implications of their work to date demonstrate that the simplistic identification of a text with a single author and a single compositional date is, now more than ever, untenable. As for the Lun yu: it "contains only a core of sayings by the historical Confucius, to which have been© 1999 by University added layers ofattributed sayings and conversations invented byhis successors to ofHawai'i Pressupdate their heritage, and to address the newneeds ofchanging times" (p. vii). The theory used to explain how and why texts have developed is an accretional theory, according to which texts represent the accumulated repository of chang- 2 China Review International: Vol. 6, No. i, Spring 1999 ing advocacy positions of sponsoring groups over extended periods oftime. The accretional growth of the Lun yu is further complicated by interpolational growth. In coming years, findings based on the application ofthe accretional theory to other Warring States texts will be published. As such, the study under review provides a test case for the appropriateness of this theory. This book is not for the faint-hearted. Here I am referring not to its profound iconoclastic and revisionist implications, but rather to the demands it places on the reader. One must pay undivided attention to its details if the many nuanced threads of argument (developed in the authors' commentaries, reflections, and appendixes) are to be pursued and appreciated. This requires carefully following up the multiple cross-references to other Lun yu passages and to the all important Appendix 1. Unlike other English translations, this is no tome to take to bed—unless you are well armed with the Harvard-Yenching concordance and an array of other translations and commentaries for comparative consultation. The translation follows the order ofthe chronology the authors propose for its accretional composition: Lun yu 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 3, 12, 13, 2, 14, 15, 1, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.2 This order is held to represent "a consecutive record of the elaboration of Confucius' thought, and its interaction with other modes of thought, from the time ofhis death to shortly before the founding of the Chin [Qin] empire" (p. 1).3 Authors/compilers are identified for each chapter (pian),4 as are dates of composition, ranging from 479 b.c. to 249 b.c.5 Of the total five hundred and thirty passages (zhang) that the Brookses identify in the text (compared to the five hundred and...

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