Book Review: The Art of War

In a sense, I finished this book weeks ago; in another sense, I still haven't. You see, this edition presents the translation first by itself and then with translator Lionel Giles's commentary interspersed. The latter concerned alternate translations, ancient commentators, and Chinese historical examples of the plan in action. I got a ways into that before deciding it just bored me, apart from the one legend about Sun Tzu himself, wherein he took up the emperor's challenge to turn concubines into soldiers, executed their appointed squad leaders for not taking him seriously, and got perfect obedience thereafter.

Even the translation on its own was pretty slow going, and I'm not sure that any other could be a quick read for me. Sun Tzu lived millennia ago, after all, and this isn't an epic; it's a collection of teachings. Similar to most presentations of the Bible, it has numbered paragraphs with a maximum of two sentences each, sometimes not even one. I felt this compulsion to mull over every line.

So what did I learn? Very little. I guess the advice is universally sagacious, because it struck me as highly familiar if not downright intuitive. It must be well ingrained in modern society. Still, I didn't mind picturing scenarios out of strategy games as I read.

The biggest culture clash surprise: "There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combination of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard." Sure enough, traditional Chinese music uses a pentatonic scale, but you'd think they'd notice the existence of other possible notes. Oh well, Sun Tzu was a military strategist, not a music theorist.



Next on my reading list is a more modern and more controversial classic, The Satanic Verses. Looking good so far.