Books in Numbers

by Wilt L. Idema

This collection of essays is a result of an academic conference entitled "Books in Numbers" held in celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Harvard-Yenching Library. The aim of this conference was to celebrate the book culture of East Asia by comparing and contrasting the development of manuscript and print culture in each of the separate cultural areas of the China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Central Asia. The essays do not attempt to offer a "complete" picture of the history of writing and the book in East Asia, but rather they hope to make a modest contribution by highlighting the differential developments in each of the cultural regions, as they were influenced by political, economic, social, and cultural factors.

488 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 2007

About the author

Wilt L. Idema obtained his BA and MA from Leiden University. Following continued study in Sapporo (at Hokkaido University) and in Kyoto (at Kyoto University), and research in Hong Kong (at the Universities Service Center), he returned to Leiden, where he taught in the Department of Chinese Language and Culture. He obtained his doctorate in 1974, and was promoted to Professor of Chinese Literature and Linguistics in 1976. Since 2000, he has been teaching at Harvard as Professor of Chinese Literature. Wilt Idema's research initially was focused on the early development of Chinese vernacular fiction (Chinese Vernacular Fiction: The Formative Period, 1974), but later shifted more towards early Chinese drama (Chinese Theater 1100-1450, A Source Book, with Stephen West; 1982; The Dramatic Oeuvre of Chu Yu-tun (1379-1439), 1985; Wang Shifu, The Moon and the Zither: The Story of the Western Wing, with Stephen H. West, 1992). In recent years he also has published on Chinese women's literature of the premodern period (The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China, with Beata Grant, 2004). His current research is focused on China's rich tradition of popular narrative ballads. He is also the author, with Lloyd Haft, of A Guide to Chinese Literature (1997). For his voluminous Dutch-language translations, especially of classical Chinese poetry, he received the Martinus Nijhof Award for 1991, the highest distinction for literary translations in the Netherlands.

Reviews

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a collection of essays in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Harvard Yenching Library. It is a truly great look at writing and books in China and East Asia from early bronze inscriptions to digital libraries and digitisation projects on mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The first essay looks at Zhou dynasty bronze inscriptions and how one is very similar to part of the official Zhou histories, that scholars had previously thought had little to do with the actual Zhou. Puett looks at how people who wrote were originally sages, but then people who wrote later claimed not to be sages but rather to organise and comment on the knowledge of the sages, and says how this shaped the way books were written in China. It does seem that there are more commentaries than original works sometimes! Wang talks of something I'd not been aware of previously, a woman writing a palindrome, or poem that can be read in many directions, weaving the message into brocade so her husband who left will return to her. The story is gets even more interesting as in the Tang these type of poems take on a whole astrological meaning and get caught up in the weaving maid myths and even get appropriated by Wu Zetian. It was an area I'd heard nothing about before, despite reading everything I can about women, religion, Tang dynasty and Wu Zetian. What was lacking was any sort of gender analysis of the poems/mirrors. Definitely an area for further research once I've finished my dissertation. Though once again has an interesting tie between Wu Zetian and the written word. Lurie talked about how recent archaeological discoveries are changing the idea of writing in Japan in the 11th and 12th centuries. It was fascinating to read about all the discoveries made, as I know nothing about Japan and knowing there were so many newly discovered texts for historians was exciting. Whitfield told the story of the Dunhuang manuscripts, nothing new or interesting here, but good for those who haven't already heard about the history of the manuscripts, the cave and IDP's task of digitising them. Chia writes about commercial publishers if Nanjing and Jianyang. This essays is a smaller condensed version of her book and other essay. But what is new here is her work talking about the publishing done by the imperial princes. Rawski looks at the printing in the Qing dynasty in non-Han languages. One of the things that is interesting is that even in the Qing there was a strong manuscript culture alongside the print culture, particularly for non-Han language books. Walraven talks about book culture in Korea from 1100-1900. What is interesting is how metal movable type was used in Korea from an early time and how it was useful for small print runs. Despite what would be considered "technological advances" Korea didn't seem to have the same book culture as China. The number of books produced was much smaller and they didn't have their first bookshop till the 16th century. I must admit to skipping the next set of essays talking about more modern developments of book culture for Japan and Vietnam (as at the moment I really only have time to read things related to my dissertation) The last section looked at different digital library projects and digitisation projects, many of which are unfortunately subscription based, but I will definitely be looking at ones that are available on the web. A good book with interesting essays by the leading scholars of the field covering many different areas of book culture in East Asia, but with an overwhelming focus on China.