Wu Wei: A Phantasy Based on the Philosophy of Lao-Tse

About this book

A traveller encounters a teacher whose understanding of the Tao seems to unsettle everything he has brought from the West. Conversation and landscape gradually become ways of approaching the idea of acting without force.

Henri Borel writes Wu Wei as an imaginative introduction to Laozi through a European literary perspective. Its quiet scenes carry reflections on stillness, ambition and the place of the self within nature. Borel's presentation is his own interpretation of Chinese thought, shaped by the intellectual climate in which he wrote. The most memorable moments come when a change of attention makes the surrounding world appear different.