It can be told, but what’s told is not it.
I was on the fence about counting this. The Tao Te Ching is only eighty-one pages long, and the chapters are only a few lines each. So it’s not substantial in the way some of my other reads are. But I did go beginning to end, and it took me quite some time. I transcribed the Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo translation, with the permission of Mr Addiss, to have a copy in my own script.
Aside from it being a personal artifact, I got to sit with each chapter for a while as I was writing it out. It was a richer and slower experience of the Tao Te Ching than I’ve had, except when I studied some of the chapters with a teacher who could translate the ancient Chinese, and he and I only covered a few chapters. In the end, it probably took about the same amount of time to go from beginning to end as some of the more challenging of the books I’ve counted on this list, and certainly more time than some of the lighter reading.
So I reckon it counts.
By the way, no translation is perfect. Short of studying the ancient Chinese directly, the best way to get a feel for the work is to read several translations. By cross-checking the different words used in their contexts, a better understanding can be gained. Even translations I don’t like much have provided me with valuable insights. That said, I’m very fond of Jane English and Gia-fu Feng’s translation; the coffeetable edition has excellent photographs as well. But this edition, translated by Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo, is by far my favorite and has been for a number of years.
