★★★★★ 5
This book is a 'Fraud'... perhaps not
Format: Paperback
This is my first Review ever on Amazon and I am doing this for the love of Hafiz. I am originally of Persian origin and a life long lover of Hafiz... Have visited his tomb and the beautiful city of Shiraz. For people who are looking for a perfect translation, let me tell you that this is not it, not even close. To translate Hafiz, is to try and reproduce Shakespeare in another language and have it somehow come out with the same texture for the modern age (perhaps impossible). So reading Hafiz in Farsi requires years and years of cultural, intellectual and spiritual studies. To me he was an enlightened artist that had walked the esoteric Sufi path to full and authentic comprehension/liberation, in the process one can sense his love for existence and connection to the source (his own being). It feels like he had reached a place where like any great artist he had the necessary tools developed physically/mentally/intellectually to be able to translate his mystical experiences fluently and effortlessly into an external art form (in his case lyric poetry and who knows what else). I am explaining my understanding of him/her to make a point here. Mr. Ladinsky has somehow connected to the essence of Hafiz. In order to comprehend Hafiz in another language (and a whole different time/setting), one has to somehow try the impossible and reproduce the texture by trying to remove vague cultural, intellectual and spiritual references with ideas and thoughts that resonate with people today. Ladinsky has tried and somehow succeeded with giving us a glimpse (just a glimpse) of Hafiz and his loving/playful spirit. In my opinion, this book is mainly an intro to Hafiz, but even an intro is enough to open the door for those that like to venture deeper. In Iran Hafiz (or Hafez) and his main and perhaps only book 'Divan' is read like an Oracle (like the I Ching) - with intention and perhaps a lingering question one opens up to a page to receive his guidance. Well this book, carries the same fire if you're able to get past your ideas of right and wrong and just tune into it. For many Iranians (lots of my own friends), this book brings up a lot of challenges and I can understand that because it's so different from the original, but yet if you are able to realize that his poetry was from over 600 years ago, from a time when the culture was so different and language was a lot more evolved, than maybe you can put into context what this book is actually doing. And yes, language was more evolved, just look at the older writings by poets and writers and it should be obvious (that's a whole other subject). Mr. Ladinsky, has tried his best and this seems like the only book so far that allows one to get a glimpse of Hafiz in the english language, but he also does fall short in many aspects obviously (There probably isn't anyone that could perfectly translate Hafiz, even in Iran people argue about the deeper meanings of most of his writings). Hafiz's words are from another dimension and brought to life in Farsi, so to truly feel Hafiz, one has to study Farsi.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2022
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