2023-04-30 08:58:12
Back to the roots of the “Book of Tea”
The classic revered by fans of the “suc of the Orient” is republished in facsimile. Curiosity.
Okakura Kakuro (1862-1913), a Japanese scholar, wrote a decisive work on Asian culture, “The Book of Tea”.
WIKIPEDIA/DR
This edition of the “Livre du thé” copies, down to the weight of the paper, the version which landed on the banks of the Seine in 1914. Dated 1906, the text by Okakura Kakuro, composed in the original English version, translated by Gabriel Mourey, is printed on Imperial Annam handmade paper, made near Hanoi. In his preface, Thomas Raucat, commander of the aerial photography section in the last century and solid polyglot globetrotter, sees the author of this “bible” as a gallant knight leading a crusade for beauty.
“How serious discussions must have arisen while hoeing the garden, scraping the turnips, serving the tea!”
Son of a samurai, sarcastic scholar, enlightened philosopher and sharp esthete, Okakura knows how to temper the hagiographer. The mischievous uses humor steeped in self-mockery to demonstrate how much this “One Asia”, which he defended all his life, conquered the world in the 15th century.e century by the magic of a few tea tree leaves. Tea, he explains, “brings to life a philosophy of beauty, a school of poetry, an entirely aristocratic discipline in the conduct of existence”.
For the record, the philosopher Heidegger, the poet Ezra Pound, the painter Georgia O’Keeffe or the poet Rabindranath Tagore confirmed how much “The Book of Tea” had enlightened their creative journey. Because the book deals as much with Taoist or Zen practice as with floral art, rituals of preparation as well as politics, the arrogance of certain Buddhist masters and the comforting humility of the Tea Rooms. “How serious discussions must have arisen while hoeing the garden, scraping the turnips, serving the tea!”
A short work reissued in facsimile.
DR
“The Book of Tea”
Okakira Kakuzo
Ed. Citadels & Mazenod, 123 p.
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