BOOK REVIEWS
CHINESE CONNOISSEURSHIP: THE KO KU YAO LUN. The Essential Criteria of Antiquities. A translation made and edited by Sir Percival David. Introduction, etc., 62pp., translation text 292pp., reproduction of original Chinese text 50pp.: 32 plates; indices of names, subjects and books referred to. Faber, 1971, £15.00.
The Ko-Ku Yao-Lun (referred to here as KKYL) is not such a difficult book, provided one is conversant with the peculiarities of Ming "authorship" and publishing practices and provided one can find one's way through the vast labyrinth of pre-Ming literature. The first and most prominent characteristic of Ming writing is that the material is hardly ever original. Most Ming authors, writing on any subject, tend to plagiarise with more or less skill from earlier writers, adding interjections which may or may not serve as connecting passages between long unacknowledged quotations. Ming publishers, especially those of the sixteenth and early 17th centuries, have no qualms about freely "editing" a well-known title on grounds of commercial expediency, or changing the title or "author" of a well-established work and calling it a "new" publication. When Ming authors actually write, they adopt a style that is grammatically straightforward enough but the writing is usually choked with erudite references to classical or pre-Ming literature. The Chinese "scholarly" practice of referring to a historical person by one of his many names or, worse, by one of his several official positions which he might have held however briefly at some stage of his career, is one of the most vexing inconveniences faced by the uninitiated. This practice is carried to its extreme in the Ming period.
Sir Percival David came across the KKYL while doing research for his famous study of Ju wares of the Sung period. He then developed great interest in the book, so much so that he wanted to translate it and, in association with other specialists, make a detailed study of the book and subjects connected with it. To the great misfortune of students of Chinese art, he was not given time to finish his task before he died in 1964 after having, on and off, worked on the project for nearly ten years. Any criticism of the book as it stands must be made and read with this important fact in mind.