An interesting take on Taoism explained through the A. A. Miline stories of Whinnie the Pooh. Hoff uses the Pooh stories to illustrated Taoism. My copy is a special book club edition. Really though, I only needed the first book. As a western student learning about Eastern mysticism, these books were beautiful. Anecdotes of A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh are compared to those of eastern philosophers Lao T’zu and Kung Fu’Tzu. In between the author converses with pooh and friends.
The Tao of Pooh (Dao) carefully examines Taoism through the live and adventures of Pooh. Hoff assigns various characters to the aspects of Taoism. Great for kids (I read this aloud to my daughter) and grownups interested in Taoism, Hoff explains this Chinese philosophy in Western terms. The beautiful imagery of Whinnie lends itself so wonderfully to the Taoist philosophy that I found it extremely compelling. I did not like Eyore being reduced to an icon for negative principles. That seemed overly simplistic.
Then we move to the Te of Piglet.
Blargh. The Tao of Pooh is simple and beautiful. The Te of Piglet is an ugly political diatribe which struggles to defame current politics through the butchering of Miline’s characters.
I can’t believe these are written by the same author. Where Tao left me with general feeling of well being and generosity, Te leaves me feeling dirty.
Hoff pits green against technology with Piglet as the little green pig and Eyore as the evil science loving bureaucrat (can you say oxymoron?). There was no middle ground or compromise just right vs. wrong without any clear idea of what to do about it.
Hoff’s either/or philosophy from Te conflicts with Taoist philosophy of Tao. If you would like to learn about Taoism pickup the Tao of Pooh. If you want un-researched leftist tripe which rapes the less popular Miline characters, pickup the Te of Piglet.
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