The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition by Jalal al-Din Rumi Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Essential Rumi, New Expanded Edition
Book Review: No Room For Rumi!
Summary: 1 Stars
The Essential Rumi is a timeless classic of total dribble. Maybe it lost something in the translation or maybe I just don't have the time to extract the few bits of philosophy concealed within Rumi's endless stream of rambling words. If you're looking for inspiration from the past, I'd suggest you look elsewhere.Book Review: Not really a "translation" as such
Summary: 1 Stars
I have to say I agree with some of the other reviews here, that this collection of poetry by "Rumi" is in reality modern American poetry by someone drawing only very loosely on Rumi's work. It is rather a stretch to call it a translation! If one were cynical, one might think the large number of books from this "translator" indicates merely a money-making exercise.
Much better collections/translations can be found, like Maryam Mafi's and Azima Melita Kolin's, but I would personally recommend Juliet Mabey's Rumi: A Spiritual Treasury. This is not only a gorgeous book to look at, but more importantly, both its selection and English rendition demonstrate a deftness of touch that make you think you are reading something very close to the original sentiment. A rare achievement.
Book Review: Nothing Essential
Summary: 1 Stars
If you are looking for a true Rumi experience then you shouldn't read this collection of his poems, well actully it's not even his poems any longer since Coleman Barks translation has taken away what's truly essential about reading Rumi.Book Review: One of my favorite books ever
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an incredible book. Coleman's translationsare wonderful. Rumi's poems have totally changed
my life. I could write volumes... but I will simply
say BUY THIS BOOK and READ IT CAREFULLY!!
Book Review: Poetic Enlightenment
Summary: 5 Stars
Rumi (as he is known in the West), was known as Jelaluddin Balkhi by the Persians and Afghanis, from where he was born in 1207. Rumi means 'from Roman Anatolia', which is where his family fled to avoid the threat of Mongol armies. Being raised in a theological family, Rumi studied extensively in religion and poetry, until encountering Shams of Tabriz, a wandering mystic, with whom he formed the first of his intense, mystical friendships, so intense that it inspired jealously among Rumi's students and family. Shams eventually disappeared (most likely murdered because of the jealousy); Rumi formed later more mystical friendships, each with a different quality, which seemed essential for Rumi's creative output. Rumi was involved with the mystical tradition that continues to this day of the dervish (whirling dervishes are best known), and used it as a personal practice and as a teaching tool.This book has a deliberate task: 'The design of this book is meant to confuse scholars who would divide Rumi's poetry into the accepted categories.' Barks and Moyne have endeavoured to put together a unified picture that playfully spans the breadth of Rumi's imagination, without resorting to scholarly pigeon-holes and categorisations.
'All of which makes the point that these poems are not monumental in the Western sense of memorialising moments; they are not discrete entities but a fluid, continuously self-revising, self-interrupting medium.'
Rumi created these poems as part of a constant, growing conversation with a dervish learning community. It flows from esoteric to mundane, from ecstatic to banal, incorporating music and movement at some points, and not at others, with the occasional batch of prose.
'Some go first, and others come long afterward. God blesses both and all in the line, and replaces what has been consumed, and provides for those who work the soil of helpfulness, and blesses Muhammad and Jesus and every other messenger and prophet. Amen, and may the Lord of all created beings bless you.'
From the lofty sentiments...
'There's a strange frenzy in my head,
of birds flying,
each particle circulating on its own.
Is the one I love everywhere?'
...to the simple observations...
'Drunks fear the police,
but the police are drunks too.
People in this town love them both
like different chess pieces.'
Some poems take very mystic frameworks, such as the Sohbet. There is no easy English translation of Sohbet, save that it comes close to meaning 'mystical conversation on mystical subjects'. These poems become mystically Socratic, by a series of questions and answers, very simple on the surface, yet leading down to the depths of meaning.
In the middle of the night
I cried out,
"Who lives in this love
I have?"
You said, "I do, but I'm not here
alone. Why are these other images
with me?"
Rumi also has an elegant series called the Solomon Poems, in which King Solomon is the embodiment of luminous divine wisdom, and the Queen of Sheba is the bodily soul. This sets up a dynamic tension that gets played out in the poetry (in extrapolation from the Biblical stories from which they were first derived)
Rumi reminds us that, in the face of love and truth, even the wisdom of Plato and Solomon can go blind, but there is vision in this blindness.
In the conclusion of this volume, Rumi's poetry of The Turn (the dervishes) is presented, as a place of emptiness, where the ego dissolves, and opens a doorway to the divine to enter. The night of Rumi's death in 1273 is considered 'Rumi's Wedding Night', the night he achieved full union with the divine that he had sought so often in poetry and mystical practice.
There is much to be gained in the contemplation of this frequently overlooked poet.