Laozi is the name of a legendary Daoist philosopher, the alternate title of the early Chinese text better known in the West as the Daodejing, and the moniker of a deity in the pantheon of organized “religious Daoism” that arose during the later Han dynasty (25-220 CE). Laozi is the pinyin Romanization for the Chinese characters which mean “Old Master.” Laozi is also known as Lao Tan (“Old Tan”) in early Chinese sources (see Romanization systems for Chinese terms).

Simon Leys admits [NYR, April 18] that he hasn’t understood the central chapters of The Chinese Art of Writing and that this “disqualifies [him] from writing a fair, comprehensive review” of it. He could have stopped there. He prefers instead to suggest that if he was baffled, it was because those chapters are unintelligible, their style abstruse.