The Face of the Buddha

Reviews / Votes

The book is beautifully produced, and as a late addition to the Empson canon it is a fitting tribute to an exceptionally brilliant poet and critic. * John Batchelor (New College, Oxford), Modern Language Review 2017. * It's an absolutely exemplary piece of writing-about-thinking, taut and alert; it's also wryly critical of the racist assumptions about inscrutability and much else that bedevil much European scholarship on the subject. * Keith Miller, Times Literary Supplement * ...The Face of the Buddha is a work of proficient and provocative art history. * David Hawkes, Times Literary Supplement * What [Empson] was ... a thinker with an incisively original mind and a fine, lucid, and always lively prose style ... He was also a talented mathematician and a remarkable poet ... He probably possessed most of the natural intellectual gifts of a good philosopher ... * David Bentley Hart, First Things * ... richly learned ... * New Statesman * It is a masterpiece, his descriptions subtle and amusing. * Peter Swaab, Sunday Telegraph * it is a marvel and delight to have a new book from his prime ... The Face of the Buddha is brilliantly imaginative, grand in its intellectual scope, fired by intense convictions about religion, art and politics. Hats off to the British Library for spotting it, Rupert Arrowsmith for his fine editorial work, and OUP for its richly illustrated edition. We're only in June, but this must surely be one of the books of the year. * Peter Swaab, Daily Telegraph * Here it is now, an amazing find, carefully edited to be the book that Empson would have published back then, with his own illustrations. It is fascinating both to those who cherish Empson and those moved by Buddhist sculpture - and if you happen to qualify on both counts, an uncovenanted treasure. * David Sexton, London Evening Standard * wonderful book ... Here is a great mind pondering a great subject. * Kevin Jackson, Literary Review * The introductory essay by Myanmar-based scholar and poet Rupert Arrowsmith is a tour de force of insights into Empson, Buddhist art and Buddhism itself. * Acumen * The Face of the Buddha is surely one of the most remarkable studies of Buddhist sculpture ever undertaken. When one of the greatest literary critics of the 20th century applies his incisive intellect to the analysis of the structural principles of images of the Buddha, unexpected insights emerge. In particular, William Empson's discovery of the asymmetrical composition of the Buddha's countenance in many works of East Asian and Southeast Asian art is revelatory, enabling him to illuminate a profound psychological tension between active and passive, between salvific and compassionate on the one hand and contemplative and meditative on the other, constituting the Buddha-nature as a whole. * Victor H . Mair, University of Pennsylvania * Empson's fascinating monograph, which for its sheer exoticism will astonish any Empson buffs who weren't aware of its existence, may not convert the scholar of world religions or of Buddhism or of Buddhist art to its views, as the neophyte will learn from the admiring and helpful introduction by Rupert Arrowsmith. It is nonetheless an exciting tour of the one artform--early Buddhist sculpture--that seems to have captured Empson's full attention. The Face of the Buddha is a thrilling surprise, though, mainly because here, in a work of the left hand long known only to a few, we find Empson's brilliance and the deadpan comedy of his prose in top form. * Paul Fry, Yale University * Anyone interested in Buddism or oriental art will find Empson's book fascinating, and Rupert Arrowsmith's Introduction complements it perfectly: he is Boswell to Empsonas Johnson, faithfully following in his footsteps, elucidating his intellectual and historical context, and quite as hooked on the subject as the master himself. Occupying practically as much space as the text, it is its indispensable companion. * Peter Popham, author of The Lady and the Peacock and The Lady and the Generals *