The most immediately striking feature of Michael Nylan's The Chinese Pleasure Book, apart from the beauty of the cover design, is its title: it playfully evokes an Orientalizing fantasy world of sensual delights and exotic pastimes—a world that could not seem further away from an academic study of classical Chinese texts. But it does the job of drawing attention to the topic at hand, and to the fact that pleasure—and not just of the sublimated variety—was indeed an issue of central concern for premodern Chinese thinkers. It is also an honest one, as titles go, insofar as it leaves somewhat unspecified the sort of engagement this book offers with respect to pleasure. For, although Nylan begins her narrative by stating that it “traces the evolution of pleasure theories in early China over the course of a millennium and a half, from the fourth century BCE to the eleventh century,” (p. 17) what she offers isn't quite—or not just—a conceptual history of pleasure: while three of the post-introductory chapters present what we might possibly call “early theories of pleasure,” focusing on the role and importance of pleasure in the writings of Mencius, Zhuangzi, and Xunzi (chapters 3, 4, and 5), the remaining three are rather extended case studies of prominent intellectual figures thinking and writing about specific things that they found pleasure in: the ancient masters on music and friendship (chapter 2), Yang Xiong on the reading and learning of ancient classical texts (chapter 6), and Tao Qian and Su Shi on literary communion and returning home (chapter 7). This “pleasure book” encompasses both types of endeavors under a single umbrella category.

Its somewhat loose organization notwithstanding, there is an argument about pleasure (focusing on the discourse surrounding the Chinese term le 樂) running through all of the chapters in this book, namely, that there was a basic, shared approach to pleasure embraced by “nearly all the thinkers” from the Warring States period to the eleventh century, and that this was a preoccupation with “the problem of converting the consuming pleasures—those that expend vast wealth, time, and physical energy—into sustaining pleasures that could support, rather than deplete or corrupt the polity, the family, or the body” (p. 33). The central ethical concern for moral and political theorists was to devise ways for people to “maximize their opportunities for receiving and giving pleasure” (p. 155). Nylan further proposes that such an understanding was premised on a particular account of the physiology of pleasure that was presumably shared by all the relevant writers, whom she calls “pleasure thinkers” (p. 56).

The book has many virtues. Perhaps most important is that it takes on a long-standing tradition that has dismissed pleasure as something that was downplayed or, worse, suppressed by classical authors. And it demonstrates, through the mobilization of an impressive array of source material from history, poetry, philosophy, and ritual texts, just how central considerations of pleasure were to early Chinese ideas about statecraft and what it means to live a fully realized life. Contrasting the Chinese approach to pleasure with modern Western associations of the term with “happiness” and “joy,” on the one hand, and with hedonistic pleasure, on the other, Nylan highlights the importance the Chinese tradition placed on the achievement of long-term satisfaction of pleasure, as opposed to short-lived pleasures that threaten one's well-being. Nylan's discussions are filled with thoughtful meditations and asides, and part of the pleasure of reading this book is enjoying the fact that it is not driven by a predictable roadmap, but takes the time and attention to linger, consider, and draw out philosophically expansive insights.

The book has some controversial elements as well, which have to do with its overall conceptualization of pleasure and the corresponding methodology. Most basically, I question the premise of the book that we can process the complex ethical and philosophical visions of the thinkers under discussion through the currency of pleasure—at least as framed within the logic of calculated self-interest. I question also whether we can, in fact, discuss the thinkers under discussion as “pleasure theorists,” if by pleasure we can also refer to Oscar Wilde's characteristically provocative declaration that “Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about” (quoted on p. 33). That mainstream early philosophers like Mencius, Xunzi, and Zhuangzi took pleasure as an important consideration in political strategy and as a necessary feature of the properly lived life seems beyond question. But there is a crucial conceptual distinction to be made between, on the one hand, recognizing the importance of pleasure as a political motivator and as a concomitant of the good life, and on the other, maintaining that maximizing long-term pleasure is the goal of life. To elide this distinction and reduce their claims about the importance of pleasure to a “pleasure calculus” seems unwarranted and also ignores the fact that these thinkers were, at bottom, realists for whom the content and meaning of pleasure were dependent on (and not determinative of) their understanding of the Way (broadly conceived), and who recognized the need to adapt one's sensibilities and preferences to that understanding. What Xunzi, Mencius, and Zhuangzi proposed seems thus a far cry from what Oscar Wilde had in mind, and a more foundational discussion of what pleasure is—one that attends to its complex ontological status and shifting conceptual contexts—would have been welcome.

Despite these issues, The Chinese Pleasure Book represents a formidable achievement and marks a major contribution to the study of a topic that has been neglected in Sinological studies for far too long.