I took a long time over this book, and I'm still not sure what to make of it. At times it felt like each chapter deepened and expanded its point in a worthwhile way, but at times it felt like each chapter was saying the same thing. There's definitely something profound and insightful in its analysis of a type of classical Chinese art, but I'm deeply wary of the overarching claims the [non-Chinese] author makes about the totality of Chinese culture and worldview based on that.