What is the author's style in Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchell?

The translator of the TAO TE CHING, Stephen Mitchell studied at Amherst, the University of Paris, and Yale, and later "unstudies" through fourteen years of Zen training, initially under the Zen Master Seung Sahn and Continuum founder Emilie Conrad Da'oud, both of whom he quotes in the endnotes. Mitchell does not translate from the Chinese original, but works from literal translations and tries to capture author Lao-tzu's mind.