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I've been finishing a lot of books lately. I usually find myself reading 3 or 4 at a time. I try and have some nice fiction to read at bedtime, and then usually try and read at least one history or anthropology book about China, and then another book on one of my other interests. Which for awhile was a lot of Carl Sagan, then witchcraft, and is currently early industrial revolution history of england. So I seem to spend a lot of my journal writing little book reports on the books I've been reading. Hopefully it's not too boring for my friends. But it's a good way to keep track, and hopefully share some good books with people.
But for those of you who don't know, Journey to the West, is a big Chinese novel. Though to call it a novel is kind of a misrepresentation. It's over 2200 pages (at least in the edition I read, translated) and is a series of stories, that started as an oral tradition, that got changed and passed down for many years, and eventually a couple hundred years ago, ended up in the book form that is today. The story is loosely based on actual historical accounts, in the Tang dynasty a monk was sent to India to collect Buddist scriptures and bring them back for the Emperor. This is what happens in the book, however he does this with the aid of several companions, the most notorious of which is the Monkey King, who himself was a demon/ taoist immortal, or "wrecked havoc" in heaven 500 years and is sent along to stop the priest from being eaten. (As it turns out when you're very holy and have been cultivating your conduct for 10 generations you're flesh now will convey immortality to those demons who eat it! - Hence many hazards for the poor monk). The book begins with the story of monkey, how he was born, learned the way, made lots of trouble in heaven, got his cudgel. As far as I've been able to tell it's everyone's favorite part of the story. The other day at half price books I was even able to find a nice dual language children's picture book of half of that part of the story. The next part of the story is Sanzang's (the monk) family story. Then a nice bit with the emperor going to hell, and then the monk's set off on their quest. They meet two other demon's they subdue and bring with them to lead the horse (a transformed dragon) and carry the luggage. Then proceeds a great many stories of battling demon's and monsters and shape changing and being captured and getting freed. With such a simple pattern the story should get repetitive and boring, but I never found that happening. It was always good to see how it would turn out, even when that invariably involved Monkey having to go to heaven to get someone to help him after he'd gotten his ass wuped trying to free his master again.
There are so many great little stories in here, and even though a lot of individual stories they all tie together, and there is some character development, eg, Monkey slowly learning he just can't kill all the people and demons he wants too. I'd read a shortened version of the story by Arthur Waley, simply called Monkey a year and a bit ago. But I have to say I enjoyed the full story much more. (The version I read this time was translated WF Jenner and published by Foreign Language Press, Beijing.) You get a much bigger glimpse of what's going on, and the Buddist and Taoist heavens and deities and how they interacted, at least from the perspective of a folk tale, which seems to be a good way to learn what the folk think, or are at least interested in. When I was reading the much more scholarly book of Way and Byway when he was giving examples of different views of the gods and their interactions with people I found myself flashing back to different episodes in the story and going, oh that's like when Monkey did this.
I started it several months ago when I first began learning Chinese characters, which I think made it more fun, as I would try and picture the words for several things, and was really happy when I could remember them. It wasn't as good as Story of the Stone or Dream of Red Mansions that book has several different titles in translation but remains one of my favorite stories to date. But I did enjoy it a lot more than Outlaws of the Marsh which started strong, but did fall into too much repetition, and had many many characters, who were very similar and it was hard to keep them all straight. Thankfully Journey to the West did not share the same problems. I found it throughly enjoyable!
But for those of you who don't know, Journey to the West, is a big Chinese novel. Though to call it a novel is kind of a misrepresentation. It's over 2200 pages (at least in the edition I read, translated) and is a series of stories, that started as an oral tradition, that got changed and passed down for many years, and eventually a couple hundred years ago, ended up in the book form that is today. The story is loosely based on actual historical accounts, in the Tang dynasty a monk was sent to India to collect Buddist scriptures and bring them back for the Emperor. This is what happens in the book, however he does this with the aid of several companions, the most notorious of which is the Monkey King, who himself was a demon/ taoist immortal, or "wrecked havoc" in heaven 500 years and is sent along to stop the priest from being eaten. (As it turns out when you're very holy and have been cultivating your conduct for 10 generations you're flesh now will convey immortality to those demons who eat it! - Hence many hazards for the poor monk). The book begins with the story of monkey, how he was born, learned the way, made lots of trouble in heaven, got his cudgel. As far as I've been able to tell it's everyone's favorite part of the story. The other day at half price books I was even able to find a nice dual language children's picture book of half of that part of the story. The next part of the story is Sanzang's (the monk) family story. Then a nice bit with the emperor going to hell, and then the monk's set off on their quest. They meet two other demon's they subdue and bring with them to lead the horse (a transformed dragon) and carry the luggage. Then proceeds a great many stories of battling demon's and monsters and shape changing and being captured and getting freed. With such a simple pattern the story should get repetitive and boring, but I never found that happening. It was always good to see how it would turn out, even when that invariably involved Monkey having to go to heaven to get someone to help him after he'd gotten his ass wuped trying to free his master again.
There are so many great little stories in here, and even though a lot of individual stories they all tie together, and there is some character development, eg, Monkey slowly learning he just can't kill all the people and demons he wants too. I'd read a shortened version of the story by Arthur Waley, simply called Monkey a year and a bit ago. But I have to say I enjoyed the full story much more. (The version I read this time was translated WF Jenner and published by Foreign Language Press, Beijing.) You get a much bigger glimpse of what's going on, and the Buddist and Taoist heavens and deities and how they interacted, at least from the perspective of a folk tale, which seems to be a good way to learn what the folk think, or are at least interested in. When I was reading the much more scholarly book of Way and Byway when he was giving examples of different views of the gods and their interactions with people I found myself flashing back to different episodes in the story and going, oh that's like when Monkey did this.
I started it several months ago when I first began learning Chinese characters, which I think made it more fun, as I would try and picture the words for several things, and was really happy when I could remember them. It wasn't as good as Story of the Stone or Dream of Red Mansions that book has several different titles in translation but remains one of my favorite stories to date. But I did enjoy it a lot more than Outlaws of the Marsh which started strong, but did fall into too much repetition, and had many many characters, who were very similar and it was hard to keep them all straight. Thankfully Journey to the West did not share the same problems. I found it throughly enjoyable!