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Title: Journey to the West, Volume 1
ISBN: 0226971503
Author:
Publicate Date: 1980-02-15
Publish: 1980-02-15
List Price: $25.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $16.25
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $15.86
Amazon Merchant Price: $17.32
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| Customer Review: |
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1: In Every Way, Larger Than Life
Let me start out by saying that this is one of the most amazing pieces of literature I've ever seen. I have the utmost respect for anyone who could write something as imaginative as this. In almost every chapter there are at least four or five things that simply blow the reader's mind. The only problem is Volume 1 alone is WAY too long. And there are three MORE volumes to read after this one. You realize how long it took me to get through just the first volume? From November to August. That's almost ten months! Needless to say, I've read several other books as I was trudging my way through this one. As much as I love the imagination put into the practically unlimited number of pages, it is just far too much stuff for me to read.
The only flaws in the work besides its extremely massive size are its constant repetitions when it comes to the explanation of the plot, and its somewhat out-of-order plot sequence. The actual Journey to the West doesn't even BEGIN until chapter 13 or so, and that's halfway through this volume! Before the Journey starts, we see 7 or so chapters showing how a monkey became immortal, disrupted heaven, and was banished into a prison for 500 years. Then we see a chapter where a Bodhisattva comes from the Western Heaven to find a scripture pilgrim who will go on a journey to attain some scrolls. It APPEARS the journey will begin after this Bodhisattva event, but instead the story digresses to a woodsman and a fisherman arguing about who has a better life in SEVEN pages of poems, and then to a dragon king fiddling with heavenly decrees in order to win a bet with a fortune teller, and then to a person who has to go to hell to rescue a dragon king after failing to protect him from being beheaded, and so forth until FINALLY a scripture pilgrim is selected several chapters later and the pilgrim meets and rescues the monkey that was running amuck in the first 7 chapters. So you can see how the plot sequence is quite perplexing. Fortunately the plot is thoroughly repeated every two pages or so, so you never get lost, but you do get overwhelmed with repetition.
Now that all of that negativity is out of the way, it's time to discuss the fun stuff. The monkey named Sun Wu-K'ung is a riot. He wins battles by plucking a hair from his head, chewing the hair up, spitting it out while shouting "change," and the hair turns into hundreds of other monkeys just like himself. He's armed with a rod that's so large and heavy it was used to weigh down the entire sea, but he's able to shrink the rod to a small enough size to store it in his ear. He's able to travel hundreds of thousands of miles in a single somersault and transform into pretty much anything he wants. At one point he transforms into a temple to hide from a powerful enemy, but he can't think of what to do with his tail, so he disguises it into a flagpole. The enemy laughs and says, "Whoever heard of a flagpole next to a temple!"
There's a lot of stuff in the story that's pretty darn funny. The monkey Sun Wu-K'ung is appointed to a post of pi-ma-wen to take care of horses, and at first is pleased until he finds out it's a lowly position in the heavens. He repeatedly kills little demons who appear to be minding their own business, and the scripture pilgrim he's guarding tells him he should be less hot-headed. Demons show up in this book like flowers would show up in another book. It's just not a big deal for the author to slap the word "demon" on one of the pages in here.
There's an incredible amount of variety in the characters, settings, magical powers, weapons, appearances - you name it. And everything is always blown WAY out of proportion. Rivers are 800 miles wide, battles last for 200 rounds, places have names like The Inn of Ten Thousand Flowers, and there are countless different immortal dieties. Everything is so much larger than life, similar to the thickness of the actual printed work itself. (It takes up some shelf space alright.)
The creativity may very well be unsurpassed in any adventure I've ever seen. One monster catches all 5 members of the scripture pilgrim's party in his sleeve to win a battle. A well-meaning fellow takes watermelons to hell to give some wretched hungry souls a break by putting the watermelons on his head and then drinking some poison, and the trick actually works. Fruits that grow on trees and take 30,000 years to ripen are shaped like newborn infants. Goodness. Some of these ideas may be tastless, but they're all definintely crazy. Very impressive indeed.
Overall, this is a praiseworthy work that I have to unfortunately criticize simply for its length and repetitiveness. I highly recommend an abridged version.
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2: Welcome to Part I of a Great Epic!
This is part one of four volumes in Professor Yu's excellent translation of all one hundred chapters of the magnificent Hsi Yu Chi, one of the four great classics of China. The brilliantly detailed adventures, including sparkling battle scenes and characters that give today's well-known mercenaries and crime figures a run for their money, will shock those readers who thought all that started with Hollywoood. The details of bureaucracies laden with sloppy management and CEOs who remember and punish to excess everybody's mistakes but their own is a revelation. The words of the Monkey King's first teacher, "Nothing in the world is difficult, only the mind makes it so" underscore the deep spirituality on which this book is based, making it satisfying to read at this level as well.
Some say a great work of literature is like a stunning piece of golden, bejeweled tapestry, and its best translation is like the reverse side of the cloth, same materials yet missing the design and jewels on the face. Therefore the awkwardness of some phrases and terms should not discourage the reader as they are to be expected. I hope instead that such parts encourage usage of aids to understanding such as viewing versions of the story adapted for television and learning to read some of the Chinese original. This entire work is a very worthwhile investment, to keep in a very accessible area of the bookshelf where it can be referred to at each stage of one's life.
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3: Love it!
I really love this book. I have already bought the second volume, and I plan to buy the last two. It is translated very well, and its fun to read. My only gripe is the price. I think twenty-five dollars is a lot for a paperback. However, I still think this book deserves five stars.
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4: Simply read or study the history as well.
Although I did not find it as "easy" a read as I had expected,
one has the sense of getting as much of the original flavor as possible
from a translation.
For history and background, the introduction is longer
than some chapters! There are also ample footnotes
with plenty of information.
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5: now an abridged edition is available the same translator
look under the title the monkey and the monk...
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