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    The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 1
    The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 1
    The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 1
    Ebook541 pages16 hours

    The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 1

    By Anthony C. Yu

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Anthony C. Yu’s translation of The Journey to the West,initially published in 1983, introduced English-speaking audiences to the classic Chinese novel in its entirety for the first time. Written in the sixteenth century, The Journey to the West tells the story of the fourteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Xuanzang, one of China’s most famous religious heroes, and his three supernatural disciples, in search of Buddhist scriptures. Throughout his journey, Xuanzang fights demons who wish to eat him, communes with spirits, and traverses a land riddled with a multitude of obstacles, both real and fantastical. An adventure rich with danger and excitement, this seminal work of the Chinese literary canonis by turns allegory, satire, and fantasy.
    With over a hundred chapters written in both prose and poetry, The Journey to the West has always been a complicated and difficult text to render in English while preserving the lyricism of its language and the content of its plot. But Yu has successfully taken on the task, and in this new edition he has made his translations even more accurate and accessible. The explanatory notes are updated and augmented, and Yu has added new material to his introduction, based on his original research as well as on the newest literary criticism and scholarship on Chinese religious traditions. He has also modernized the transliterations included in each volume, using the now-standard Hanyu Pinyin romanization system. Perhaps most important, Yu has made changes to the translation itself in order to make it as precise as possible.

    One of the great works of Chinese literature, The Journey to the West is not only invaluable to scholars of Eastern religion and literature, but, in Yu’s elegant rendering, also a delight for any reader.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateApr 5, 2013
    ISBN9780226971407
    The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 1

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    Reviews for The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 1

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      Vikkilaw is absolutely right. This book is extremely engrossing you'd go hungry if you didnt prepare some food before picking it up. I think many in East Asian pop culture has its roots from this book. Many Chinese may not have read the book in its entirety but everyone I understand is very familiar with the characters and the general story. The book permeates contemporary culture. I got to thinking even Doraemon and Nobita are reincarnations of Tripitaka and Sun Wukong. This book can be enjoyed in many different levels, but any which way it is first-class enetertainment. I am on to the second volume in my journey.
    • 5/5
      Wu Cheng’en’s sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West tells the story of the pilgrimage of Buddhist monk Xuanzang to the “Western Regions” of Central Asia and India in order to obtain Buddhist sūtras and return them to China between 626 and 645 CE. Xuanzang wrote his own account in 646, Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, which formed the outline of Wu’s novel. The novel is a humorous adventure that satires Chinese bureaucracy while also telling an allegory of enlightenment. Many in the Euro-American world know elements of the story from Arthur Waley’s 1942 abridged translation, Monkey: A Folk-Tale of China, while some elements of the story inspired Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball. Along with Luo Guanzhong’s fourteenth-century novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Shi Nai’an’s fourteenth-century novel Water Margin, and Cao Xueqin’s eighteenth-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber, this novel is one of the Four Classic Novels of Chinese literature. This edition presents the complete novel in four volumes, translated by William John Francis Jenner, a noted sinologist who completed this translation while working for Foreign Languages Press between 1963-1965. It features Qing Dynasty illustrations to supplement the text.
    • 4/5
      Warning: Do not read on an empty stomach or with an empty refrigerator.
    • 5/5
      Journey to the West is an epic fantasy adventure compiled in the 16th century by Wu Cheng’en from a body of oral and written sources. The setting is the Tang Dynasty (7th to 10th centuries), and the novel depicts in allegorical form the growing influence of Buddhism on China and its fusion with Taoism and Confucianism. The novel begins with the birth and early history of its principal character, Monkey. He is a creature of divine origins born from a sacred stone on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit many thousands of years ago. Not content with being king of a nation of monkeys, he seeks out a Taoist master from whom he learns magical powers so potent that Monkey dares to defy Heaven itself. For this he is imprisoned by the Tathagata Buddha under a mountain for five hundred years.Next we have the background of the Buddhist priest Sanzang, himself once an immortal but banished to mortal life as punishment for a careless misdeed. He has now purified his soul through ten reincarnations. He is chosen by the Tang Emperor for a monumental task: Sanzang is to journey from China to India where he will find the Tathagata Buddha atop Vulture Peak. He is to obtain copies of the holy Buddhist scriptures so that the people of China may improve their conduct and well-being.Sanzang is, frankly, a rather pathetic creature, pure though he may be, and could not get across town on his own, much less across a continent. Fortunately he has the divine aid of the Bodhisattva Guanyin, who frees Monkey and converts him to Buddhism so that he can be Sanzang’s guide and protector. Later he is joined by two other reformed immortals: Pig and Friar Sand.The great majority of the novel’s 100 chapters are devoted to the journey itself and the series of adventures that befall the four monks. Most of the adventures follow the same format: They come to a particularly dangerous-looking mountain, forest or city. Sanzang quails in fear, but Monkey reassures him, but provides some prudent warning. Sanzang then ignores Monkey’s warnings, blunders right into the danger and gets himself captured by some evil spirit. Monkey fights a mighty battle to recover his master, but eventually must either resort to trickery or summon divine aid to save the day.Most of the demons and monsters they face are supernatural creatures that have escaped from their heavenly masters and assumed human form. They are particularly eager to capture Sanzang because he is so pure that his flesh has special properties. The male demons will gain immortality by eating him, the female demons by mating with him.Chinese culture has for centuries been built upon a fusion of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, and Journey to the West, while it is most favorable to Buddhism, reflects that fusion. Monkey calls upon Taoist deities as frequently as he does Buddhist ones, and recommends the study of Confucius as well as the Buddhas and Laozi. The particular Taoists represented in the novel, however, are mostly (and spectacularly) evil, as was Monkey himself as a Taoist before his conversion to Buddhism.Though many abridgements have been published over the centuries, the 100 chapter version of Journey to the West is the authoritative one. It is delightfully easy to read, with some very inventive situations and plenty of humorous banter between the clever Monkey and the selfish, simple-minded Pig. With only three characters of any consequence, it is not only an easy book to digest but one that is easy to put aside and pick up days or weeks later. This may be inevitable as some of the adventures do begin to be a bit repetitive, and the novel, in the excellent 4-volume Foreign Language Press edition, is over 2300 pages long. Journey to the West is a cultural treasure that anyone with a serious interest in Chinese literature should read, but it is also an entertaining and amusing adventure story.
    • 5/5
      *****A great comic and allegorical adventure tale of a Buddhist monk's journey from China to India during the Tang dynasty to bring Buddhist scriptures back to China. Along the way, the monk hooks up with several animal/jhuman/magical assistants, including the Monkey King who is one of the best characters in world trickster literature. Deservedly a classic of chinese literature, this is both an exciting and hilarious comic-book adventure and a work of obscure allegory and chinese alchemy. Great fun and fascinating.
    • 4/5
      A classic Chinese novel with origins in oral tradition stretching back well over a thousand years. The standard version was written down in the late 16th century by Wu Cheng'en (or Cheng'en Wu if you're using European name order). It's still extremely influential today, all over Asia: reading this book explained a lot to me about both Chinese and Japanese narrative patterns. If you see a character in a work from either culture named "Goku" or "Wukong," chances are it's related to "Journey to the West."The basic plot is that a worthy monk travels to the West (here, the "west" is India) to retrieve some holy scriptures, and has all kinds of trouble with demons along the way. Fortunate that he has three disciples to protect him - Friar Sand, Brother Pig, and of course Monkey, the Great Sage Equaling Heaven.Deriving as it does from oral tradition, the format is rather episodic. The version I read contained only 34 of the 100 original chapters, but that was more than enough to get the basic idea. It was also a pretty good read. I found Monkey's means of travel especially amusing (he gets around by "somersault cloud").It's not well known outside of Asia. Since I finished this version I've enjoyed surprising Chinese acquaintances by casually mentioning Sun Wukong (that's Monkey) in conversation. They all know the story. Works for Japanese, too, though they titled it "Saiyuuki" instead of "Xīyóu Jì" and changed Monkey's name from "Sun Wukong" to "Son Goku."Well worth a read if you're interested in China or Japan.

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