Monkey (Penguin Classics) [Mass Market Paperback]

Most often referred to as Xi You Ji or, Journey to the West, it is difficult to appreciate why the author chose to call it "Monkey". While the character of Monkey does occupy much of the first part of the book and remains the strongest and, I'm guessing, most people's favourite character throughout, he is still only part of the entourage of characters who face the Journey. Still, what's in a title?

This book is replete with humour, both obvious and subtle. It would help if you had a certain understanding of Chinese History and culture in your reading of this book to understand the many references contained within. However, even if you don't know a jot about anything to do with China, you will still find this book immensely enjoyable and full of quotable wisdoms.

It details first the story of the birth of monkey and his fate and then the birth of "Tripitaka" and then begins the Journey to the West. It might often appear a bit disjointed, leaping around topics. For example, you begin with the story of Monkey, and are then thrown into a (seemingly) completely unrelated topic. But the way Wu Cheng'An has worked all these plots into a coherent story is truly brilliant. Instead of finding it disjointed, I found the the jumps kept the book very exciting. While there are certain parts of the plot which I assume are composed according to the epic style of the time (for example, all the battles take place in rounds, or bouts, and seem to follow a standardised format of engage and retreat/chase), these don't detract anything from the novel to one who is used to epic literature (for example, the battles in the Iliad followed a pattern).

In following the path of Tripitaka, Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy you invariably pick your favourite for each has their own individual personalities and stock epithets. Pigsy is fat and glutenous and fights with a rake (!) and perhaps is one of the funniest charicatures in the book. Monkey is a mischief maker, both loveable and naughty with fabulous powers. Sandy... doesn't really do much. Tripitaka is hilarious simply because he is portrayed as the hero of this book but spends most of his time being rescued by his disciples! It truly is riotous.

Thus, even if you fail to understand the relationships of the San Jiao (Three teachings of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism)or the nature of the bureaucracy (the way heaven mimics earth), you will still find this one of the funniest reads of your life.

Enjoy!

(The other three classics of Chinese literature are The Three Kingdoms, The Story of the Stone/Dream of the Red Chamber and The Outlaws of the Marsh and I highly recommend all of them)

This translation covers only sections of the Monkey/Journey to the West saga, but what there is of it conveys well the flavour of the tale without outstaying its welcome. The plot, such as it is, revolves around the priest Tripitaka and his disciples (including Monkey), who have been charged to journey to the West and return with Buddhist scriptures for the enlightenment of China.

The story can, at times, be distinctly difficult to get your head around; superficially at least, it's little more than a succession of episodes involving bizarre monsters being defeated with elaborate magical powers. There is, however, plenty of humour - generally farcical in nature, although occasionally quite dry - and the bickering of the main characters is frequently entertaining. The bureaucratic nature of heaven, in which spirits and deities are assigned strictly hierarchical posts - with salaries! - is amusing regardless of how much you know of Chinese history and society.

However, many of the Buddhist and Taoist elements may be confusing to readers unfamiliar with the basic concepts. Some of the episodes rely quite heavily on outcomes grounded in, say, the workings of karma or the achievement of enlightenment - although most do conclude with Monkey and friends beating up the monsters in question, frequently with the spiritual aid of Kuan-yin and other divinities. But I do suspect that there are allusions and layers I'm missing...

To paraphrase the end-of-chapter refrain, if you want to know whether Monkey and his companions succeed on their quest, you'll have to read the book!

This abridged telling of the story is obviously well translated - the English is very rich and - where some differences in language could not be literally resolved (like when Chinese wordplay were rendered irrelevant) there were useful footnotes. Waley has gone against the convention for previous translations of the Monkey story; he has rendered a small section of the saga in its entirety rather than covering the entire story in a much abridged form.

I found the story fairly dense, it is very stylised and so fans of Chinese history and culture will love it. I was surprised by how malevolent the Monkey character was and by how antagonistic the relationships between him and the other main characters were.

For those fellow fans of the TV programme, roughly half of the book comprises the story of Monkey before the TV show - i.e. the story of how he rose from a simple monkey to become an Immortal and a Monkey King. The rest of the book describes the quest of Monkey, Sandy, Pigsy and Tripitaka to retrieve scripture scrolls from the Buddhas of India. This part of the book was most like the TV show - a series of sub-quests or episodes with the team of characters resolving sub-plots (like ridding a village of some evil ogres who plague and bully them) but I found they became slightly repetitive and hard to follow (due to the plethora of Dragon-Kings, heavenly locations and minor deities, and the inconsistent wielding of magical powers which made me think, "well if you have THAT magic power, why didn't you employ it in the last chapter when it could have easily got you out of that tight squeeze?").

The story is full of allegory and subtle humour and satire - but I suspect it was slightly too highbrow and subtle and buried in the Chinese imagery and language for me to appreciate fully. If you liked the TV series then the familiar names have some nostalgia value but the book is slightly hard work - and the team of characters not the jovial tight-knit bunch I remember; indeed there exists between the main characters throughout the book a sense of mutual dislike which gave the book, I feel, an uneasy and uncomfortable atmosphere.