The Journey to the West
The day before my birthday - that is, the day before yesterday - I finished the complete translation of The Journey to the West, having got it as a birthday present the previous year. One of the four great works of classical Chinese literature, and the second of the four I’ve read, after Dream of the Red Chamber (the other two are the Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, for the future).
JW (as the translator styles it in the footnotes) is completely bonkers. Ostensibly the story of the monk Xuanzang (aka the Tang Monk) going from China to the West (ie India) to get scriptures from Buddha. The real main character though, is his main disciple, Monkey, aka Pilgrim, aka Handsome Monkey King, aka Great Sage, Equal to Heaven. He is a superpowered monkey who - as every single character will remind you - caused a lot of trouble in Heaven five hundred years ago. Also present are Eight Rules, aka Idiot, a gluttonous pig man, and Sha Monk, who I think is canonically about 12 feet tall but doesn’t bring a lot to the whole endeavour frankly.
This book gets a bit repetitive at times, so here’s stuff that happens quite a few times
- The Tang Monk is kidnapped. Constantly. Turns out in the end, he had to go through 81 trials, and most of them are him getting kidnapped
- If he is not kidnapped, some lady demon wants to marry him
- Eight Rules hassles everyone present until he is fed
- Things look bad so Eight Rules immediately gives up and tells everyone to disperse
- Monkey recognises a demon in diguise. He warns the Tang Monk, who ignores him. The Monk is then kidnapped
- Monkey arrives at a demon stronghold and small fiends run back to their boss shouting “Great King! It’s bad! It’s bad!”
- The main demon turns out to be the pet of someone from Heaven, who comes down to retrieve it just before Monkey smashes it to death
- Monkey gets in over his head, and the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin bails him out and gives a job to whoever he’s fighting.
- Monkey beats one or more demons or thieves to death and the Tang Monk gets upset and recites the spell that causes him pain.
- Monkey turns into a bee or other small insect to infiltrate into a demon stronghold
- Monkey turns into a bee or other small insect to go into a demon’s stomach and kick his way out
- Something is set to the tune of “Moon Over West River”
- When the demon is defeated and reveals its true form to be a leopard or centipede or six-eared macaque