Monkey by Arthur Waley and Wu Ch-Eng En | Spoiler-Free Review | Plots & Points

Join me as we take a Journey to the West! Will we find enlightenment, excitement and action in the pages of Arthur Waley's treatment of this legendary Chinese classic or will it be an ABRIDGEment to far!? (HAWHAW!)

[mariorodriguezjunior]

Nice review 👍🏾 Waley translated 30 chapters from the original 100; the first 7 & the last 6, if I recall correctly, and 3 narratives made up of several chapters for the middle part, which he felt would best engage western audiences at the time, but I agree, it was at the expense of character development. We don't see how Sun Wukong goes from insolent jerk to Buddhahood, it just kind of happens & bang, the end.

[danecobain]

Very cool, I've got a collection of Arthur Waley's translated Chinese poetry from about 1930 which was pretty good!

[BiblioAtlas]

I'm happy you got to this. 2000-ish sounds about right. 😅 How many pages is your edition?

[invaderzod]

You should check out Never Die by Rob J Hayes. It’s a fairly neat asian inspired self contained fantasy book about a group of characters on a suicide squad type journey. I’m bringing it up because this monkey thing sounds kinda similar.

[iamgoingtodeckyoutwo]

White guy don’t like the white guy translation of the most famous and influential piece of literature of all time? Oh no.

Jokes aside, thanks, I was actually looking for this book.