![]() ![]() He is capable of 72 self-transformations, which means Monkey can turn into another being (without the help of the Polyjuice Potion), any creature (sans the restrictions imposed on Animagi), or a still object.įor his outrageous audacity to rebel against the established deities, Monkey is imprisoned by the Buddha under a mountain for 500 years until an opportunity for redemption finally comes. (Chinese parents love to steal this plot and appropriate it as an answer to the dreaded question from their toddlers, “Where did I come from?” thus contributing to a widespread misunderstanding about human reproduction among Chinese children.) After attending a Taoist school, Monkey masters the supernatural powers of flying on clouds and cloning himself from body hair. He is born from a stone egg, which has been fertilized and nourished by the essences of Heaven and Earth since the Creation. At the center of the saga is a magical monkey named Sun Wukong - frequently referred to as Monkey King - who is the most powerful of the disciples. The latter features a Buddhist monk named Tripitaka, his three hideous-looking disciples, and an enormous cast of deities, immortals, demons, and spirits. By the time a 100-chapter version of Journey to the West was compiled and published in 1592, there had been little semblance between Xuanzang’s original account of his travels and the fantasy novel. His extraordinary trip inspired numerous legends in oral storytelling and folk entertainment. Xuanzang, a monk of the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), made a 16-year pilgrimage to India in the seventh century, before bringing back Buddhist scriptures and devoting the rest of his life translating those Sanskrit texts into Chinese. ![]() Pick up this edition and you will join the 1.5 billion people who, to paraphrase Neil Gaiman’s comment on the tale, share in their DNA an intimate knowledge of the havoc-wreaking Monkey’s herculean journey westward to find a special collection of Buddhist sutras in India. If you wish to understand why Monkey King has been a fixture in Chinese popular culture for no fewer than five centuries, then look no further. EXCEPT FOR THE one error I spotted on its cover, Julia Lovell’s new translation of Monkey King: Journey to the West is the best English edition of the classic Chinese fantasy novel, Xi You Ji (literally “west journey record”), I have ever read. ![]()
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