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Snowflake Challenge 2023 #2: Promo (Journey to the West)
Sunday, January 8th, 2023 11:57 am"Write a promo, manifesto or primer."
Imagine, if you will, an epic crossover between Homer's Odyssey and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, with all the ancient Greek and medieval Christian religious beliefs and holy figures running around, equally, and interacting with each other and the protagonists. Then marinate this crossover in Cervantes's Don Quixote for satire and irony. Finally, generously dust it with shredded Spenser's Faerie Queene for allegory and top off with a slather of gooey melted Dante's Divine Comedy for worldbuilding. And it's funny. So funny.
That wild mash-up would be a western literary approximation of the eastern literary classic The Journey to the West, which is set in 7th-century China, and was published as the hundred-chapter novel we know today circa 1592. It's attributed to Wu Cheng'en (questioning the real authorship is a thing a la Shakespeare, only more so, because the original publication was anonymous). It wasn't translated into English at all until the early 20th-century, and wasn't translated into English in full until the 1980s, but of course it's been available and loved in many other languages for centuries. Like the European works I mention above, the hundred-chapter-novel of JttW draws on previous literature, folklore, and real history and religion to craft a literary achievement that has stood the test of time and been itself endlessly adapted. The way many of us might casually refer to Arthur's sword or Odysseus's journey, folks who grew up with JttW might casually refer to Wukong's rod or Xuanzang's quest.
We need a back-cover blurb here, right? Wikipedia says: "Enduringly popular, the novel is at once a comic adventure story, a humorous satire of Chinese bureaucracy, a source of spiritual insight, and an extended allegory." ( Read more... )
Imagine, if you will, an epic crossover between Homer's Odyssey and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, with all the ancient Greek and medieval Christian religious beliefs and holy figures running around, equally, and interacting with each other and the protagonists. Then marinate this crossover in Cervantes's Don Quixote for satire and irony. Finally, generously dust it with shredded Spenser's Faerie Queene for allegory and top off with a slather of gooey melted Dante's Divine Comedy for worldbuilding. And it's funny. So funny.
That wild mash-up would be a western literary approximation of the eastern literary classic The Journey to the West, which is set in 7th-century China, and was published as the hundred-chapter novel we know today circa 1592. It's attributed to Wu Cheng'en (questioning the real authorship is a thing a la Shakespeare, only more so, because the original publication was anonymous). It wasn't translated into English at all until the early 20th-century, and wasn't translated into English in full until the 1980s, but of course it's been available and loved in many other languages for centuries. Like the European works I mention above, the hundred-chapter-novel of JttW draws on previous literature, folklore, and real history and religion to craft a literary achievement that has stood the test of time and been itself endlessly adapted. The way many of us might casually refer to Arthur's sword or Odysseus's journey, folks who grew up with JttW might casually refer to Wukong's rod or Xuanzang's quest.
We need a back-cover blurb here, right? Wikipedia says: "Enduringly popular, the novel is at once a comic adventure story, a humorous satire of Chinese bureaucracy, a source of spiritual insight, and an extended allegory." ( Read more... )
