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brightknightie) wrote2023-01-08 11:57 am
brightknightie) wrote2023-01-08 11:57 am
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Snowflake Challenge 2023 #2: Promo (Journey to the West)
"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."
Ridiculously oversimplified, here's the deal: A "five-man band" of adventurers -- many of them on redemption arcs -- quest from ancient China to India (that's the "west" of the title) to fetch scriptures written by the Buddha himself and bring them back to enlighten people.
Our main questing party is:
Are you wondering, hey, where is "the girl" in this otherwise so-archetypal team? She's Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion! She is the brains behind the whole quest. She brings them together, points them east, and digs them out of one mess after another. She even has the occasional storyline, like when her pet goldfish runs away from home and becomes a demon (this is totally canon).
And of course we have an array of recurring villains and allies, including Lady Iron Fan; her husband, the Bull Demon King; and their son, Red Boy, who gets defeated and converted and becomes a disciple of Guanyin, like her right-hand disciple Moksa, who is the brother and son respectively of recurring warriors Prince Nezha and Devaraja Li. Also Lao Tzu, the Buddha, the Jade Emperor, and a few other deities have multiple cameos. And of course Monkey's army of, well, monkeys.
So they all have many serial adventures, often involving demons who want to eat Tripitaka (because eating him will make them immortal), times Monkey gets them into a mess by acting impulsively, or times Pigsy gets them into a mess by acting lazy, greedy, or lustful. (There's a canonical mpreg incident. I kid you not.) Eventually they all learn their lessons and there is a happy ending. Yay! But forget the ending. It's all about the amusing adventures and the satire along the way.
(Yes, Sun Goku of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z is explicitly based on Monkey.)
I don't recommend starting right out with the unabridged translation of the 16th-century hundred-chapter novel (unless you really, really want to). Here's the path I followed to get this caught up in this story and its characters:
Along the way, I also gave myself a Great Courses class on Chinese religion (to better understand the satire) and met the academic fansite Journey to the West Research.
I'm currently in Volume 2 of Anthony Yu's unabridged translation. Join me? :-D
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."
Ridiculously oversimplified, here's the deal: A "five-man band" of adventurers -- many of them on redemption arcs -- quest from ancient China to India (that's the "west" of the title) to fetch scriptures written by the Buddha himself and bring them back to enlighten people.
Our main questing party is:
- Tripitaka (Xuanzang, Sanzang, the Tang Monk), a very holy Buddhist monk (possibly actually represents Confucianism), the reincarnation of a yet holier Buddhist personage, and "the chosen one" for this quest. He is so delicate that he can't get two miles into this adventure without ample help from the team. (He is extremely loosely based on a kick-ass real historical monk, who, unlike the fictional character, made this journey for real without any superpowered help or -- even more impressively -- his Emperor's permission.)
- Monkey (Sun Wukong, Pilgrim, Handsome Monkey King, Great Sage Equal to Heaven, Monkey of the Mind) is the real protagonist and almost everyone's favorite. He's an impulsive, superpowered monkey hatched from a rock, who becomes king of the monkeys on Flower Fruit Mountain while he's still a fairly ordinary monkey, but then has a midlife crisis, goes questing, studies under a Taoist scholar -- yadda yadda yadda: gains immortality seven times over, a signature magic weapon, shape-shifting and other superpowers -- travels to the underworld and back and very nearly takes over heaven single-handedly, until the Jade Emperor uses his "call a friend" and the Buddha personally intervenes to pin Monkey under a mountain for 500 years (until Tripitaka's quest).
- Pigsy (Zhu Bajie, Eight Rules, Idiot) used to be an admiral of the heavenly navy until he drunkenly hit on the very-not-interested moon goddess at a party, for which the Jade Emperor punished him, and he is now an anthropomorphic pig monster. He's easy-going and strong, and will work and fight hard when he must, but is known for preferring gluttony, laziness, and the kind of cheerfully indiscriminate lechery that got him into this mess in the first place.
- Sandy (Sha Wujing, Friar Sand, Sand Monk) is another fallen heavenly denizen, a former general who broke something that belonged to the Queen Mother of Heaven and is consequently now a river ogre (also had a kind of a Prometheus punishment going until he joined the team, where seven flying swords stabbed him every day; the Jade Emperor does not stand for folks distressing his mom). Sandy is the calm "straight man" of the team, polite, kind, and loyal. He's not as strong or superpowered as Monkey or Pigsy, but he's smarter than Pigsy and more logical than Monkey.
- The dragon-horse (Bai Long Ma, White Dragon Horse, Horse of the Will) is a young dragon who got in trouble for starting a fire in his dad's palace, got exiled, and then recruited to turn into a horse and let Tripitaka ride him for this journey, as no real horse is going to survive this adventure. He can talk, fly, and do magic, but he almost never does. He's basically just an extra-smart horse.
Are you wondering, hey, where is "the girl" in this otherwise so-archetypal team? She's Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion! She is the brains behind the whole quest. She brings them together, points them east, and digs them out of one mess after another. She even has the occasional storyline, like when her pet goldfish runs away from home and becomes a demon (this is totally canon).
And of course we have an array of recurring villains and allies, including Lady Iron Fan; her husband, the Bull Demon King; and their son, Red Boy, who gets defeated and converted and becomes a disciple of Guanyin, like her right-hand disciple Moksa, who is the brother and son respectively of recurring warriors Prince Nezha and Devaraja Li. Also Lao Tzu, the Buddha, the Jade Emperor, and a few other deities have multiple cameos. And of course Monkey's army of, well, monkeys.
So they all have many serial adventures, often involving demons who want to eat Tripitaka (because eating him will make them immortal), times Monkey gets them into a mess by acting impulsively, or times Pigsy gets them into a mess by acting lazy, greedy, or lustful. (There's a canonical mpreg incident. I kid you not.) Eventually they all learn their lessons and there is a happy ending. Yay! But forget the ending. It's all about the amusing adventures and the satire along the way.
(Yes, Sun Goku of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z is explicitly based on Monkey.)
I don't recommend starting right out with the unabridged translation of the 16th-century hundred-chapter novel (unless you really, really want to). Here's the path I followed to get this caught up in this story and its characters:
- "Legends Summarized: Journey to the West" by Overly Sarcastic Productions on YouTube (10 hand-illustrated videos, 10-20 minutes each) (I love this and recommend it most highly!)
- "Monkey King" by Myths and Legends podcast (11 audio episodes, 10-20 minutes each)
- Monkey King: Journey to the West (book, abridged, 2021) translation by Julia Lovell
- "Stories for Kids: Journey to the West" by Little Fox on YouTube (17 episodes at 5 minutes each, or 5 episodes at 15-20 minutes each)
- The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 1 of 4 (book, unabridged, 2012) translated by Anthony C. Yu
Along the way, I also gave myself a Great Courses class on Chinese religion (to better understand the satire) and met the academic fansite Journey to the West Research.
I'm currently in Volume 2 of Anthony Yu's unabridged translation. Join me? :-D
no subject
I'm not a video or podcast person, so I found an unabridged translation on the Internet Archive, with no translator named... not sure if it's good. It's certainly long! You weren't kidding, haha :)
no subject
There are apparently only 2 (or 3, depending how we count) unabridged translations into English so far. I'd bet that your digital copy is of either Anthony Yu's original (4 volumes, 1977-83; with extensive scholarly introduction and notes) or William Jenner's (4 volumes, 1982–84; with "no scholarly apparatus," Wikipedia says).
The one that I'm reading is Yu's updated 2012 edition of his own earlier work. The update was apparently his "retirement project" at the end of his career; he amended his translations based on newer scholarship, and revised and extended his notes and introduction.
I hope that it turns out to be fun for you! No problem if it doesn't of course. :-D
no subject
Thank you for the summary of the translations! I thought there'd be hundreds and no hope of finding out which, so I didn't look! I tried to find extracts of both, and I think it's the Anthony Yu translation, but without the notes! And this version was put together as a free ebook by the University of Adelaide. Still a bit of a mystery...
I might end up buying that new version if I like this one but wish there was more explanation :)
no subject
/has not read it, vaguely means to, but it's taken me *this* long to just get to Mallory, so we'll see.
no subject
Thank you! Excellent call: that's an awesome introduction. At 52 minutes, it's happily much less of an apparent up-front investment than the retellings I'd linked, and it has all the scholarly goodness and proper cultural context.
I hope you enjoy Mallory! :-D
no subject
I'm bookmarking it, most definitely!
Thanks for the info!
♥
no subject
Yes, you're exactly right: The Journey to the West is super fascinating and can be super overwhelming. I should have said, I've been on my journey with the Journey :-D for over a year now, one bit at a time.