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brightknightie) wrote2026-05-22 09:40 am
brightknightie) wrote2026-05-22 09:40 am
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The Penguin Classics version of Journey to the West
I recently bumped into the information that Penguin Classics had been using the Arthur Waley abridged translation (1942) of The Journey to the West right up until the Julia Lovell abridged translation (2021). This startled me. It shouldn't have. What could they have used instead? It was Waley or nothing in English until the '80s. And the two translations from the '80s (Yu and Jenner) are unabridged. JttW is approximately the same length as The Lord of the Rings. Anthony Yu did abridge his own translation in 2006! But Yu is a challenging read, not least because his meticulously-faithful-to-the-original paragraphing (no breaks when different characters speak) gets exhausting.
As you may know, The Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en (1592) is a masterpiece of Chinese literature and the source of loads of tropes in all media. (Look behind the waterfall? JttW.) To oversimplify, think of it as: the Homeric epics, Le Morte d'Arthur, and The Faerie Queene rolled into one by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Or recognize it in Dragonball Z, Lego Monkie Kid, Black Myth Wukong... Watch the delightful Overly Sarcastic Productions retelling.
Arthur Waley's 1942 abridgement introduced the English-speaking world to JttW. While highly entertaining and accessible, it treated the text exclusively as a collection of folktales, deliberately omitting the theology, philosophy, and politics. He gave us the indelible, beloved English names Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy for the iconic characters, names which are simultaneously perfect and severe misrepresentations. I gather that Waley did this sincerely, not ignorantly or oppressively; he was consciously modernist and following the lead of Chinese scholars of his day, but... ouch! Arriving at Waley from this end of history makes for some cringing.
So, yay, Julia Lovell's lovely abridged translation for our era, and yay, Penguin Classics for getting it into more people's hands and imaginations. (See it on Amazon.)
As you may know, The Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en (1592) is a masterpiece of Chinese literature and the source of loads of tropes in all media. (Look behind the waterfall? JttW.) To oversimplify, think of it as: the Homeric epics, Le Morte d'Arthur, and The Faerie Queene rolled into one by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Or recognize it in Dragonball Z, Lego Monkie Kid, Black Myth Wukong... Watch the delightful Overly Sarcastic Productions retelling.
Arthur Waley's 1942 abridgement introduced the English-speaking world to JttW. While highly entertaining and accessible, it treated the text exclusively as a collection of folktales, deliberately omitting the theology, philosophy, and politics. He gave us the indelible, beloved English names Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy for the iconic characters, names which are simultaneously perfect and severe misrepresentations. I gather that Waley did this sincerely, not ignorantly or oppressively; he was consciously modernist and following the lead of Chinese scholars of his day, but... ouch! Arriving at Waley from this end of history makes for some cringing.
So, yay, Julia Lovell's lovely abridged translation for our era, and yay, Penguin Classics for getting it into more people's hands and imaginations. (See it on Amazon.)