Journey to the West

Journey to the West () is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is regarded as one of the great Chinese novels, and has been described as arguably the most popular literary work in East Asia. It was widely known in English-speaking countries through the British scholar Arthur Waley's 1942 abridged translation Monkey.

The novel is a fictionalized and fantastic account of the pilgrimage of the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who went on a 19-year journey to India in the 7th century AD to seek out and collect Buddhist scriptures (sūtras). The novel retains the broad outline of Xuanzang's own account, Records of the Western Regions, but embellishes it with fantasy elements from folk tales and the author's invention. The beginning part of the story deals with the earlier exploits of Sun Wukong, a monkey born on Flower Fruit Mountain from a stone egg that forms from an ancient rock created by the coupling of Heaven and Earth, who learns the art of the Tao, 72 polymorphic transformations, combat, and secrets of immortality, and whose guile and force earns him the name Qitian Dasheng (). Wukong was tasked by Bodhisattva Guanyin and the Buddha to become Tang Sanzang's first disciple, journeying with him to India and provides him with three other disciples who agree to help him in order to atone for their sins: Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing and White Dragon Horse. Riding the latter, Sanzang and his disciples journey to a mythical version of India and find enlightenment through the power and virtue of cooperation.

Journey to the West has strong roots in Chinese folk religion, Chinese mythology, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoist and Buddhist folklore. The pantheon of Taoist immortals and Buddhist bodhisattvas are still reflective of certain Chinese religious attitudes today, while being the inspiration of many modern manhwa, manhua, manga and anime series. It contains many religious references and spiritual concepts which often involve plays on Chinese names of characters and places, which are often lost in translation to other languages. It is a progenitor to the xianxia literary genre that combines martial arts with high fantasy. Enduringly popular, the novel is simultaneously a comic adventure, a satire of Chinese bureaucracy, a source of spiritual reflection, and a rich allegory.

History

Creation and authorship

thumb|right|The four protagonists, from left to right: [[Sun Wukong, Tang Sanzang (on the White Dragon Horse), Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing, as depicted on the Long Corridor in the Summer Palace, Beijing]]

thumb|right|The 1592 edition of Journey to the West, published by Jinling's Shidetang Hall, is considered the earliest extant printed version of the book.

The modern 100-chapter form of Journey to the West dates from the 16th century. Embellished stories based on Xuanzang's journey to India had circulated in China through oral storytelling for centuries. They appeared in book form as early as the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279). The Yongle Encyclopedia, completed in 1408, contains excerpts of a version of the story written in colloquial Chinese. The earliest surviving edition of Journey to the West was published in 1592 in Nanjing. Two earlier editions were published between 1522 and 1566, but no copies of them survive.

The authorship of Journey to the West is traditionally ascribed to Wu Cheng'en, but the question is complicated by the fact that much of the novel's material originated from folk tales. Anthony C. Yu, writing in 2012, warned that "this vexing dispute over the novel's authorship, similar to that on the priority of its textual versions, see-sawed back and forth for nearly a century without resolution." Hu Shih, literary scholar, former Chancellor of Peking University, and then Ambassador to the United States, wrote in 1942 that the novel was thought to have been written and published anonymously by Wu Cheng'en. He reasoned that the people of Wu's hometown attributed it to him early on, and kept records to that effect as early as 1625; thus, claimed Hu, Journey to the West was one of the earliest Chinese novels for which the authorship is officially documented.

More recent scholarship casts doubts on this attribution. Brown University Chinese literature scholar David Lattimore stated in 1983: "The Ambassador's confidence was quite unjustified. What the gazetteer says is that Wu wrote something called The Journey to the West. It mentions nothing about a novel. The work in question could have been any version of our story, or something else entirely." Translator W. J. F. Jenner pointed out that although Wu had knowledge of Chinese bureaucracy and politics, the novel itself does not include any political details that "a fairly well-read commoner could not have known."

One interpretive tradition views Journey to the West as the outcome of a writing game which was popular among Chinese literati.

The overall plot of Journey to the West was "already a part of Chinese folk and literary tradition in the form of "folk stories with informal language", a poetic novelette, and a six-part drama play series, which was transcribed and written down, before the current version was written. The events of Xiyoubu take place between the end of chapter 61 and the beginning of chapter 62 of Journey to the West. The author, Dong Yue (), wrote the book because he wanted to create an opponent—in this case, desire—that Sun could not defeat with his great strength and martial skill.

Notable English-language translations

Abridged

Monkey: A Folk-Tale of China (1942), an abridged translation by Arthur Waley. For many years, this was the most well-known translation available in English. The Waley translation has also been published as Adventures of the Monkey God, Monkey to the West, Monkey: Folk Novel of China, and The Adventures of Monkey, and in a further abridged version for children, Dear Monkey (). Waley noted in his preface that the method adopted in earlier abridgements was "to leave the original number of separate episodes, but drastically reduce them in length, particularly by cutting out dialogue. I have for the most part adopted the opposite principle, omitting many episodes, but translating those that are retained almost in full, leaving out, however, most of the incidental passages in verse, which go very badly into English." The degree of abridgement, 30 out of the 100 chapters (which corresponds to roughly 1/6 of the whole text), and excising most of the verse, has led to a recent critic awarding it the lesser place, as a good retelling of the story. On the other hand, it has been praised as "remarkably faithful to the original spirit of the work."

: The literary scholar Andrew H. Plaks points out that Waley's abridgement reflected his interpretation of the novel as a "folktale"; this "brilliant translation... through its selection of episodes gave rise to the misleading impression that this is essentially a compendium of popular materials marked by folk wit and humour." Waley followed Hu Shi's lead, as shown in Hu's introduction to the 1943 edition. Hu scorned the allegorical interpretations of the novel as a spiritual as well as physical quest, declaring that they were old-fashioned. He instead insisted that the stories were simply comic. Hu Shi reacted against elaborately allegorical readings of the novel made popular in the Qing dynasty, but does not account for the levels of meaning and the looser allegorical framework which recent scholars in China and the West have shown.

In 2006, an abridged version of the Anthony C. Yu translation was published by University of Chicago Press under the title The Monkey and the Monk.
Julia Lovell's translation of selected chapters into lively contemporary English, with an extensive Introduction by Lovell and a Preface by Gene Luen Yang.

Unabridged

The Journey to the West (1977–83), a complete translation in four volumes by Anthony C. Yu, the first to translate the poems and songs which Yu argues are essential in understanding the author's meanings. Yu also supplied an extensive scholarly introduction and notes. Readable translation without scholarly apparatus.

Media adaptations

thumb|right|The [[Monkey King and other Mount Huaguo monkeys as portrayed by Peking opera performers, from a performance in Tianchan Theatre, Shanghai, China on 19 December 2014]]

, also commonly referred to by its title song, "Monkey Magic," is a Japanese television series starring Masaaki Sakai, produced by Nippon TV and International Television Films in association with NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and broadcast from 1978 to 1980 on Nippon TV. It was translated into English by the BBC.

In the 1980s, China Central Television (CCTV) produced and aired a TV adaptation of Journey to the West under the same name as the original work. A second season was produced in the late 1990s covering portions of the original work that the first season skipped over.

In 1988, the Japanese anime series Doraemon released a movie named Doraemon: The Record of Nobita's Parallel Visit to the West which is based on the same story.

In 1997, Brooklyn-based jazz composer Fred Ho premiered his jazz opera Journey to the East, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which he developed into what he described as a "serial fantasy action-adventure music/theater epic," Journey Beyond the West: The New Adventures of Monkey. Ho's pop-culture infused take on the story of the Monkey King has been performed to great acclaim.

In 1999, the Sony PlayStation game Saiyuki: Journey West was released, which follows the general plot of the story.

A video game adaptation titled Enslaved: Odyssey to the West was released in October 2010 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows. It was developed by Ninja Theory and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. The voice and motion capture for the main protagonist, 'Monkey', were provided by Andy Serkis.

On 20 April 2017, Australia's ABC, TVNZ, and Netflix announced production was underway in New Zealand on a new live-action television series, The New Legends of Monkey, to premiere globally in 2018. The series, which is based on Journey to the West, is made up of 10 half-hour episodes. While there has been enthusiasm for the new series, it has also attracted some criticism for "whitewashing", since none of the core cast are of Chinese descent, with two of the leads having Tongan ancestry while only one, Chai Hansen, is of half-Asian (his father is Thai) descent.

More recently in 2017, Viki and Netflix hosted a South Korean show called A Korean Odyssey; a modern comedy retelling that begins with the release of Sun Wukong/Son O-Gong and the reincarnation of Tang Sanzang/Samjang.

In August 2020, Game Science Studios announced a video game called Black Myth: Wukong. It was released on 20 August 2024 for PlayStation 5 and PC. It is also slated to release at a later date for the Xbox Series X/S. The plot of the game is set after the main events of the novel.

On May 16, 2020, The Lego Group released the theme, Lego Monkie Kid, to which Journey of the West was credited as the main inspiration, featuring many characters from the original work. Four days later on May 20, an animated television series pilot was released to coincide with the theme, and was later picked up for production and released serially starting in September 2020.

On September 19, 2020, Hong Kong composer Anna Vienna Ho premiered her English-language opera Buddha and the Monkey King at The Cockpit in London, as part of the Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 2020. This innovative opera seamlessly blends Chinese and Western musical traditions and inaugurated the festival's operatic series Journey to the West. Ho returned to the festival to premiere two additional works: The Monk of the River in 2021 and The Monster of Gao Village in 2023.

Explanatory notes

References

External links

Journey to the West from the Gutenberg Project (Traditional Chinese)
Journey to the West from Xahlee (Simplified Chinese)
Story of Sun Wukong and the beginning of Journey to the West with manhua
200 images of Journey to the West by Chen Huiguan, with a summary of each chapter (Archived Link)
Journey to the West 西遊記 Chinese text with embedded Chinese-English dictionary
Journey to the West Journey to the West (in English)