Monkey King: Journey to the West
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- £8.99
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
One of the world's greatest fantasy novels and a rollicking classic of Chinese literature, in a sparkling new translation and published in a Clothbound Classics edition.
A shape-shifting trickster on a kung-fu quest for eternal life, Monkey King is one of the most memorable superheroes in world literature. High-spirited and omni-talented, he can transform himself into whatever he chooses and turn each of his body's 84,000 hairs into an army of clones. But his penchant for mischief repeatedly gets him into trouble, and when he raids Heaven's Orchard of Immortal Peaches, the Buddha pins him beneath a mountain. Five hundred years later, Monkey King is finally given a chance to redeem himself: he must protect the pious monk Tripitaka on his journey in search of precious Buddhist sutras that will bring enlightenment to the Chinese empire.
Joined by two other fallen immortals - Pigsy, a rice-loving flying pig, and Sandy, a depressive river-sand monster - Monkey King does battle with Red Boy, Princess Jade-Face, the Monstress Dowager, and all manner of dragons, ogres, wizards and femmes fatales; navigates the perils of Fire-Cloud Cave, the River of Flowing Sand and the Water-Crystal Palace; and is serially captured, lacquered, sautéed, steamed and liquefied - but always hatches an ingenious plan to get himself and his fellow pilgrims out of their latest jam.
Comparable to The Canterbury Tales or Don Quixote, Monkey King is at once a gripping adventure, a comic satire and a spring of spiritual insight. With this new translation by the award-winning Julia Lovell, the irrepressible rogue hero of one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature has the potential to vault, with his signature cloud-somersault, into the hearts of a whole new generation of readers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lovell's new translation and abridgement of Wu's 16th-century Chinese folktale spins a satire of bureaucracy and spirituality as an unlikely ensemble of pilgrims travels to India to acquire Buddhist scriptures. Fearful spiritual leader Tripitaka is the first to embark. In his travels, he frees the Monkey King from a 500-year imprisonment but in exchange Monkey must serve Tripitaka in his mission, weathering a 14-year-long journey to atone for his sins and attain immortality. Along the way, the gluttonous pig demon, Pigsy, and Sandy, a river monster, join the pilgrimage, hoping to redeem themselves and lending their skills to the group. Their quest is jam-packed with outrageous danger and outlandish transformations as the pilgrims are beaten, captured, impregnated, and even cooked but Monkey always finds an ingenious way to rescue the group from their latest catastrophe. Lovell does an admirable job condensing the original text, which spans 100 chapters, while capturing the essence of Chinese fantastical storytelling and parody. Readers who enjoy nutty adventures and nonsensical plots will get a kick out of this madcap fable.
