The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 4 by Anthony C. Yu (PDF)

Description

Anthony C. Yu’s translation of The Journey to the West,initially published in 1983, introduced English-speaking audiences to the classic Chinese novel in its entirety for the first time. Written in the sixteenth century, The Journey to the West tells the story of the fourteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Xuanzang, one of China’s most famous religious heroes, and his three supernatural disciples, in search of Buddhist scriptures. Throughout his journey, Xuanzang fights demons who wish to eat him, communes with spirits, and traverses a land riddled with a multitude of obstacles, both real and fantastical. An adventure rich with danger and excitement, this seminal work of the Chinese literary canonis by turns allegory, satire, and fantasy.With over a hundred chapters written in both prose and poetry, The Journey to the West has always been a complicated and difficult text to render in English while preserving the lyricism of its language and the content of its plot. But Yu has successfully taken on the task, and in this new edition he has made his translations even more accurate and accessible. The explanatory notes are updated and augmented, and Yu has added new material to his introduction, based on his original research as well as on the newest literary criticism and scholarship on Chinese religious traditions. He has also modernized the transliterations included in each volume, using the now-standard Hanyu Pinyin romanization system. Perhaps most important, Yu has made changes to the translation itself in order to make it as precise as possible.One of the great works of Chinese literature, The Journey to the West is not only invaluable to scholars of Eastern religion and literature, but, in Yu’s elegant rendering, also a delight for any reader.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐As always a good set of stories with nice bit of humor, and a good sendoff. I felt the unge to liste to a fond farewell by Billy boydI’m ultimately glad I read the whole thing, but I get why there are abridged versionsThe good:* The very last chapter gave me the same feel i got from the ceremony scene in a new hope. I felt i got to say farewell to old friends after the roadtrip of a lifetime.*The footnotes explaining some of the more cryptic culture referances, esoteric budhist concepts, and historical referencesThe bad:* A lot of wordy recapping which made me skip several paragraphs. It makes sense in the story, but it gets boring fast.* i got really tired of the stories that went. Scripture monk gets caught by demon. Demon wants to Cook the monk but waits for contrived reasons, monkey King tries to save the monk but needs help from the gods. God/demi-god comes along to bring his estaged pet/servant home.

⭐I have reached, with sadness, the end of my journey through the four-volume, four-hundred-year-old Chinese classic, “The Journey to the West.” I plodded through the lengthy but valuable introduction by the translator, Anthony C. Yu, then set off through the hundred fantastical chapters of the story. It is not a journey for those who like their fiction in small doses. Nor does it fit the mold of most of the fantasy that I love. True, there are dragons and monsters and mythic battles, but of the two main characters, one is an ugly, ultra-violent, supernatural monkey, and the other is a timorous, puritanical monk. Moreover, the narration is less immersed in the characters’ viewpoints than I usually prefer, partly because it frequently breaks into poetry. Perhaps the biggest departure from typical fantasy tomes is that the book is largely episodic. It journeys westward without much of a dramatic arc. While individual episodes have their battles and resolutions, the characters and the situation change slowly, sometimes imperceptibly. Any or all of the above might have deterred me. Had I been in a more cantankerous mood, perhaps they would have done so. Yet they did not. By and large, I liked the digressions into poetry. I accepted the cowardice of one character, the violence of the other, the less-than-immersive narration, the episodic quality more common to television series than to novels. I liked the lightness of tone, the sense of fun. Most of all, I grew fond of the characters, as I think the author was fond of them. I wanted to spend time in their company, and am left now, at the end of the long journey, missing them.

⭐Hey, this is the “Journey to the West”. one of the best fantasy adventures of all times. I wish I had read it as a child, or had it read to me. It was extremely fun and entertaining. This was the first time I had read the novel. I had seen a few movies that lead up to or were a truncated version of the actual story. Finally learning who the “Handsome Monkey King” was enlightening and aided my comprehension of a Taoist text I had read that discusses the “monkey mind” frequently. While the acknowledged hero in the story is the Buddhist monk who is sent on the journey to the west to retrieve sutras from the Buddha, the real hero is Sun Wukong, the Handsome Monkey King!?! He’s the wildest hero I’ve ever read about. It takes a while to get the actual journey by all 4 pilgrims but I enjoyed reading how the Sun Wukong became the Monkey King and created such a ruckus in Heaven! Anyone who ever created a comic book or animated superhero must have read or heard of this story and used a variety of Sun Wukong’s powers to create their hero. this will be yet another novel that I’ll read at least once per year.

⭐And it was a “journey,” the second longest I’ve taken but I am very glad to have read it. Despite a lot of repetition this epic of Chinese literature held my interest through all four volumes and I think I learned a lot.

⭐Having read the first three volumes of this fantastic series, I did not expect dozens of pages to detach from the binding as I read the fourth volume. Buyers should check for this serious defect before the return window closes. I spent too much time reading the earlier volumes to discover this failure in the final volume before my return window closed. I look forward to owning this set for a long time – too bad the last one will now look rather trashy.

⭐This is a translation of classic Chinese Buddhism tales. The writing appears faithful the style of the Chinese stories and old styles of telling stories. It is worth reading to get a better understanding of tales virtually every Chinese child learns at an early age. The whole series helped me in my appreciation of Chinese culture.

⭐Very readable translation. I don’t know how accurate it is, the poetry seems to be almost too good, but I really enjoyed it. Those who are not familiar with this style might want to start with The Bandits of the Marsh or Romance of the Three Kingdoms before tackling the 4 volumes of the Journey to the West.

⭐I have many translations of this Chinese classic, as well as the original Chinese version. If you want a real feel for this story, you cannot go wrong with this version. Yes, it is long, but so is the original. If you are looking for a very condensed, but well done version, I would also recommend the Arthur Waley translation!!

⭐This non abridged version is much more enjoyable than an abridged version I read previously.

⭐Truly a masterwork, an all around great piece of literature. Well worth the time taken to read it. This novel is entertaining from start to Finnish. This un abridged translation is excellently done.

⭐Best book ever written ?

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