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Journey to the West
Jun. 7th, 2021 09:10 pmI happened upon Julia Lovell's one-volume translation of "Journey to the West" at my library recently, and not knowing anything about it besides "world literature classic," decided to give it a try. It is very amusing!
I am also not very familiar with the xianxia genre or "cultivation" tropes, except by osmosis, but this wound up being an interesting introduction to how the syncretism of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism overlap to create many more complex versions of "immortality" than a western/Christian description might indicate. In one scene, the protagonist Monkey is assigned to be the caretaker of the Orchard of Immortal Peaches. One of his underlings explains that if you eat from the trees that grow once every three thousand years, you "will become an immortal, with a light, strong body;" if you eat from the trees that grow once every six thousand years, you "will float up to Heaven and never grow old;" and if you eat from the trees that grow once every nine thousand years, you "will live as long as heaven and earth, the sun and the moon." The mystic worlds are just as bureaucracy-heavy as the real world, with emperors, kings, princes, and lots of departments: there's a Minister of Defense in Hell, and a celestial party might invite such dignitaries as "the Jade Emperor, the Nine Heroes, the Spirits of Seas and Mountains, and then the Pope of Darkness, and the Earthly Immortals from the Lower Eight Caves. Pretty much anyone who's anyone."
Lovell points out in the forward that the book's "obsession with immortals' and demons' technical capabilities--including Monkey's ability to manufacture armies of simulacra by chewing his armpit hair to a pulp" makes it similar to modern superhero movies, even if it's not exactly "hard fantasy" in the Sandersonian sense. Did I mention there were urine jokes? And canon mpreg?
Anyway, would recommend. However, the forward also points out it's an abridgment so it's missing some episodes like "a den of soccer-playing spider fiends" and that is relevant to my interests, so maybe I better track down a longer version...
I am also not very familiar with the xianxia genre or "cultivation" tropes, except by osmosis, but this wound up being an interesting introduction to how the syncretism of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism overlap to create many more complex versions of "immortality" than a western/Christian description might indicate. In one scene, the protagonist Monkey is assigned to be the caretaker of the Orchard of Immortal Peaches. One of his underlings explains that if you eat from the trees that grow once every three thousand years, you "will become an immortal, with a light, strong body;" if you eat from the trees that grow once every six thousand years, you "will float up to Heaven and never grow old;" and if you eat from the trees that grow once every nine thousand years, you "will live as long as heaven and earth, the sun and the moon." The mystic worlds are just as bureaucracy-heavy as the real world, with emperors, kings, princes, and lots of departments: there's a Minister of Defense in Hell, and a celestial party might invite such dignitaries as "the Jade Emperor, the Nine Heroes, the Spirits of Seas and Mountains, and then the Pope of Darkness, and the Earthly Immortals from the Lower Eight Caves. Pretty much anyone who's anyone."
Lovell points out in the forward that the book's "obsession with immortals' and demons' technical capabilities--including Monkey's ability to manufacture armies of simulacra by chewing his armpit hair to a pulp" makes it similar to modern superhero movies, even if it's not exactly "hard fantasy" in the Sandersonian sense. Did I mention there were urine jokes? And canon mpreg?
Anyway, would recommend. However, the forward also points out it's an abridgment so it's missing some episodes like "a den of soccer-playing spider fiends" and that is relevant to my interests, so maybe I better track down a longer version...
