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3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I think that if I had read the actual book instead of listening to the audiobook, then I would have scored it higher. As it is, the story thread was interwoven into so many histories it was hard to keep which thread we were on straight. Once we got to the pursuit of the holy scriptures and left all the back stories, I was able to enjoy the rhythm and the telling of the story. But the first part was a big muddle to wade through.
was cool to read this and talk about it with my mom, who told me stories of sun wukong growing up. she said she'd tried to read the chinese novels multiple times, but they're so long and super boring in the middle lol. and shared a lot of the frustrations with the characters' flaws and lack of growth or development throughout the story.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
Every single unfortunate event was listed: from the tragedy of Tripitaka's parents to acquiring the three disciples, being captured multiple times, abducted by wind, tied up, impregnated, and married, as well as coming very close to being lacquered, minced, sautéed, steamed, pickled, cured, liquified, and mated with various fiends.
As good a summary of Journey to the West as any. This is an abridged translation, and as Anthony Yu's full translation runs 4 volumes and ~2000 pages, I figured this is as good a place to start as any.
Lovell's translation is full of contemporary colloquialisms, and while such approaches often rub me the wrong way, I think it works beautifully here. This is an action-packed tale full of irreverent humor, and the text here had me laughing out loud in places.
My only complaint is that the set pieces feel repetitive at times, and I can't judge if it's a result of the abridgment or if this would be exacerbated in the full version. I do know the original is a mix of verse and prose (verse is pretty much eliminated here), so maybe that would give more sense of variety.
Nevertheless I had a lot of fun reading this. It works well as an introduction to the text, it's entertaining as hell, and as a result of reading it I think I would like to attempt to tackle the original one day. Something to aspire to!
adventurous
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
I read this book for a class on allegorical literature. For me, this book was really difficult to get through, possibly because I was always looking for the allegorical interpretations, but I thought it was certainly unique. This book is about the Chinese retrieval of Buddhist scriptures from India, so as someone who is a Catholic American I did not understand a lot of what was referenced in this book. However, I did find it helpful to read this with my Laozi and Chuang Zi scriptures at hand (no I didn't happen to own those,my teacher provided them but they can be found online).
Rating of 2,5 stars.
First off, for anyone who loves classic storytelling methods and poetry interwoven with their text, even after 500 pages of text, then this book is right up there for you. You will probably enjoy it more than I would have.
I picked this book up for the single reason that the Monkey Kong, also known as Sun Wukong was in this book and in a way, he is the main character in many ways. This book obviously has many layers of symbolism scattered around its poems and many descriptive sentences, from the spiritual terms and Buddhistic mantras.
The book was in some parts really intriguing. Especially the first 100-150 pages which described Sun's origin story was interesting and the parts of when the journey started halfway through the book were also kinda interesting. Overall the stories were kinda episodic and the story was sometimes even tedious, but that's in the mastery of literature long-gone.
The book is a slow read, that's for sure. I recommend this book especially to people who are interested in Sun Wukong, in Chinese literature or just worldly stories in general. For me, this wasn't my favorite book but I can't deny that it is a masterwork of China and I respect the time I have given to this book as a time to learn something more about culture.
First off, for anyone who loves classic storytelling methods and poetry interwoven with their text, even after 500 pages of text, then this book is right up there for you. You will probably enjoy it more than I would have.
I picked this book up for the single reason that the Monkey Kong, also known as Sun Wukong was in this book and in a way, he is the main character in many ways. This book obviously has many layers of symbolism scattered around its poems and many descriptive sentences, from the spiritual terms and Buddhistic mantras.
The book was in some parts really intriguing. Especially the first 100-150 pages which described Sun's origin story was interesting and the parts of when the journey started halfway through the book were also kinda interesting. Overall the stories were kinda episodic and the story was sometimes even tedious, but that's in the mastery of literature long-gone.
The book is a slow read, that's for sure. I recommend this book especially to people who are interested in Sun Wukong, in Chinese literature or just worldly stories in general. For me, this wasn't my favorite book but I can't deny that it is a masterwork of China and I respect the time I have given to this book as a time to learn something more about culture.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced