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hans_sniekers_art 's review for:
The Monkey and the Monk: An Abridgment of The Journey to the West
by Wu Ch'eng-En, Anthony C. Yu
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.