Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

"Monkey King" reads like a mixture between adventure story, fairytale, and fever dream. The chapters can all be read more or less on their own since they each contain a mini-adventure of the group and the general structure of the adventures stays the same throughout.
This was a lot of fun to read and I would definitely recommend this to someone looking for a different kind of fairytale.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book, unfortunately I wasn’t able to get to it before it was archived but will review in full when I do.

An excellent classic from China, Monkey King, reads like a fun adventure story full of wisdom and laughter. The translation is perfect, and the cover looks fantastic. Glad to read this translation because otherwise, my thought about the book would've been different. Great job!

knowing its fame, I was keen to read - and I find it utterly delightful - the voice of the Monkey is endearing and his adventures often hilarious - he is cheeky too with it, like a devilish young person (even though he becomes quite elderly eventually) - the narrative races along as we follow his quest, initially for immortality! the translation is smooth and engaging reading ... I can see why it is a long time classic and best seller ...!

Many, many years ago, I came across the Waley translation - which was readable but of its time. This revised translation gives a modern riff to the ancient tale; and romps along at a clip. Does not obviously suffer from excising a few minor side-adventures on the way. Great fun, and rather less of the 'Aah, Monkey' that the prior translation had. Brings back fond memories of a certain television adaptation from years ago - and if you recall how implausible that was in some instances, this requires dialling up suspension of disbelief further still.

I received a NetGalley copy of this title in exchange for an honest review and I genuinely had no idea how I was going to feel about this version.

I grew up with a television version of Journey to the West and have encountered several reimaginings since. I’m happy to report that despite this being an adaptation or abbreviation of sorts (several episodes have been cut as the translator herself explains at the beginning) it is a good version. Yes, Sandy is rather quiet compared to the other pilgrims but otherwise, the episodes work very well together and both the logic and the delivery are humorous in a whimsical way at that keeps you reading. The episodes are relatively short and keep the moralising to a minimum and our heroes mostly have to ask for help... something we could all do more of.

I enjoyed reading The Monkey King: Journey to West. The beginning flows but catches you unawares as flashbacks do not occur (although the odd recap may come up) so everything is chronological in a way modern writing often actively avoids. Recommended reading style: in snippets. Do not be like Pigsy. Maybe be more Monkey? Read it to see if you want to!

In 2021, we have been gifted a fresh, new translation of Monkey King by scholar and translator Julia Lovell. This new translation of Monkey King breathes fresh life, humour, wit, and charm into the 16th Century classic Chinese novel.

In her translator’s notes, Lovell remarks on how her new translation of Monkey King is around a quarter the length of the original Journey to the West. This is a wonderful, practical move on Lovell’s part.

It’s important to say that, if you did not know that this was an abridged version of Monkey King, you never would. This coming from someone who has never read the original Journey to the West. This translation is exactly as long as it needs to be, with the fat cut and the story paced perfectly.

Lovell also injects Monkey King with so much camp and colour and wit and humour. The book sparkles and crackles with a uniquely British wit. Every line of dialogue drips with sarcasm, snappy one-liners, and laugh-out-loud observations for the lovable bastard that is Monkey.

If you’ve ever wanted to read Journey to the West but have been put off by fears of it being too long, too dense, too dry (as we have all thought when it comes to classics), then put those fears aside. Julia Lovell’s translation is nothing but fun, frantic fantasy writing.

Read the full article at Books & Bao.

Thank you for the review copy; it was a real treat to read this new version by a translator and scholar I really admire. Up to now I've been familiar with the Waley translation in Penguin Classics and I took the opportunity to read them side by side. This is an important translation and a major addition to the canon of English translations, and it’s wonderful to see such a playful, modern, dynamic and enjoyable version.

Lovell is clear about the debt to Waley in her introduction. She has kept Waley’s recognisable character names Pigsy and Sandy, but has translated more and different episodes from the journey itself. Her approach to translation is much more modern, consciously sacrificing “linguistic fidelity to be true to the overall tone” – for instance, if she can’t translate a pun exactly then she will find other ways to convey the wit or wordplay (I liked ‘playing Yama’s advocate’, for example), while Arthur Waley relied on footnotes to explain (or, in one case, not to explain: “There is probably a pun here; but I cannot see it”). Lovell also drops a lot of the remnants of oral storytelling (such as the recapitulations and several of the ‘if you want to know what happened next, read on’ type passages at the end of each chapter).

I haven’t gone back to Journey to the West in many years (discounting Donnie Yen and Damon Albarn) so it was a real treat to come back to the text. There were a number of things that really struck me about it in this translation – it’s possible that these are things that I had not remembered or misremembered, but I think it’s more that Lovell’s translation really brings these features of the text out.

1) It’s very funny
While Waley can be a little staid, adaptations of Monkey tend to come out more madcap and zany than actually funny. Yes, Monkey has an energetic, childish sense of humour, but he also develops to be witty, irreverent and eloquent, not to mention humane, spiritual, and a serious, devoted pilgrim and servant to his (often distrustful) master. Lovell translates with a punchy style that is tonally closer to comic English writing and really made me chuckle. Pigsy, for instance, probably the most outright comic character, has had a ‘full and frank pre-nuptial discussion’ and wanders off with a ‘touch of melodrama’.
Lovell finds humour in playing with the expectation of literary Chinese being translated into highfalutin English in the prose (with the occasional phrase like ‘for it was he’ delivered with a wink), while also puncturing pretensions with more informal modern language (‘don’t mention it’, ‘compadres’ or ‘living their best lives’). When one demon says to Monkey ‘Extraordinary impudence. Prepare for a pounding!’, he responds ‘Fine by me, swing away’. It could have jarred, but it is skilfully done here and keeps it light and funny.

E.g: “Before he left, Subodhi remade is earlier point more forcefully. “After you leave this place, you’re bound to get up to no good. I don’t care what villainy you perpetrate; just don’t tell anyone that you were my disciple. If you breathe a word of what I did for you, I’ll flay your wretched monkey carcass, grind your bones to dust, and banish your soul permanently to the Place of Ninefold Darkness. And I’ll only be getting started.”
“Right you are. If anyone asks, I’ll tell them I’m self-taught.”

Compare with Waley’s translation of the last part: “I certainly won’t venture to say a word about you,” promised Monkey. “I’ll say I found it all out for myself

As well as the pleasingly bonkers passages, the slapstick and burlesque, the puns, and the witty changes of tone, it’s also occasionally quite dark, such as the offhand way we are told one character ‘quietly committed suicide after all’; and when another is ‘happy to leave this world to become an infernal fruit courier’.

2) It’s a good satire of officialdom
Disclaimer here: I’m a faceless bureaucrat in my day job. Perhaps it’s down to this that it particularly appeals to me now, but the satire of officialdom is excellent, and reminded me of reminded me of Yes, Minister here and there, helped by the translation embracing the language of the modern official without going full jargon. For instance, where Waley had Monkey ask “what class of appointment is it?”, Lovell has him ask “what grade am I in the civil service”, exactly the phrase I or a fellow Sir Humphrey might ask. The Jade Emperor now has a ‘director of communications’, for instance, while Monkey has a ‘social network’ and clerical errors mean that “from that point on, most mountain monkeys never got old, for the Underworld no longer had their names and addresses.”

3) The episode selection is revealing
Like Waley’s translation, this is abridged. Both versions share the origin stories of the characters and the quest, but Lovell has chosen a different selection of episodes of the journey itself than Waley, only overlapping (I think) in the series of competitions with Immortals. Lovell has chosen more and shorter escapades. She has chosen at least one episode where a demon appears to be the match of Monkey or get the better of him, and several where Tripitaka’s shortcomings (in particular distrust and resentment of Monkey) are apparent, really fleshing out the characters.
Even in an abridged version the monsters, tricks, battles and transmogrifications can be repetitive, but Lovell has picked out some interesting ones that I didn’t know. Take, for instance, the kingdom in which 1,111 little boys are preparing to be sacrificed, their parents too afraid to weep, whose ‘only outlet for protest is satire’ – child sacrifice aside, could that description not be life in any warzone or dictatorship?
Also take the passage in which Tripitaka and Pigsy become pregnant, narrowly avoiding suffering violent sexual attack, and require Monkey to go to Dissolving Maleness Mountain to get water from the Abortion Spring. Who knew that 16th Century Chinese satire could find an intersection with contemporary feminist politics?

4) It’s also moving and thoughtful
As with all satires, it works because it has heart and poetry as its foundation. Some of the descriptions are beautiful (‘rainbows of golden light shimmered through purple mists, evergreen grasses and ever-blooming flowers’), and I found the tragic family history of Tripitaka very moving. Somehow, the offhand way in which characters can travel between earth, the underworld and heaven, or can be killed and resurrected by gods and Bodhisattvas, adds a spiritual backdrop which deepens the sorrows which afflict some of the human characters. There is real heart in Monkey, and it’s very present in this version.
This extends also to the serious bits, the spiritual lessons and guidance that are dotted around. Monkey advises a king in total seriousness: ‘don’t worship false religions and respect the unity of the three faiths’. Unsurprisingly it is Buddha who imparts perennial wisdom, in particular about the cruelty and immorality of the world (but this doesn’t stop his attendants being venal themselves). Tripitaka is a fascinating central character – a monk on a sacred journey who doesn’t appear to undergo any spiritual development. That, of course, is the point: the scrapes and escapades the gang get into on this journey serve to prove Buddha right. The world is cruel and people are fearful and uncomprehending. Monkey, on the other hand, might be crass and might seek magical power and immortality, but he has ‘awoken to emptiness’ (his name, Sun Wukong), the state of the world at the beginning of everything. ‘To advance from emptiness, living creatures must first become aware of it’.

5) It’s not the Chinese Lord of the Rings
Pet peeve time. The advertising copy for the US edition of this describes it as a Chinese ‘Lord of the Rings’ and an ‘all-time great fantasy novel’.
I know you’ve got a book to sell. But firstly, this is the second book I’ve reviewed in the short life of this blog described as the ‘Chinese Lord of the Rings’.
And secondly: it’s not. That’s not an accurate description in form, tone, content, style, meaning… anything. The only thing they share is a journey at the heart of them.
I had this in the back of my mind when reading it, even straining for parallels between Monkey and Gollum. But it’s such a stretch, it would worry me that it would come as a disappointment to some readers attracted by the copy.
If you really need a Western parallel you don’t need to look far: Don Quixote, say, Gulliver’s Travels, Tom Jones, or the Canterbury Tales, which the UK copy uses. I don’t think you need to, but if you must: please don’t pretend it’s something it’s not.
One final point for Penguin: you now have superlative translations of Journey to the West, Dream of the Red Chamber and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (full honesty: I haven’t read that last one yet). Come on, give us the full set of the Big Four Classic Chinese Novels – let’s have an exciting new translation of the Water Margin.

Whilst the introduction makes it clear that this is a much-abridged version, this is a worthy attempt to bring one of the classics of Chinese literature to a wider audience. It's exactly the kind of book to have on your shelf to dip into now and again, and an essential background source for anyone interested in Chinese literature. I would say, however, that other than there being a journey for spiritual reasons, the comparison to Chaucer is a little misleading - I don't recall there being magical monkeys and demons in The Canterbury Tales!

A really useful background text for those with literary and scholarly interests in China.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

An absolutely engaging and fun read; "Monkey King" is a classic that can be enjoyed by a wide age range.

I knew nothing about this 16th century Chinese classic before reading, so it was quite an adventure for me. A new translation and abridged edition by Julia Lovell, this book is an epic fantasy / spiritual quest, based on historical events. It was first published anonymously but is generally attributed to Wu Cheng'en, a novelist and poet of the Ming Dynasty.

The first part of the story is the adventures of a stone monkey who is born from a mountain. A selfish superhero, he reigns over the other monkeys. He becomes immortal and can transform into anything. The rest of the story concerns a monk, Tripitaka, who is on a quest to travel to India and bring back Buddhist scriptures to China. With him as protectors are Monkey and the demons Pigsy and Sandy. The goddess Guanyin helps and hinders their journey, while the Buddha himself is possibly shaping their fate.

I liked the strong characters, humour and magical quality to the story. The language style is modern and easy to read. There are many references to Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, which don't need any explanation but you could always look the terms up and read about the religions afterwards. What I wasn't so keen on was the repetitive nature of the story, to the extent that by two thirds of the way through, I was tired of so many battles with demons.

Overall, I'm glad that I've read Monkey King: Journey to the West. However, I wouldn't re-read it.

Thank you to the publisher Penguin for the advance copy via NetGalley. The book will be published as a Penguin Clothbound Classic on 11th February.

[NB. Review will be on my blog, 3rd February 2021]