The Journey to the West Vol. 1

The revised edition of the classical Chinese legend, The Journey to the West, is a fascinating story filled with adventure, drama, action, and humor. The legend is based on a true story of a Chinese pilgrim's journey to India and back, which introduced China to the Buddhist faith. The first volume mainly emphasizes the main characters’ stories bringing them all together throughout the journey. Every moment in the story is very detailed; it includes funny actions or dialogs, serious moments of suspense, and extremely gory explanations. The volume begins by telling the backstory of the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, which took around seven of the twenty-five chapters in the book. This was the longest backstory I had ever read. It mostly describes his origins and how he obtained his powers and weapon. I was surprised his mischief caused him many troubles that even led to a war against the gods. However, he still managed to stand his ground against them. The book continues with the backstory of the monk, Chen Xuanzang, the most touching and tragic part of the book. It then introduces the Tang Emperor story where he organizes a ritual, the main purpose of the journey. Through the journey, the monk encounters four monsters separately, each become his disciples and join him as his guardians; the Monkey King, a dragon who accidentally ate the monk's horse and had to transform into one, a fat pig demon who is the main comic relief of the story and a water imp that keeps the group in balance. Overall, the author of the book uses sections of poetry to describe characters and sceneries to enhance the book and give the audience vivid insights to the story. One of my favorite characters was Bodhisattva Guanyin, the one behind organizing the journey. I like Guanyin because of her supportive nature with the main characters and the way she teases the Monkey King. In addition, my favorite moments in the story are the Monk’s reactions to the Monkey when he does something crazy or reckless. However, there was one thing in the book that I thought was not necessary which were the literal translations of the religious name for the three creatures. In my opinion the translations make it more confusing for the reader to understand which character is being referred to. For example, the pig's religious name is Zhu Bajie, which translates into "Zhu (Pig)” and “Bajie (Eight Rules)". However, the author often addresses the pig as Eight Rules instead of Zhu Bajie, which makes the name blend into the sentence. Often I do not realize that the author is referring to him until much later. Overall, I really enjoyed reading the story since it contained many side stories to keep it interesting.