It was a little boring

Not too bad! As an old literary classic, I wasn't expecting it to be so silly and easy to read. While there was plenty of repetitive sections, poetry, footnotes, and a long, kind of boring introduction that often comes with old, translated stories, once the story gets going, it's actually quite fun! Sun Wukong is an absolutely hilarious character.

I hope to read the next volumes and find out what happens, but I need a break, haha.

Jarring colloquial language at times.

This is my first of the classic novels in the Chinese canon. I was afraid at the beginning that I wouldn't understand the Buddhist and Taoist references, especially with that opening chapter! And even though most of the time I didn't, the novel was really fun to read. The internal conflicts in the pantheon of gods and halfgods reminded me a lot of ancient Greek fiction, but even by that comparison the Chinese transcendental creatures really made a hotchpotch out of it, with a mixture of Buddhist and Taoist gods living and partying together in heaven, water and earth spirits messing things up on earth, and misbehaved gods muddling through life on earth punished with reincarnation as supernatural dragons, pigs, tigers and other monsters. But don't worry: if things get really tough, there is always Guanyin or Buddha himself to sort things out.

On a side note, the text also made me understand better all the supernatural flying and magic in wuxia dramas. If you think, like I did, that those movies are way over the top, you should read this novel to numbify those feelings. It seems like the whole pilgimage is only a pious facade to justify the endless steam of epic fights and powerful mind skills.

I must say that by the end of the first volume the journey became a bit repetitive, with the pilgrims proceeding on their journey fighting one demon living in a mountain cave/hut after the other. I am not a great fan of adventure novels, so that may play a role. Luckily there was enough to enjoy with the varying perspectives at the start of the novel, from the unruly monkey to the buddhisatva to the lifestory of Xuanzhang and finally the start of his journey to the west. I really hope volume 2 and 3 will offer some variety too and won't be just a continuous stream of demons to fight and mountains to climb.

I haven't seen the original Mandarin text, but the English translation reads really well and feels fresh and lively. Despite or because of the translation, my favourite parts of the novel are the short and beautiful poems, especially the ones regarding nature and animals. In one of the more cunning moves of the monkey Pilgrim he changes into a mosquito, after which the author treats us to this beautiful testimonial poem:

A pesky small shape with sharp sting
His tiny voice can hum like thunder!
Adept at piercing gauze nets and orchid rooms,
He likes the warm, sultry climate.

He fears incense and swatting fans,
But dearly loves bright lights and lamps.
Airy, agile, all too clever and fast,
He flies into the fiend's cave.

The academic introduction was also really good in explaining the context and content of the work. The internal alchemy part, however, still makes my stomach turn (pun but true). I'm glad I had decided to leave the introduction for the end!

"The Journey to the West" is a lengthy 16th century novel, regarded as one of the four great classics of Chinese literature. The author of the book is uncertain, but is thought to be Wu Cheng'en. This volume contains the first twenty-five chapters of the hundred-chapter narrative, plus extensive notes and a ninety-six-page introduction by the translator, Anthony C. Yu. I found the introduction a difficult read, no doubt due to my prior ignorance about almost everything it covered. But the introduction was helpful, and I am glad I labored through it.

The book itself defied my expectations. It was neither dry, nor dense, nor inscrutable. To my surprise, it appears to have been intended to be fun, and, despite the intervening centuries, I often found it such. The narrative is a fantastical retelling of Xuanzang's pilgrimage to India to obtain Buddhist scriptures, a pilgrimage that took place roughly a thousand years before "The Journey to the West" was written. In the retelling, there are gods, monsters, dragons, trickery, humor, and a plethora of epic fights. There is also a remarkably large amount of poetry, serving both as description and commentary, and the poetry lightened the reading. Since this volume contains only the first quarter of the story, I will postpone further comments for now.