Absolutely beautiful, so well written, I couldn't find a quote if I tried because there is SO MUCH. 4 sections spilling into 100 chapters... phew, give me a moment.

I believe only an extremely talented author could produce such a work, writing story after story and never repeating a theme, successfully incorporating past characters into the future adventures and not leaving a single plot hole or flaw.

A great insight into Chinese culture and Confucius values in a light-hearted, enjoyable manner.

Monkey King - I love you and can't wait for my own character development like you.

Wu Chen'en's The Journey to the West feels almost more like a book of myths than a novel. It features Lao Tsu, the founder of Taoism, and Kuan Yin, a bodhisattva as well as the Buddhist goddess of mercy. The mythological and the historical are mixed together, though this book does not even attempt at any sort of historical accuracy. If you love reading ancient myths, you will love this book. Like most myths, the events are based on a real occurrence, but magic and the fantastic come in and make the story its own.

I could not stand Monkey as a character. He is also called Sun Wukong, Great Sage Equal to Heaven, BanHorsePlague, and Handsome Monkey King, all of which he gave himself with exception to BanHorsePlague. He becomes more tolerable by the end, but barely.

Like most Chinese classics, the pacing is all over the place; they are rarely plotted out. The characters also will have more than one name they are refereed to by. This is a popular book with Chinese children, which is strange, as there is much violence and it is over a thousand pages in length. This is also a fascinating look, therefore, at what stories were shared to children in the past compared to what is told today.

I enjoyed [b:Dream of the Red Chamber|535739|Dream of the Red Chamber|Xueqin Cao|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1369604121l/535739._SY75_.jpg|523200] more, but this was still a treasure in its own unique way. I am highly excited to read the second volume. There is more to learn from Dream of the Red Chamber, and there is more story and brackground to Journey to the West.

The advent of the year of the Monkey gave me as good an occasion as any to try and read this, and I'm so glad I did. I'd been familiar with the characters from a picture-book series I'd encountered in second grade, but it was [a: Max Gladstone|3405346|Max Gladstone|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1440009008p2/3405346.jpg]'s blog post a couple of years back that put it back on my radar.

Even across just Part I here, I cannot overemphasize how cheerfully bonkers this story is. Take the toilet humor, which a) is utterly brazen, b) comes out of nowhere more often than not, narratively speaking, and c) actually made me LOL, which is hard when I'm reading silently to myself! Or the fights, which are written in heroic verse and nearly always end with a hasty retreat and a pratfall. What I'm saying is, the tone is amazing, like a cartoon, or [b: Ulysses|338798|Ulysses|James Joyce|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1428891345s/338798.jpg|2368224], except it's also a metaphor for the soul's maturation, because of course it is. The unabridged version, which is what I've dived in for, is a bit of a slog if you don't like nature poetry or obscure alchemical symbolism, but then again, who doesn't? (There is an abridgment by this translator, [b: The Monkey and the Monk|158792|The Monkey and the Monk An Abridgment of The Journey to the West|Wu Cheng'en|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347577989s/158792.jpg|153266].)

A great classic story for a reason. A grand epic that is truly entertaining and amusing. The story is kind of bogged down by characters constantly repeating information we already know, but I think that may have been leftovers from when this story may have been told orally.

I'm definitely going to check out the other three volumes, especially since this volume ends right in the middle of a story.

A classic, but well... so many Deux ex Machina !