Book: 'Journey to the West' Volume 1, by Wu Cheng'En (16th Century) and translated by WJF Jenner

This was going to be about a blindfolded Gonzo the Great wrestling a half-brick and losing, but that is going to have to wait until an ever more Muppet-like moment. What else? It could have been about court-martialling a monkey, but that will be for when 'The Phil Silvers Show' makes it back into the rotation. No, no, this will be about the first volume of four of 'Journey to the West' by Wu Cheng'En, as translated by WJF Jenner. The whole sixteenth century narrative tallies approximately two thousand pages, and any discourse on that entirety would be an awfully long time in the reading.

'Journey to the West' is fascinating, a miraculous melange of all kinds of Chinese mythology that was compiled by Weng'En from the lore of the time, and later converted into a Japanese television series called 'Monkey', named after the lead character of this first volume, the Stone Monkey God. It's about a monk's divinely given quest to go and fetch the Sutra from the Western Heaven with the help of his disciples Monkey, Pig and Friar Sand, fallen Immortals all.

This is a fascinating epic of a story, and one that is not afraid to meander away from the plot for side stories aplenty. There are points in the narrative when this tangentialising can seriously affect your focus on the whole, but the fascinatingly light tone mixed with occasionally serious details always keeps you on track. This is probably THE historical Chinese classic that can be read universally, and it does excel. The one drawback is the translation of the songs and/or poetry from the Chinese, which can become very tedious in the English form of this translation. This may be an unavoidable feature of translating the epic. Translation of verse seems to be something of a doomed enterprise.

The story might pretend to be about the monk, but really it's all about Monkey, the cheeky and barbaric animal god whose mischief hinders and helps the quest in equal measure, and whose history entirely governs the first several chapters of the volume. Yes, this is one monkey that scandalized and looted Heaven, and whose redemption will perhaps dominate the rest of the story. With three volumes still to be read, it all remains to be seen.

How is a light tone? Well, if I said that each chapter ends with the equivalent of the wrap up to part one of a 1960s 'Batman' story, will that make it clear? There's immortality, reincarnation, a myriad of gods, Buddhas aplenty, bawdiness, humour, and a narrative that spans thousand of years before even hitting its stride. Oh, and to make it all the more unusual, it's all about a monkey.

O.