Journey to the West (and Tolkien).

[elwen]

Lately I've been thinking again of reading Journey to the West. Since I'm long past the point where I could even understand an elementary-level abridgment in Chinese, my options are to read it in English or in Japanese. I have a three-volume set in Japanese, I think translated to about middle school level, but looking at the beginning of the supposedly "most faithful" version in English, it appears that it leaves out quite a bit, too. But I'm not really sure I want to read an unabridged translation. As much as I go for things as close to the original as possible most of the time, it sounds (from reviews) and seems (from excerpts) quite tedious.

One review complained about the copious amounts of poetry. He added:

You can't just automatically skip over all the poems, as you might do with Tolkien, either.

*facepalm*

Okay, so I couldn't make it through the epics in Lays of Beleriand either, but I read and adore all of the poetry in LotR. But those have the advantage of being in the lyrical original.

Well, I think I might start with one of the abridged versions and then move up. 9_9

Comments

::flexes Chinese POWAA::

[nendil.livejournal.com]

As an actual person who read the whole book in the original olde Chinese at the easily distracted age of 11 or so I assure you one can easily skip over all the poems, even the ones in the chapter where Monk gets abducted by a bunch of tree spirits and they spend the night composing poetry. (Yeah, that wasn't a very popular episode.) But sometimes the poems are fun. Like when they get SEXY.

Also I think there's a number of cool stories that probably get cut out of abridged versions. It's pretty easy to just skip ahead a few poems or to the next chapter if you come across something boring while reading unabridged. Like Monk's origin story. I've NEVER read that one all the way through.

Also I think that you're probably better off reading it in English than Japanese because there are a lot of deep/obscure/punny things that need explanation and I think you'll appreciate (need) the added comprehension even if you miss out on a few cultural translations. Also I assure you that the English translation in the link you posted may look tedious, but it's almost equally haughty and laborious in olde Chinese from a modern speaker point of view. It gets more fun when they are fighting monsters trust me.

Goddamn now I want to read it again even though have SO many better essential-er things to do.

Re: ::flexes Chinese POWAA::

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

Oh, I believe you that the English version is quite faithful to the Chinese. Which is why I'm scared of reading a faithful translation in any language.

I did read almost all of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which I think has a less tedious writing style but more boring subject matter (from my perspective). I stopped reading somewhere around chapter 110, where we've gotten to the grandkids of the original characters. (It's 120 chapters, so I was pretty close to the end, too, but just couldn't make it...)

Well, maybe when I'm working in downtown SanJo this fall, I will stop by the library and grab one of the full-length translations.

[freeradical42.livejournal.com]

It's readers like this who have convinced me to remove all instances of original poetry or songs from my own novel.

Goes something like this:
Me: "So I'm not sure about the song. It's supposed to be a Beatles Song fractured by centuries of oral tradition, but it feels cheesy."
Reader: "Oh I skipped it because it was a song. I'm sure it's good though."

Great.

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I like poetry, and even poetry that tell stories. But I think it often doesn't work mixed into prose because the audience is primarily a prose-reading audience, and you will inevitably lose large numbers of them.

I wonder if that's how people react to songfic. Hmm...

[(Anonymous)]

My guilty confession is that for most of Return of the King, I skipped a ton of prose but read the poetry ^_^

My friend is quite in like with the version of Journey West called Monkey, but I don't know how well that would hold up to your abridgement standards.

[thierrys.livejournal.com]

(...and now I've signed in.)

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

My guilty confession is that for most of Return of the King, I skipped a ton of prose but read the poetry ^_^

Hahaha, excellent. :D I bet I wished during parts of Two Towers that there was more poetry and less prose. Like, if Sam had sung some more while slogging through Ithilien, it wouldn't have bored me to death one out of two times I try to reread it.

It turns out there are two abridgments called Monkey. ^^;; I think the second one was intentional, because its author claims to have done a better job of selecting stories and stuff than the first one. (Wow, literary catfight.) But according to reviews on Amazon, the first is actually better. I've ordered a copy from PaperBackSwap, so I will find out soon enough.

[(Anonymous)]

(too lazy to sign in at work)

I wonder if there's a version done by the Beijing Foreign Language Press available. I read the translation of Outlaws of the Marsh (Marsh Chronicles, Sui hu zhuan, or Suikoden) done by Sidney Shapiro, which was excellent. I don't know if the other translations are up to the same par as Outlaws of the Marsh was, but if the Journey to the West one is, it might be worth checking out. Shapiro admitted to cutting out poetry in his version of Marsh, but he did say it was "drivel" and mostly plot spoilers anyway. :D

- ling84

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

I think the version I linked to was by Beijing Foreign Language Press? Like Outlaws of the Marsh and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it's a 4-volume boxset.