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elwenSo I'm a little more than 2/3 of the way through Monkey, the abridged translation of Journey to the West by Arthur Waley. [And by "abridged", I don't mean condensed and summarized, but rather than he left out pretty much the entire second half of the story and picked and chose which chapters to translate. Which is not a bad way to do things. It's how most of the versions I was exposed to in childhood did it, focusing on specific stories like the Red Boy and the Demon Bull King (very rough translations).]
There are a few annoying aspects of the book, though.
First of all, holy crap run-on paragraphs. The good ones take up half a page, and I've seen some that run two. Maybe this is some 1940's paper-saving technique, but can you say painful? Entire conversations happen within one paragraph, which sometimes makes it confusing as to who is speaking, but more often just makes your eyes bleed.
Here's a shorter example that I wasn't too lazy to transcribe:
It's even more fun when you have more than two speakers.
The second annoying thing is the absolute lack of Chinese in this book. Which is to say, "We will literally translate, character-by-character, each Chinese name we come across." I've only slowly been coming to realize how insidious this is. A few days ago, it finally struck me that whenever he says Monkey's religious name is Aware-of-Vacuity, he means "Wukong" (悟空). And just last night I realized that all of the kingdom names are being translated piecemeal, to ridiculous effect. So first they saved "Crow-Cock", and now they're in "Cart-Slow", which apparently has nothing to do with the fact that Buddhist priests are being forced to slowly haul a cart up a steep cliff.
In fact, the only intact Chinese names I can think of so far are T'ang, the name of the Chinese dynasty, and Hsüan Tsang, the priest who is now exclusively referred to by his traveling name of Tripitaka. Incidentally, all of the awkward, Indian-derived (?) Buddhist names are kept, often with indecipherable diacritical marks. (I wonder how these were written in the original?) Oh, and Kuan-yin and Hui-yen get to keep their names, too, I guess.
Again, coddling of 1940's fear of foreign cultures and foreign languages? Who knows?
Those are my two big complaints, I guess. You can assess my last gut reaction for yourselves:
Pigsy and Sandy? Really?
As to the substance of the book itself, it was getting kind of boring until they finally finished recruiting disciples, but the individual adventures are pretty interesting. But Hsüan Tsang is a total wuss. I think I knew this before, when I was little and watched the Chinese drama and didn't understand much more than that all the monsters were trying to eat him because his flesh would make them immortal. But in the book, he does more than play damsel-in-distress or stand around uselessly. He cries. For pathetic reasons like his horse got eaten and now he'll have to walk to India, or Monkey and Pigsy can't lure Sandy back out of the water to tell them how to cross the river. And it's not like "shed a tear" or anything. It's "his tears began to fall like rain" or "he burst into tears". WTF?
I guess I should realize that the story is really not about him, it's about Wukong. So it doesn't really matter that he's a wuss because he's not the one we're following to India.
There are a few annoying aspects of the book, though.
First of all, holy crap run-on paragraphs. The good ones take up half a page, and I've seen some that run two. Maybe this is some 1940's paper-saving technique, but can you say painful? Entire conversations happen within one paragraph, which sometimes makes it confusing as to who is speaking, but more often just makes your eyes bleed.
Here's a shorter example that I wasn't too lazy to transcribe:
'So then,' said Tripitaka, 'yo have come to ask that my disciple should drive out the false magician?' 'Indeed, indeed,' he said [sic] 'My disciple,' said Tripitaka, 'in other ways is not all that he should be. But subduing monsters and evil spirits just suits his powers. I fear however that the circumstances make it hard for him to deal with this evil power.' 'Why so?' asked the king. 'Because,' said Tripitaka, 'the magician has used his magic powers to change himself into the image of you. All of the officers of your court have gone over to him, and all your ladies have accepted him. My disciple could no doubt deal with them; but he would hesitate to do violence to them. For should he do so would not he and I be held guilty of conspiring to destroy your kingdom? And what would this be but to paint the tiger and carve the swan?'
It's even more fun when you have more than two speakers.
The second annoying thing is the absolute lack of Chinese in this book. Which is to say, "We will literally translate, character-by-character, each Chinese name we come across." I've only slowly been coming to realize how insidious this is. A few days ago, it finally struck me that whenever he says Monkey's religious name is Aware-of-Vacuity, he means "Wukong" (悟空). And just last night I realized that all of the kingdom names are being translated piecemeal, to ridiculous effect. So first they saved "Crow-Cock", and now they're in "Cart-Slow", which apparently has nothing to do with the fact that Buddhist priests are being forced to slowly haul a cart up a steep cliff.
In fact, the only intact Chinese names I can think of so far are T'ang, the name of the Chinese dynasty, and Hsüan Tsang, the priest who is now exclusively referred to by his traveling name of Tripitaka. Incidentally, all of the awkward, Indian-derived (?) Buddhist names are kept, often with indecipherable diacritical marks. (I wonder how these were written in the original?) Oh, and Kuan-yin and Hui-yen get to keep their names, too, I guess.
Again, coddling of 1940's fear of foreign cultures and foreign languages? Who knows?
Those are my two big complaints, I guess. You can assess my last gut reaction for yourselves:
Pigsy and Sandy? Really?
As to the substance of the book itself, it was getting kind of boring until they finally finished recruiting disciples, but the individual adventures are pretty interesting. But Hsüan Tsang is a total wuss. I think I knew this before, when I was little and watched the Chinese drama and didn't understand much more than that all the monsters were trying to eat him because his flesh would make them immortal. But in the book, he does more than play damsel-in-distress or stand around uselessly. He cries. For pathetic reasons like his horse got eaten and now he'll have to walk to India, or Monkey and Pigsy can't lure Sandy back out of the water to tell them how to cross the river. And it's not like "shed a tear" or anything. It's "his tears began to fall like rain" or "he burst into tears". WTF?
I guess I should realize that the story is really not about him, it's about Wukong. So it doesn't really matter that he's a wuss because he's not the one we're following to India.
