The Journey to the West: A Review of One of China's Greatest Classical Novels

The Journey to the West, written by Wu Cheng En circa AC 1506-1582 and translated by Anthony C. Yu, is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literatures. Already a renowned literary work among the eastern countries, it stands as a salient example of epic brilliance and held with high regard and pride by the Chinese people. Numerous spin-offs, literary works, and cinema have been proliferating for hundreds of years after the wide panned success of this 100-chapter novel.

The novel tells the tale of Sun Wukong, a divine monkey born from a celestial rock whose birth produced a beam of light that pierced even the clouds and shook rampantly the heavenly world. Deemed worthy of notable interest, the gods however classified it nothing more as a spiritual beast and left Sun Wukong to his own devices. Soon growing up to be an intelligent beast, Sun begins to search out the world for true immortals for the answer to his existence as well as attain longevity in order to exert his own immortal impression upon the world. Destructive behavior ensues, and Buddha intervenes, placing Sun under a divine mountain to wait for hundreds of years before a monk capable of taking a pilgrimage to the Temple of Thunderclap and receiving the scriptures of altruistic Buddhism comes to enlist his apprenticeship - and all this happens merely in the first ten or so chapters!

Modernly geared towards children who might appreciate the animal-like characters, the novel was first written as a front for teaching moral values, values at the time which were regarded as of the utmost importance, such as: chastity, filial piety, respect of religion as well as fervent practice towards religion, and the underlying lesson in each chapter, that greed will consume a man. Many books have tried this same approach, only to turn it into a book of boredom; Journey to the West, however, doesn't. Each singular character enhances the read of the book and provides deep insight into ones own philosophy towards living life, their own journey of obtaining the scriptures portraying the individual's journey in life dreaming of their one own respective goal. Long verses of beautiful, translated poetry are abundant in each chapter, and prove entertaining and useful as a purpose to envision the story.

Having read all volumes of the series, I am forever an avid fan of the work and would respectfully recommend this literary series to any individual who has grown stale of overdone modern works or stale classics.