The Obscure Reading Group discussion

The Journey to the West, by Wu Cheng'en
Revised Edition, Vol 1, University of Chicago Press, 2013, 576 pages
Translated and edited by Anthony C Wu

Cherisa, thank you for the thread!

I also think it's a good idea to return to the introduction after the book.

I think we should definitely divide the book into sections!
If we want to start next week and finish it on the last week of August, that leaves us with 5 chapters per week. I'm afraid parts of the text might be difficult or require additional research, so I wouldn't want to go faster than that, but going slower, say 3-4 chapters per week, would work for me, too. What do you think, Darrin and Cherisa?

Is anybody else here going to join us? ;)

Yes, no rush on this read!

I like the idea of 3 chapters per week even if that takes us a little bit longer to read but if you think 4 is best that is fine too. I also hope others join us. After each set of chapters do you want to talk about what we read? Perhaps 24 hours of discussion, comments about what we read?

'3 chapters per week' sounds great to me!

Which days are more convenient for you to go online for comments? I'd say, maybe we agree to read these chapters from Monday to Thursday, and then comment on Friday and over the weekend? Or we can appoint other days for comments, if you prefer to stay off screens over the weekend; but I'd like us to have more than 24 hours for the discussion of each part in case we have busy days, and there's the time difference between us, too.

Oh, but I'm excited that we're finally starting this read! I've been looking forward to it :)

I like the idea of Friday and the weekend. On weeknights I like to read later in the evening and feel more like participating in social media on the weekends.

That sounds good to me too Darrin, but I won’t ignore any postings that go up during the week either! 😜

Journey to the West is based on the life and travels of a real person, Xuanzang, a Buddhist monk who traveled to India in the 7th century. There is a very thorough article on Xuanzang here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuanzang

I think it is worth gaining some historical context for the book we are about to read. Xuanzang was very important in bringing Buddhism to China and eventually most of East Asia. China's eventual influence throughout east Asia including Korea and Japan as well as the countries on it's southern borders including Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand was great.

In 2021, I read Viet Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present by Ben Kiernan, a history I highly recommend, especially the early chapters which talk about Buddhism coming to south Asia and the influence of China.

Kiernan's book sounds really interesting and the chapters you suggest do sound like they would be highly relevant for our discussion. But, more reading before we read?! LOL

It's not available on my Libby nor from the interlibrary loan of my municipal library. Hmm, but maybe I'll spring for it on Amazon.

I recently read the graphic novel American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (I adore his Avatar: The Last Airbender). This three novel includes a section about the Monkey Kong. I only just realized after reading three chapters of The J to the W that the familiarity I was feeling with Sun Wukong’s story was from the graphic novel.

Cherisa wrote: "Kiernan's book sounds really interesting and the chapters you suggest do sound like they would be highly relevant for our discussion. But, more reading before we read?! LOL

It's not available on m..."

I learned a lot in the first 1/2 to 3/4 of this book but when it got to the history of the French Indochina war it became pages and pages of names and battles and...it was a hard sell to finish it. I find ancient history more interesting than modern history. I just would not recommend purchasing it.

Cherisa wrote: "I recently read the graphic novel American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (I adore his Avatar: The Last Airbender). This three novel includes a section about the Monkey Kong. I only just realized a..."

I might have to pick that up then. As a family, especially when our oldest son was young we religiously watched Avatar: The Last Airbender. We loved it. It would make sense that he uses the Monkey King as a theme in his novel.

So we'll be discussing the first three chapters by the end of next week, right? (I see that Cherisa has already finished these chapters, but we're not jumping into the discussion this weekend, are we?).

Darrin, thank you for the info and the links! I will definitely try to read the longish article before starting the book. I'm not sure about the history book, but I think I'll give it a try if I have enough time.

I was not planning to. End of next week is good for me. Shall we plan on having the first 3 chapters done by next Friday and start discussion at that point?

Also, that history of Vietnam is only tangentially relevant to this story.

Sounds great, I'm in!

Dianne, I am happy you are joining us to read this book.

Thanks Darrin! I have wanted to read this for many years and I think it's perfectly suited for a group read.

Darrin wrote: "Shall we plan on having the first 3 chapters done by next Friday and start discussion at that point?"
Yes, I like this plan!
(Oh yes, I understand we don't have to read the history book, but I am interested, only not sure if I have the time).

Dianne wrote: "I have wanted to read this for many years and I think it's perfectly suited for a group read."
Same here! I think it might be challenging to read it on one's own, and it's such a significant work that it deserves to be explored in-depth. I'm happy that Darrin is leading us! And it's lovely that you're joining us here :)

My notes on the Wiki article on Xuanzang:
He was certainly a very interesting character! Judging by the Wiki summaries, his book is a treasure of knowledge, but not an easy read.

His brand of Buddhism was Mahayana:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayan....
But this is very broad. It's about striving to become fully awakened for the benefit of all sentient beings (I understand other strands of Buddhism feature this, too), and it's practised in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Korea, Tibet, Mongolia and Japan.

Xuanzang was strongly interested in Yogācāra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogachara
i. e., yoga and meditation.

I’m a hundred pages in (through Chapter 7). If all these antics and battles are metaphors, they are going right over my head.

I am going to go back and read the introduction after I move on to the next set of 3 chapters this weekend. Reading through the Wikipedia piece about the book, it reminds me of the folk tales and historical myths that build up around real people in our own history. A 16th century writer in China is really just compiling folk tales that have been told and re-told about the journey of Xuanzang to India in the 7th century.

I think the metaphor is so deeply part of Chinese culture that it is hard to express in a way that makes sense to a western audience. I guess I am not going to look too seriously into the idea that it is going to impart some great knowledge shift in my head and instead, look at it like the sort of folk tales built up around historical figures like Daniel Boone or even George Washington.

I also picked up the graphic novel, American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. This is a modern story told by a Chinese American but incorporates the tale of the Monkey King...I thought that might give me a better idea of why and how this tale is so popular in Chinese culture.

Darrin, that’s a good idea about thinking of it as a collection of folk tales or legends rather than “a novel” as I had earmarked it. That mental shift will keep me from looking for forward motion and character development as we expect typically.

Darrin, how exactly will we be reading the introductions, next week instead of the three chapters, or do we read the next three chapters next week, and then devote a week to the introductions?

My impressions of the first three chapters...

I really liked the Handsome Monkey King as a character over the first two chapters, but his behaviour towards the Dragon King was not something I expected from an enlightened Buddhist!
Otherwise, he's determined, optimistic, cheerful, courageous, - in short, nice :)
An example of his sweetness:
'He stared at the place for a long time but dared not knock. Instead, he jumped onto the branch of a pine tree, picked a few pine seeds and ate them, and began to play.'

Thinking about spirituality, it's interesting how enlightenment is equalled with physical immortality and magic. Please correct me if I got this wrong, though! :)
It's refreshing for me to read a classic text about magic as something morally legit.

I loved this quote:
'When will end this quest for fortune and fame, This tyrant of early rising and retiring late?'
(Maybe it's because it's been so hard for me recently to rise early, but this went straight to my heart).

A song to recite when troubled:
'Selling my firewood to buy some wine, I am happy and laugh without restraint. When the path is frosted in autumn’s height, I face the moon, my pillow the pine root. Sleeping till dawn I find my familiar woods.'
I find this lovely! It mentions wine, autumn, the Moon, the woods, - some of the most enjoyable things in this life. I must try to recite this when troubled.
But seriously, isn't it great advice, to think about pleasurable things when you're troubled?

Another autumnal quote:
'A thousand stalks of old cypress
Draped in rain
half fill the air with tender green...'
Love the 'draped in rain' turn of phrase.

“Nothing in the world is difficult,” said the Patriarch; “only the mind makes it so.”
Cf.: '... for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so', as expressed by Hamlet :)

I don't know what experience others have with Chinese pop culture of the present day. When my wife and I first met, started dating and she later moved in with me, we would spend many evenings and weekend renting videos from the local store. They were VHS at the time. In the 1990s, Chinese movies with subtitles were still very popular as much of Japanese pop culture was still not available in Korea. Yes, the resentment of Japan still lingered even into the 90s.

The types of Chinese movies that were popular were of the same genre of movie as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which you all might be familiar with. They featured extreme martial arts, characters flying through the air like gods and goddesses and they featured campy dialogue and acting. They were and are simply campy action movies.

Many of the Monkey King's incredible abilities still feature in Chinese pop culture and in these types of action movies. I think it is interesting that folk tales and stories that pre-date the 16th century and were built up around this journey to the west by this lone monk still carry on to the present day.

One thing about the Viet Nam history that I mentioned earlier that struck me was how the Chinese and the earlier states and kingdoms that came to make up what would become China were highly bureaucratic and made records of everything. The same goes for historical information and later stories. So much is preserved in writing from the early foundations of the Chinese state, including these ancient stories and the original records of Xuanzang's travels to India. It also made me think of how much was lost when the Roman Empire crumbled.

Very interesting comments, thank you, Darrin!

Chapter 9 is my favorite so far! But no monkey king anywhere to be found, maybe that’s why? 😜

I'm just finishing chapter one, so way behind you guys (where are we supposed to be now?). I admire the translator, especially for the poem sections! It is reading like a religious tome or parable to me so far.

Dianne it doesn’t matter! We are shooting for 3 chapters a week and are on our second eeek. I’m a bit ahead though I’ve tried to slow down.

Getting into Chapters 4, 5 and 6, it’s striking how Chinese Heaven is an enormous bureaucracy!

Lol, yes!

Another thing that I keep wondering is why a monkey king? Why monkeys specifically? I wondered if because this book was developed from the folk tales of common folk that perhaps they saw themselves as lesser than the Chinese nobility and so they compared themselves to monkeys trying to better themselves and become more human.

There always seems to be this underlying prejudice in regard to the monkey king.

What that calls to mind for me Darrin is the concept of trickster in Native American / Indigenous nations cultures.
They tend to be rule breakers that challenge existing structures and cross boundaries in the social order. While their stories and antics are used to delight and entertain, their transgressions are used to simultaneously contrast with and teach about the listeners’ society, culture and morality.

I can’t say why a monkey, but I’d bet in a rigid social structure, a being close to human but not quite is enough to make a monkey the prankster equivalent to Coyote, it’s human-like features but wild nature enough to indicate he’s not to be accepted into the social order, too wild and beastly even if he is highly skilled and disciplined in many ways. He might as well kick up a fuss because he’s never going to be equal to his supposed peers in the Great Chinese Heaven Bureaucracy.

I've finished chapter 6, - and I see what Cherisa meant by 'all these battles'! I agree, they are a bit tiresome and repetitive. Darrin, thank you once again for your comments.

I liked the Handsome Monkey King less in these chapters, but at the same time the heavenly bureaucracy is even less attractive.

'We can then present a formal complaint to Heaven, and Heaven will send its own punishment.'
As simple as that :)

I wanted to note this, though:
'Seeing the features of old Monkey, he appointed me to something called the BanHorsePlague, which actually means taking care of horses for him. It’s a job too low even to be classified! I didn’t know this when I first assumed my duties, and so I managed to have some fun at the imperial stables. But when I asked my colleagues...'
This is another example of “only the mind makes it so” - I think it's sad that the monkey was enjoying himself until somebody (members of the heavenly bureaucracy!) told him his post was not good enough.

I am enjoying the humour of this.

Why monkey: I can see that the note to the title of chapter seven refers to the famous monkey mind metaphor; so I imagine this is at least one of the reasons.

And I absolutely agree with Cherisa that the monkey king is a trickster, which makes him more interesting than all those heavenly deities who seem all identical.

I also noticed the change in the narrator's attitude: suddenly, Chapter Five begins with:
'Now we must tell you that the Great Sage, after all, was a monkey monster...' - what happened to 'Dear Monkey King'? That was a foreshadowing of his downfall.

If anybody is interested in the differences between Chan and Mahayana Buddhism, here's a nice simple article:
https://asiasociety.org/education/bud...

Cherisa wrote: "Chapter 9 is my favorite so far!"
I am enjoying the eclecticism of the book, and I see what you mean about this chapter. For me, though, there was too much 'real' violence in it, as opposed to the more abstract violence of the deities. But I enjoyed the black humour of the following quote greatly:
'Some time after this, Lady Yin calmly committed suicide after all...'

Speaking about violence, I was appalled by the cruelty of punishments inflicted on the monsters by the deities in chapter 8. I remember that Greek and Roman gods were famous for their vengefulness, but somehow I expected Buddhist deities to be more compassionate.

Here's another instance of black humour I enjoyed:
'There have even been a number of scripture pilgrims here, and I ate all of them.'
I find it very funny that the monster knows these people were exactly of the same 'profession' as the person he is now charged to help, and he feels uneasy about it.

The skulls he mentions must be the ones from the cover of the book:


You can find more 'Journey' artwork in this blog:
https://journeytothewestresearch.com/...

And here's an illustration of an episode we've already read:

Monkey in the Underworld striking his name from the Book of Life and Death by Shotaro Honda (本田庄太郎, 1893-1939).

I love the artwork, but speaking about the Handsome Monkey King as a character, I like him more in the illustration by the anonymous author (i. e., with the skulls); the impression of his face is (I think) that of composed optimism, a quality of his that I've already mentioned.

The title of Chapter 10 seems intriguing :)

What are your thoughts on the last three chapters, Darrin and Dianne?

I’m up to Chapter 12. Where is everyone?

Plateresca wrote: "Cherisa wrote: "Chapter 9 is my favorite so far!"
I am enjoying the eclecticism of the book, and I see what you mean about this chapter. For me, though, there was too much 'real' violence in it, as..."
Plateresca and Cherisa, I am a bit behind all of you but just updated my status to page 201 which is the start of chapter 8. I am at a bit of a crossroads because the book I have is an inter-library loan book and is now overdue. I am going to try to stretch through the weekend and be a bit of a bad library patron but on Monday, I am going to see if I can get it renewed at all. My library loan account would not allow me to do that.

So I am at the point after the Monkey King has finally been subdued and now lay at the base of 5 finger mountain. I mentioned that I had read the graphic novel, American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, which is about about a Chinese-American teenager finding his way through high school in the American midwest and trying to determine how "American" he is and how much of his culture will he continue to hang onto. The Monkey King plays a big part in this contemporary graphic novel which I feel shows the staying power of this particular tale. At the end of the novel, it is the Monkey King that helps, the boy, Jin Wang to realize that he should just be himself by saying, "You know, Jin, I would have saved myself from five hundred years' imprisonment beneath a mountain of rock had I only realized how good it is to be a monkey."

Chapter 7 has already hinted that the Monkey King would be released at some point for a possible Journey to the West, so I am guessing the Monkey King learns some lessons while he eats molten copper!

It makes me wonder if the tale of the Monkey King specifically is singled out from the whole book as a tale parents tell their children? It might be a generational tale and so ingrained into Chinese culture that everyone knows it.

Also, new on Netflix this month, The Monkey King! "A stick-wielding monkey teams with a young girl on an epic quest for immortality, battling demons, dragons, gods - and his own ego - along the way."

I will probably watch this weekend just because it is the Monkey King.

So, I guess there is a sort of theme/lesson to be learned by this drawn-out adventure that is the Monkey King and that is, to be yourself. Or, perhaps, don't overstep your bounds or, is it perhaps, know your place? I can see both positive and negative sides to this. I found myself rooting for the monkey king most of the time and taking his side as the underdog rather than him trying to be something he was not. Perhaps I have my 21st century biases here.

Cherisa wrote: "Getting into Chapters 4, 5 and 6, it’s striking how Chinese Heaven is an enormous bureaucracy!" Lol...no kidding! And there are no "normal" people it seems. Everyone seems to be some sort of deity.

I have finished chapter 11 and plan to finish chapter 12 by the end of this week.
My notes on Chapters 10 and 11:
The poetry in Chapter 10 has a curious mix: Buddhist non-attachment plus huge amounts of alcohol.
I love this quote:
'He who knows how to win will not prolong his fight; he who is a master of positions will not engage in direct combat; he who knows how to fight will not suffer defeat; and he who knows how to lose will not panic.'

I'd say the Dragon King (under 'spoiler' tags, since not everybody has reached this chapter) (view spoiler)[ gets a harsh treatment! He was trying to help his subjects, and didn't really do anything wrong, and he gets punished by death :( (hide spoiler)]

The tour of the Underworld in Chapter 11 reminded me of Dante, of course :)

Darrin, I hope you can find a way to keep reading!

Yes, we'll definitely see the Handsome Monkey King again :)

Why is Monkey King punished? Well, technically, because he's broken many rules in Heaven, and Heaven is vengeful. That said, he could not be defeated until a certain point. I think it's because he was using his magic without proper respect for its Buddhist origins and using it for selfish means.

I do enjoy him as a character, but I also think that his debauchery in Heaven was too much, and I think it's a good thing that he gets checked - he was becoming more and more wild and nasty. The punishment, though, is too strict, as it often is in this book.

I do not find the picture of Heaven here particularly appealing :)

This has turned into a slog. I’m still trying and have gotten up to Chapter 17, but I really don’t have much to say about it.

Cherisa, I'm a bit behind with the three chapters this week; the one I've read last is Chapter 13.

This is not an easy read for me either, and I have to admit I was
hoping the notes would be more helpful. Also, we're all in different places in the book... It is not always easy for me to read three such complicated chapters per week - and I gather that for you, on the opposite, it's difficult not to rush ahead. I understand this is just the way it is, but it makes the discussion somewhat fragmented.

I think it might help if we all said why we wanted to read the book in the first place. What did you expect from this read, and what are your impressions now?

As for me, I am interested in Buddhism. I know very little about it, but am trying to understand more, and reading something fictional, even if a bit strange by modern standards, is easier for me than reading serious non-fiction texts on Buddhism. I am enjoying the way this book is so different from anything European that I've ever read. Enumerations of deities make me terribly sleepy, I am not a fan of battles, and there's too much cruelty for my taste. Still, I am enjoying the eclecticism and unpredictability of this; the fairy-tale quality of some of the stories; the glimpses of the Buddhist mindset; some of the poetry (not the passages about battles); and the quirky sense of humour.

Since I'm here, I'll leave my comments on Chapter 13, too.

'When the mind is active,' Tripitaka replied, 'all kinds of mara come into existence; when the mind is extinguished, all kinds of mara will be extinguished.'
So he's basically saying, 'We only worry because our minds are over-active.'
But do you see that the chapter proves him absolutely wrong? His attendants are wiped out at once in the very beginning of the journey, so the dangers of it were absolutely not imaginary.
Yet on the other hand, he's absolutely right: 'What's the use of worrying?', as the poet said. He is to go on the quest anyway, - and he's still alive as of now (and I suspect will be for the remainder of this volume and three more).

I really tried to copy him this Tuesday, when I had two scary appointments. With more or less the same results: I am alive, but experience proved that my worries had not at all been ungrounded.

Of course, I love this description of Autumn:
'Now in the wistful face of autumn,
The air was cool and brisk,
By the wayside yellow leaves fell;
Over the peaks the white clouds drifted'

I did not enjoy all the mentions of hunting, but I did like it that the monk stuck to his vegetarian diet! Although I must admit that otherwise, he hasn't done much so far to achieve his major goal, or so it seems.