Monkey King

Journey to the West

By: Wu Cheng'en, Julia Lovell - translator - editor - introduction, Gene Luen Yang - foreword

Narrated by: Robert Wu

Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

A Chinese Lord of the Rings and one of the all-time great fantasy novels - which Neil Gaiman has said "is in the DNA of 1.5 billion people" - now in a thrilling new translation

A shape-shifting trickster on a kung-fu quest for eternal life, Monkey King is one of the most memorable superheroes in world literature. High-spirited and omni-talented, he amasses dazzling weapons and skills on his journey to immortality: a gold-hooped staff that can grow as tall as the sky and shrink to the size of a needle; the ability to travel 108,000 miles in a single somersault. A master of subterfuge, he can transform himself into whomever or whatever he chooses and turn each of his body's 84,000 hairs into an army of clones. But his penchant for mischief repeatedly gets him into trouble, and when he raids Heaven's Orchard of Immortal Peaches and gorges himself on the elixirs of the gods, the Buddha pins him beneath a mountain, freeing him only 500 years later for a chance to redeem himself: He is to protect the pious monk Tripitaka on his 14-year journey to India in search of precious Buddhist sutras that will bring enlightenment to the Chinese empire.

Joined by two other fallen immortals - Pigsy, a rice-loving pig able to fly with its ears, and Sandy, a depressive man-eating river-sand monster - Monkey King undergoes 81 trials, doing battle with Red Boy, Princess Jade-Face, the Monstress Dowager, and all manner of dragons, ogres, wizards, and femmes fatales, navigating the perils of Fire-Cloud Cave, the River of Flowing Sand, the Water-Crystal Palace, and Casserole Mountain, and being serially captured, lacquered, sautéed, steamed, and liquefied, but always hatching an ingenious plan to get himself and his fellow pilgrims out of their latest jam.

Monkey King: Journey to the West is at once a rollicking adventure, a comic satire of Chinese bureaucracy, and a spring of spiritual insight. With this new translation, the irrepressible rogue hero of one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature has the potential to vault, with his signature cloud-somersault and unerring sense for fun, into the hearts of millions of Americans.

©2021 Julia Lovell, translation (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

A Fortune Best Book of the Year

“A breezy, action-packed narrative.... Rich with imaginative world-building that evokes the best Pixar films.... The book is also quite funny.... With this new readable version of Monkey King, Western readers will also have plenty of fun.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

“A fun, accessible book that will attract readers to a text that may otherwise seem obscure and imposing.... The jokes hit every register, from slapstick and toilet humor to dryly delivered drolleries.... The literary analog for the gonzo humor is Rabelais and the fight scenes are the stuff of superhero comics. But the comparison that kept coming to mind is with the irreverent, twinkling humor of Looney Tunes cartoons, with Monkey King a cross between Bugs Bunny and the Tasmanian Devil.... A rollicking work of high buffoonery.” (The Wall Street Journal)

“Exhibit[s] a rollicking exuberance.... [It] has long been - and will continue to be - a rewarding and enjoyable reading experience for many people.” (The Washington Post)

Great narration

I think there is a lot of people who had problems with Monkey's voice but I personally loved all of the narration. There is no monotony and you can easily identify who is saying what.

Good Book

Book is good. The story is good and the narraration is even better. excellent

"Modernized" and Abridged

Disingenuous of Penguin to reveal only in the hour long & rather needless translator's introduction that she felt free to cut out long passages. She justified some of this as needless between tale review of what came previously, a hold over from story telling. But she also simply skipped a number of tales, replacing each with a few sentence summary.

These may or may not have been good editorial decisions but they contradict the "unabridged" label this recording is given.

The language is highly contemporary American which certainly conveyed the humor of situations, but that also left you wondering about the original.

Speaking of contemporary, the performance starts with a brief and entertaining introduction by Wu Cheg'en who is apparently an editor about hearing Monkey King tales from his mother growing up. It's a pity this wasn't delivered in his voice but in that of the sing song narrator.

Likewise the translators introduction, which was done no favors by that same flippant sing song narrator. Why the translator found it necessary to summarize for nearly an hour the book we were about to hear was beyond me. Nor was I particularly encouraged that the translation was based on the official version compiled by the communist party. I mean, Mao's cadre may have done a faithful job, or they may have made a propaganda hash of the original. Quality or motivation for the choice isn't addressed.

Next came an introduction of all the characters. Again, why?

So, by time we got at last to the story, I had an attitude. I was like, I've got hours of this voice still ahead of me? Nor did the voice change, but at last it had its natural outlet in Monkey. And I settled down & enjoyed the story tho with some reservations as above.

In sum, can the clown voice in the introductions & cut the story summary from the translator's intro.

PS: Where can I get me a different translation?

amazing story, even better narrator.

this book is well known in popular for a reason, it has a great story, amazing characters and the narrator who reads this book for you is just amazing. he makes great voices and really brings the book to life. 10 out of 10, must buy.

What an amazing story!

As a non-asian, I wanted to read Journey to the West for a long time, and I was very happy to learn about this audio version.

The reading of the book was magnificent! I was drawn to the story and the characters and was eager to hear more along the way.

Thank you for bringing this ancient story to life!

God I love this book

I swear this is my favorite religious story ever. Monkey is the best character ever.

Enjoyed every bit of it. Translation🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Translation was excellent. Voice work brought each character to life, 10/10 would recommend. TY.

So entertaining!

The story was totally engaging, and the narrator did a great job of bringing the characters to life!

Tone

It was fun, the voice actor has enthusiasm, very good for kids I think, extra word to meet length

Really good and funny

I really enjoyed this story and it's genuinely funny. I laughed more at the scenes in this book than any other I've read. Its a pretty wild and crazy story and the Monkey and Pigsy characters adds a lot of humor with their antics.

The translation and voice actor are excellent. I can't be sure how accurate it is the the original archaic chinese, but it's been translated into quite modern English which flows well and the narrator does and excellent job with many distinct voices.