Mythology

Chinese Tales, Tails, Monkeys, Dragons, Gods, and Goddesses

By: John Feisel

Narrated by: Ric Chetter

Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

This is a three in one bundle. The following books are in this bundle:

Book 1: Indulge in the crazy, mystical, mythical aspects of Chinese folklore. You will listen about the most basic background information, the setting, the time period in which these tales were created, and so much more. Among others, you will become familiar with things like:

• The myth of the sun and the moon.
• Cultural aspects of ancient oriental society.
• Amazing facts about Confucius and Confucianism.
• Buddhism and its role in China and mythology.
• Stories about gods, heroes, stars, and saints.
• And so many other things.

Book 2: These amazing Chinese myths include many stories, which could teach you moral lessons and entertain you at the same time. Become fascinated by the epic tales from ancient, oriental regions, such as:

• The kitchen gods, door gods, god of wealth, or the god of joy.
• The immortals the ancient Chinese believed in.
• The epic legend of T’ai Sui.
• Myths entailing the elements of nature, such as thunder and lightning.
• Dragons and dragon gods.
• The significance of water goddesses, medical gods, and others.

Book 3: You are in luck, because you are about to be entertained by some of the most engaging, supernatural stories from Chinese mythology. These conveniently include but are not limited to:

• The story of the monkey, how he became a god and fooled everyone.
• Legends of the fox, and everything that goes with it.
• Legends about generous, bad, and good girls in Chinese mythology.
• Battle between the numerous gods and goddesses from China.
• The beliefs about the eight immortals.
• Guardians of paradise gate, dragons, etc.

©2019 John Feisel (P)2019 John Feisel

Enjoyable book

Lots of information and stories, it's more like a combination of fiction and nonfiction. Personally, I liked the fiction side of it, because the stories contained morals, and they were based on some deeply rooted beliefs from the ancient East of the world.

Nice

Very good book, if you ask me. The stories about the monkey who became king, the gods and goddesses, and the historical information about the Chinese culture during the time when they believed this stuff... all very good. I have no other words for it. Get it if this is up your alley.

All of it

These are all of the books in the series. Wow. Talking about a great deal for your credit. Yes, I liked the narrator, and yes, I also liked the stories and the background information.

I recommend this one because it's the best deal for your buck. If you buy it at full price, it's less of a good deal of course. But still a nice book.

dishonest

This book does not reveal its source. Who is John Feisel? What authority does he have for writing this. The text keeps talking about the present China but never references anything from World War I I or after. At one point the author says he was present at 1917 meeting in Peking. The text sounds like it was cribed from some anti-Chinese British or American imperialist missionary. Should not be sold as providing any serious knowledge of Chinese history or mythology. It itself is mythology.

More condescending than the book itself is the narration

I had listened to a lot of mythology related books on Audible, ranging from Greek to Norse mythologies. All of which were marvellously written and masterfully narrated. The high ratings of this title then gave me the impression that it should be of similar quality. Unfortunately that’s not the case.

The book itself started with early western fantasy of a specific group of the Chinese people in early 1900s, so you can imagine how stereotypical and imperial it could be like. I hesitate to slap the label “racism” on works that represent an ethnic culture without a proper or relatively comprehensive representation, so I’ll call this part of the title “ignorant” instead. Imagine introducing the Greeks without its most stellar philosophers, or the romans only through its corrupted emperors and downfall. The narration for this part is unsympathetic und condescending, maybe that was a “feature” rather than a “bug” given the writing itself.

The second part of the book on the Chinese mythology interweaves myths and comparison of Chinese mythology and those of other cultures, I appreciate the general concept, but it would’ve been better if the book could separate the stories from comparative literature, such that I as a listener can feel more engaged with the stories, and then go through the comparative analysis if I feel like challenging my literary brain. Narration is not so good, it’s as if a poorly ranked college professor reading off of slides composed of contents copied from Wikipedia.

Overall I won’t recommend this book unless you can get it for free or have run out of things to do in life. I wish there are books on Chinese mythology on par with Stephen Fry’s Greek mythology series or Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology.

(I’ll come back to update the rest of the comment when I finish. )