The Monkey King takes on his biggest challenge: his own unconscious desires

As the audacious Monkey King battles his way through a landscape of inexplicable places and unfamiliar passions, Further Adventures on the Journey to the West offers a wry, revisionist critique of the late-Ming fascination with desire. Building on the great sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West, which recounts the escapades of a monk and three companions traveling to India in search of Buddhist scriptures to carry back to China, this sequel is a parable of self-delusion that explores the tension between desire and emptiness from a Buddhist perspective. The consummate literati novel, written by an accomplished artist for a well-educated readership, it is filled with allusions and parodies and features a dream-sequence narrative that is innovative and sophisticated even by modern standards.

This new, fully annotated translation by two acclaimed scholars and translators brings to life this remarkably inventive, playful early modern text. The volume includes the original commentaries and illustrations, a critical introduction and afterword, and notes that highlight the sources of the novel's intertextual references, revealing the author's erudition and versatility.

The open access publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.

The Monkey King takes on his biggest challenge: his own unconscious desires

About the Author

Qiancheng Li is author of Fictions of Enlightenment and Transmutations of Desire and editor of the Chinese variorum, critical edition of Further Adventures on the Journey to the West. Robert E. Hegel is Liselotte Dieckmann Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and emeritus professor of Chinese at Washington University, and author of The Novel in Seventeenth-Century China.

Reviews

"A critical translation for the serious scholar."

* Choice *

"[A] boon to both scholarship and teaching. The translators' scholarly preface and postface, copious notes, and full bibliography mean that it brings this elusive novel closer to the point at which readers of today can understand it as seventeenth-century readers might have done."

* Journal of Chinese Studies *

"Li and Hegel's new translation of Xiyoubu makes a great contribution to the field of Chinese studies not only for its masterful English translation of this seventeenth-century literary gem and its erudite introduction, but also for presenting the work with the various paratexts that accompanied its late Ming edition."

* Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies *



Book Information
ISBN 9780295747729
Author Master of Silent Whistle Studio
Format Paperback
Page Count 278
Imprint University of Washington Press
Publisher University of Washington Press
Weight(grams) 386g