The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 1 Paperback – Illustrated, 21 Dec. 2012

Reading Journey to the West is a fairly mammoth task. It is long: I've seen the statistic that it is twice the length of Tolstoy's War and Peace. Be prepared to navigate your way through the tricky to translate metaphors in the poems, characters who use a wide variety of names and a narrative structure unlike anything a present day Western reader is expecting. Also be prepared to discover endearing characters, beautiful word use and a sense of humour and fun that defies time and cultural divides, assisted by a very thorough, accessible and beautifully written translation by Anthony Yu. When I wasn't too engrossed in the story, the footnotes at the back provided an excellent explanation of what various turns or phrase refer to and lead me to learn so much about Chinese mythology and history. While I expected that it would be a long slog to get through the first volume, I found I'd read it very quickly. Now the only thing holding me back from continuing the journey is having to purchase the next volume!As a PS, someone who is starting to read should try keeping a "Xuanzang falls off his horse" count. He seems to do it quite frequently, made me giggle every time...

Bought as a gift for my cousin, lovely book. Really interesting cover.

A good introduction to the Chinese classics, easy to read and enjoy, yet amazingly deep as well. Well worth reading.

Beautiful

Very good edition, comprehensive and easy to read. A very big though, not one to carry around with you.

this book is so good! I'm definitely going to e getting volume 2

The Foreign language press edition (which I have) is printed on virtually see thru paper in small print. This edition has in my view an unnecessarily long introduction but has thicker paper -which is not see thru - and slightly larger print. It is therefore preferable but far from cheap at £ 20+ per volume if you want to replace the 4 older version volumes. The books themselves are quite wonderful. However the Arthur Whaley abridged version in 1 volume is better for children and new readers.

I liked the look on my granddaughters face when she opened the package, it said everything.

Worth it

Una gran edición, fluida y entretenida. Buenos materiales.

This book is realy amazing and had me brought back into reading after many others have failed to catch my attention.Tho English is not my first language I tend to struggle a bit while reading it but I understand enough to be able to explain what happens in each chapter.

Acabo de comprarme el libro, por lo que no he tenido tiempo de leérmelo aún. Sin embargo, de lo poco que he visto tiene muy buena traducción ya que todos los nombres en chinos vienen acompañados del Hanzi correspondiente. En cuanto termine el libro volveré a dar mi opinión.El único punto negativo que puedo dar en este momento es que la portada del libro me ha llegado un poco arrugado en la parte inferior central. Por lo demás, de momento todo genial. La llegada del libro fue excepcional, se suponía que iba a llegar el viernes y llegó el jueves por la mañana, esperand solo un total de 2 días

Testo fondamentale della cultura e letteratura classica cinese del XVI secolo, in una traduzione moderna, puntuale, scientifica, poetica e leggibile.Molto divertente la cosmogonia cinese.