Lizhongwu's Annotations on Journey to the West (Volumes 1 and 2)

Author: Wu Cheng'en
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: The Journey to the West is a great literary masterpiece that the Chinese nation can be proud of. The Encyclopedia Americana considers it "a mythological novel rich in content and brilliant in thought." The Encyclopedia Britannica also states: "The descriptions of the story throughout the book are filled with humor and wit, giving readers a strong sense of interest." Since the 19th century, it has been translated into more than a dozen languages, including Japanese, English, French, German, Russian, and others, and has become popular worldwide. Today, this work and the vivid and interesting character of Sun Wukong are familiar to people in many countries around the world. The Journey to the West, like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin, gradually developed and evolved from folk oral literature. Historically, Tang Sanzang's journey to the Western Heaven of India to retrieve Buddhist scriptures was a real event. Due to the almost unimaginable and inconceivable conditions of transportation at the time, people created many legendary tales about this heroic feat. Moreover, since Tang Sanzang's journey to India was for Buddhist scriptures, and Buddhism and magic are two opposing categories, people imagined that many magical obstacles would appear along the way to interfere and disrupt the journey. Since Tang Sanzang was a gentle and frail monk, he was unable to fight against the demons or overcome the myriad hardships alone, so he had to find a disciple with extraordinary supernatural powers to clear the obstacles for him, engage in thrilling struggles with the fierce, powerful, and cunning demons and monsters.