20th c. English Renderings of the Xiyou ji 遊遊西 (Journeyto the West) – Cultural Translation of the Narrative

and Its Afterlife

遊遊遊《 》西 20 遊遊遊遊遊遊 – 遊遊遊遊遊遊遊遊遊遊遊遊遊

Mgr. Radovan Škultéty (M.A.) 雷雷雷

Abstract

The classical Chinese novel had to undertake an arduousjourney before it reached the hands of the English-speakingreadership. This “journey to the West” will be studied on theexample of the novel “Xiyou ji” 雷雷西 (“Pilgrimage (or “Journey”) tothe West”), one of the most famous and most beloved novels inChina and East Asia. The appearance of Arthur Waley’s abridgedtranslation in 1943 marked an event of great importance in worldliterature, in that it brought this masterly work to theattention of larger Western audience. However, it took another 40years before the complete English version by Anthony Yu came intothe world, followed shortly by W.C.F. Jenner. The paper comparesthe three translations based on selected passages and discussesthem shortly from the point of view of the theory of translation(e.g., Schleiermacher, Benjamin, polysystem theory, Bassnett andLefevere, Eugene Eoyang). Finally, it studies the process ofrecreation of this literary work in the English-languageliterature in the past decades. It becomes obvious that theMonkey-hero character has been transmitted into the new literarycommunity, becoming a sovereign property of the English-language,and mostly American, literature.

Introduction

The novel Xiyou ji 雷雷西 (“Pilgrimage (or “Journey”) to theWest”)1, is no doubt one of the most famous and belovedclassical novels in China and East Asia. It is based on acycle of stories about the Chinese monk Xuanzang (or Hsüan-1 I will follow Anthony Yu’s choice of the English title although theword ‘pilgrimage’ would probably be closer to the original intent ofXuanzang’s undertaking. Henceforth referred to as ‘the JW’.

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tsang, also known by his honorific name Tripitaka), ahistorical person (596-664 C.E.), who made an arduousjourney to India to fetch Buddhist scriptures, non-extant inhis homeland at the time. Being an extraordinary feat initself, his travel became a source of manifold legends thatstarted spreading shortly after his return to China in 645.In hands of crafted storytellers, they soon evolved into aseries of fantastic tales within the framework of the famousmonk’s historical journey, incorporating a host of monstersand demons and other difficulties Tripitaka has to overcomebefore he can accomplish his journey. In order to stand upto the task, he is backed by a no-less-fantastic retinue offour, among which Monkey (or Sun Wukong) is undoubtedly themost capable, colorful and witty, and as such is bound towin the heart of the reader or spectator.

This story cycle existed as a body of both oral andwritten literature with a collective author; it had beenconstantly enlarged and reworked for almost a millennium,accommodating influences from both the native Chinese andIndian religious and folk lore, before it got petrified inthe version that circulates today. No later than in 1592C.E.2 were the existing stories collected, thoroughlyedited, embellished with poetry and ultimately refined by ananonymous author3. As a result, the JW emerged as anextensive body of text4 that combines religious allegorywith romance, fantasy, humor, and satire. A novel with sucha complicated background abounds with allusions and itsdeeper layers of meaning have never been easy to deciphercompletely. Its tremendous success with all literate or2 The year of publishing the Shidetang of Nanjing (雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 JinlingTang shi Shidetang kanben) edition (雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷西 Xinke chuxiang guanban dazi Xiyou ji[Newly Carved, Illustrated Journey to the West– A Large Print OfficialEdition]) that has been, with minor amendments, the basis of all thelater editions. 3 Usually, the authorship of this ‘ultimate’ edition is ascribed to WuCheng’en, however, there is a lack of substantial proof to this claim.However interesting it may be with respect to the problem oftranslation, the question of the author lies beyond the scope of thispaper.4 The modern mainland China People's Literature Publishing House (雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 , Renmin wenxue chubanshe) 100-chapter Chinese editions indicate866.000 characters, which corresponds to almost 1.800 A5 pages of Yu’sEnglish translation in four volumes (excl. notes).

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semi-literate strata subscribed to the fact that, althoughit belonged to the non-canonical, “vulgar” xiao shuo 雷 雷category of literature5, a handful of commentaries appearedin the following centuries to rectify its original intent.6

1. Translating the novel: A. Waley, A. C. Yu and W.J.F.Jenner

I found this introduction to the novel’s textualhistory necessary before discussing its cultural translationinto English. In this respect, one should take into accountthat the plot, motifs, as well as the casting the JW per sedrew heavily from the cultural exchange between India andChina following the introduction of Buddhism to the “MiddleKingdom”. The stories from the JW cycle spread abroad ratherearly – no later than by the end of 13th c. but probable evenmuch earlier7 - however, it happened solely within theChinese cultural sphere of influence in the time whenChinese was still the language of the high literature. Ittook another half a millennium before first translations ofthis magnum opus reached the reader in the West.

The stories from the JW first appeared in a Westernlanguage in 1857 when the French Orientalist Théodore Pavie(1811-1896) published his “Étude sur le Sy-yéou-tchin-tsuen,roman bouddhique chinois”.8 The first English translationdates back to 1895; it is a selection from chap.10-11 of the

5 Xiaoshuo 雷 雷 literally means “small talk”; it later became to denotefiction in general, and eventually the novel genre. For an extensivediscussion about the origins of the genre in China, see, for example,Thomas Zimmer: Der Chinesischen Roman der ausgehenden Kaiserzeit [The ChineseNovel Of The Outgoing Empire], K.G. Saur, Munich 2002, pp. 3-32.6 E.g., the Qing dynasty Liu Yiming 雷 雷一, Xiyou yuanzhi dufa 雷雷雷雷雷西 [How to readThe Original Intent of the Journey to the West] in: Liu Yinbo (ed.) 雷雷雷, Xiyou jiyanjiu ziliao 雷雷雷雷雷雷西 [Research Materials to the novel Journey to the West],Shanghai guji chubanshe 1997, pp. 589-597.7 The earliest known two written versions of the JW story, the so-calledKōzanji (雷雷雷) version, dating back to 13th c. - probably the end of theSong dynasty - were discovered in Japan. The 14th c. Chinese reader Pakt’onsa ŏnhae 雷 雷 雷 雷 雷 published in Korea also contained a number of JWstories. The obvious explanation for their inclusion in a textbook wouldbe the popularity they had reached by the time. (Dating by Dudbridge,The Hsi-yu chi: A Study of Antecedents to the Sixteenth-Century Chinese Novel. Cambridge:Cambridge UP, 1970.)

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novel by the American missionary to China, Samuel I.Woodbridge.9 A number of similar extracts by other authorsfollowed.10 In 1913 appeared a partial translation of thenovel with summaries by Timothy Richard, the famousmissionary to China. Although his Mission to Heaven11, alongwith the 1930 Helen M. Hayes’ Buddhist Pilgrim’s Progress12, gotdismissed by both Waley and Yu as accessible but veryinaccurate paraphrases from the JW13, they have neverthelessbeen read and cited, esp. the former one, as for the timebeing the only available English sources.14

8 Théodore Pavie, “Étude sur le Sy-yeou-Schin-tsuen, roman bouddhiquechinois” [Investigation of the Xiyou zhenquan 雷雷雷西 , a Chinese Buddhistnovel]. Journal asiatique (Société asiatique) series 5 (1857), vol. IX (Apr-May), pp. 357-392, and vol. X (Oct-Nov), pp. 308-374. It is a study ofthe opening chapters of the JW with a translation of substantialpassages. Xiyou zhenquan 雷雷雷西 [The True Explanation of the Westward Journey]was in pre-modern times arguably the most widely read abridged versionof the work in China, and its most thoroughgoing allegoricalinterpretation. Cf. Yu: Journey to the West, vol.1, “Preface”, pp. 34-35.9 Samuel I. Woodbridge, The golden-horned dragon king; or, The emperor's visits to thespirit world. Shanghai, printed at the North-China herald office, 189510 For a detailed list cf. Wang Lina 雷雷雷, “Xiyou ji zai haiwai” 雷雷雷雷雷西 [TheNovel Journey to the West Abroad]. In: Gudian wenxue zhishi 雷雷雷雷雷雷 [Learningof the Classical Literature], 1999, 4, pp. 117-126.11 Timothy Richard, A Mission To Heaven: A Great Chinese Epic And Allegory, Shanghai:Christian Literature Society's Depot, 191312 Helen M. Hayes, The Buddhist Pilgrim's progress. From the Shi yeu ki, the records of thejourney to the Western paradise, London: J. Murray - New York : E.P. Dutton,193013 See Waley, Arthur, Preface to Monkey; Anthony C. Yu, Preface to Journeyto the West, p. ix.14 A new edition of Richard’s translation entitled Journey to the West: TheMonkey King's Amazing Adventures was published in September 2008 and for sometime made it among best-sellers in the field of Asian mythology andChinese classics. I compared the data from the Amazon.com Sales Rankstatistics (both www.amazon.com and www.amazon.co.uk) over severalmonths’ period to reach this conclusion. I am well aware that Sales Rankis a highly commercial feature of the big internet bookseller and iscalculated on a proprietary algorithm, however, when properly assessed,it can still offer a source of comparison between differentpublications, esp. when the information on actual print runs is verydifficult to obtain from the publishers. For an analysis of Amazon.comSales Rank statistics, see, e.g., Brent Sampson: “Navigating the AmazonSales Ranking”. WebProNews. 15 June 2005. Accessed 10 April 2009.<http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/2006/06/15/navigating-the-amazon-sales-ranking.>

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All of these renderings were superseded in 1942 whenArthur Waley (1889—1966), the foremost British translator ofChinese and Japanese literature, published in England15 hisfamous Monkey, the first of the major 20th c. JW Englishtranslations studied in this paper. Waley undertook the taskwith his trademark style and diction; the outcome was ahighly readable book that has fascinated generations ofEnglish-speaking readers and saw numerous later editions andreprints.16 Here is how an avid reader remembers thislandmark of 20th-century English translation:

“I turned twelve that year and got a copy for my birthday. Iread and reread it; I drew illustrations for it; and forweeks or months I tagged along, in imagination, with itsimpudent and valiant hero, the Monkey King, as heestablished his reign over the Cave of the Water Curtain,learned martial and magic arts, extorted a wonder-workingcudgel from the Dragon of the Eastern Sea, raided Hell andHeaven, stole Laozi's elixir, was punished by Buddha andredeemed himself as the faithful (although not very well-behaved) disciple of an absurdly incompetent saint,Tripitaka, with whom he trudged westward to the Vulture Peakin search of holy sutras and shastras - fighting demons allthe way, of course. For a boy of twelve it was a delectableintroduction to Chinese literature.” (Lattimore, n.p.)

Waley’s version of the JW in 30 chapters representsroughly one sixth of the text of the novel. He translatedchap.1-7 (corresponding to ch. I-VII in Monkey), recountingthe early career of the monkey king Sun Wukong, and chap.8-12 (VIII-XII), containing the story of the monk Tripitakaand the origin of his mission, almost entirely. He addedchap.13-15 (XIII-XV), 18-19 (XVI-XVII) and 22 (XVIII),essential to the plot as they give an account how Tripitakaacquired the members of his suite along the road. However,out of the journey itself, and the thirty-four episodesawaiting the pilgrims, he selected mere four to be includedin his abridgment – adventure in the Crow-Cock Kingdom, ch.37-39 (XIX-XXI), defeating the three Taoist magicians, ch.

15 The American edition appeared the next year.16 As has often been the case with Waley’s translations, Monkey was laterre-translated or recounted into other languages, e.g. Wu Ch'eng-en, Loscimmiotto, trans. by Adriana Motti from the English trans. by ArthurWaley. Torino: Giulio Einaudi Editore, 1960. Cf. also Wou Tch'eng-En, LeSinge pelerin, ou, le pelerinage d'occident, trans. by George Deniker from theEnglish trans. by Arthur Waley. Paris: Payot, 1951.

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44-46 (XXII-XXIV), defeating the Carp-Monster King, ch. 47-49 (XXV-XXVII), and arriving at the Holy Mountain, obtainingthe scriptures, overcoming the last difficulty and return toChina, ch. 98-100 (XXVIII-XXX).17 On his translation method,Waley made the following statement:

“The original book is indeed of immense length, and isusually read in abridged forms. The method adopted in theseabridgments is to leave the original number of separateepisodes, but drastically reduce them in length,particularly by cutting out dialogue. I have for the mostpart adopted the opposite principle, omitting many episodes,but translating those that are retained almost in full,leaving out, however, most of the incidental passages in verse, which go[es] verybad into English.”18

Waley, “Preface”, p.1 (the emphasis is mine)

As Wong and Chan remark, compared to his adaptations ofclassical Chinese poetry, “…[i]n translating prose andlengthy poems, Waley takes greater – and more conscious –liberty still… Whatever is hard for the translator toexpress or reader to comprehend, Waley often passes over indicreet silence.” (Wong-Chan 427)

The full title of Waley’s rendering was Monkey, Folk Novelof China. It is a misleading title, an oxymoron combining theoral, popular (“folk”) nature of the JW story cycle with itswritten, literary (“novelistic”) character. Conversant withcommentaries to the novel, Waley was clearly aware of thediverse elements of meaning out of which the book iscompounded. In spite of that, he still decided to free hisMonkey of all allegorical interpretations by Buddhist,Taoist, and Confucian commentators and present it as “simplya book of good humor, profound nonsense, good-natured satireand delightful entertainment” (Hu 5). This interpretation ofthe JW by the famous Chinese scholar Hu Shi (1891-1962), afriend of Waley’s and the author of the introduction to histranslation, was faithfully echoed in Monkey.

With this milestone rendering, the English-speakingreadership enjoyed the most authentic and readableabridgement of the JW for more than 40 years before theycould access the text in its entirety and savor its17 Cf. Hu Shih, “Introduction”, pp. 3-418 This is quite a surprising statement on the part of a translator withsuch a gift and superior achievements in the translation of Chineseverse.

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spiritual depths and rich variations of style. For thoughProf. Anthony Yu (b. 1938) was not the first to produce acomplete translation to a Western language (1977-1983)19 noris he the only one who has undertaken such a tremendoustask, his Journey to the West has been undoubtedly the mostfaithful to the source text, preserving as much of theChinese original as possible.20 He backed up his endeavorwith the preliminary theoretical research on the novel21, inaddition to his solid background in religion and medievalstudies, and comparative literature, as well as hiserudition in English that is, after all, not his nativetongue.

According to his own statement, he had doublemotivation for this project:

“to rectify the acclaimed but distorted picture provided by ArthurWaley’s justly popular abridgement, and to redress an imbalance of criticismchampioned by Dr. Hu Shi… who supplied the British translator with aninfluential preface”.

(Yu 2006, preface, xiii)

And he continues:“My own encounter with this marvelous work since childhood, under the

kind but skillful tutelage of my late Grandfather, who used Journey as atextbook for teaching me Chinese… had long convinced me that this narrative wasnothing if not one of the world’s most finely wrought allegories.”

(Yu 2006, preface, xiii-xiv)

Here Prof. Yu hints at one important fact: Waley,though well versed in Chinese and Japanese classical

19 The primacy most probably belongs to the Russian Sinologist A.Rogachev who overtook A. Yu by more than 20 years. See A. Rogachev(trans.): Puteshestvie na Zapad (4 vols.). Moscow: Gosudarstevennoeizdatelstvo khudozhestvennoi literatury, 1959. The complete electronicversion of the text with the original illustrations can be found atBiblioteka Nyat-Nam. Accessed 10 December 2008. <http://www.nhat-nam.ru/biblio/west1.html > 20 Jenner’s translation appeared shortly afterwards. The excellent Frenchtranslation with careful annotation by André Lévy followed yet a fewyears later (Paris: Gallimard, 1991).21 Cf. his “Heroic Verse and Heroic Mission: Dimensions of the Epic inthe Hsi-yu chi”, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 31, No. 4 (Aug 1972), pp. 879-897, and “Narrative Structure and the Problem of Chapter Nine in The"Hsi-Yu Chi", Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 34, No. 2 (Feb 1975), pp. 295-311; but particularly the Introduction to his Journey to the West, vol. 1, pp.1-63.

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languages and literatures, was nevertheless a foreigner whodid not grow up with the novel JW. He would have beentherefore more prone to take the liberty with the text,making the best of his privileges as the translator andtransmitter. As even Hu Shi remarks with regret, suchtremendously popular and entertaining episodes as the storyof the Mandrake Fruit (chap.24-26), the battles with the RedBoy (chap. 40-42), or the Monkey playing the medico at theVermilion-Purple Kingdom (chap. 68-71) – that is, by theway, the miniature version of the ancient Indian epicRamayana within the Chinese novel – certainly may not havebeen omitted in Monkey (Hu 4). And though he may not havepredicted just how popular and influential his abridgmentwould become, there are reasons to believe he was aware ofsuch an eventuality.22

As a person of Chinese descent, on the other hand, Yumust have felt obliged to translate the novel as closely aspossible to the Western reader. He belongs to a youngergeneration of scholars who have come to appreciate much morefully than those of Hu Shi's time the intellectual,allegorical and epic side of old Chinese fiction. Anthony Yuwas well aware of the fact that in the process oftranslation from the semantic-phonetic Chinese script, thetext would necessary lose its intra- and intertextual layersof meaning. That is why he provided his four volumes with awell-wrought system of explanatory notes, to elucidateinnumerable terms of Taoist alchemy, Buddhist metaphysics,Chinese geography, etc. that go to make up the framework ofthe novel's allegorical structure.

As Yu noted in his “Introduction”, unlike the otherfamous classical Chinese novels, the original poetry of theJW both excels in formal varieties and assumes a large shareof the narrative responsibility (Yu 1977: 24).23 Running thelength of the first chapter alone, which tells of Monkey’sbirth and his life up to the time when he was given the name22 At the time of Monkey’s first publication, Waley was already 53, arenowned translator and mature scholar of Chinese and Japaneseliterature. Brooks, E. Bruce, “Sinologists – Arthur Waley”, n.p.23 In his Classic Chinese Novel, C.T. Hsia not without reason labels theauthor of the JW as “one of the most skilled descriptive poets in allChinese literature” (Hsia 120) for much of his verse featuresextraordinary realism, vivid delineation, and vivacious humor.

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Sun Wukong, there are no less than 17 poems exemplifyingnearly all the forms and style of classical Chinese poetry.Except for describing the scenery, battles, seasons andliving beings both human and non-human,24 the narrativepoetry in the JW fulfills the function of presentingdialogues, as well as and providing commentary on the actionand the characters. Plaks aptly remarks that in the case ofthe JW, the poetic layer of the text represents nothingshort of a major contribution to Chinese poetics,particularly in its development of several forms of "heroic"verse, a peripheral mode at best in classical Chinesepoetry, into a major medium of expression in the novel(Plaks 1117).

However, in spite of all the qualities that make Yu’stranslation excel over Waley’s, one important factor somehowtips back the balance – the joy of reading. It is beyonddoubt that Waley was a rarely gifted translator with anextraordinary feeling for the language. His translation issimply amusing all along. Another comparable completeEnglish translation, that of W.J.F. Jenner (b. 1940), standssomewhere between these two. A more popular edition thanthat of Yu’s25, it is eager to keep the flow and get a livelynarrative across to a lay audience, while Yu’s version isbasically concerned with getting things correct withdetailed footnotes for fellow-academic readers. (Almberg928) With Jenner’s we have a translation that should not belooked down upon for he is surely very successful incarrying his point. 26

24 “The poetry in this [novel] concentrates our vision, thrusting usamong the concrete details of life, rendering everything visible,smellable, and tangible.” (Lattimore n.p.)25 Following Jenner’s original 3-volume edition (1982-1986), the BeijingForeign Languages Press 1993 edition saw eight printings in the periodof merely 14 years. I do not know of any other editions of Anthony Yu’sJW other than the original hardcover 1977-1983 Chicago UP edition andthe later paperback (Phoenix) edition by the same publisher.26 W.J.F. Jenner is best known through his translations from Chinese; hisscholarly publications on China seem to be somewhat controversial (e.g.,The Tyranny of History: The Roots of China's Crisis (1994)). I have not been able tofind neither an academic review of this translation of his, nor anysolid biographical data on this (former) Professor of Chinese at ChinaCentre, Australian National University. In this respect, Prof. Jenner isa good example of an ‘invisible’ translator (Venuti), in both the

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1.1. Comparing the translations

Following Lambert’s methodology for describingtranslations (Lambert 46-47), I have first selected a numberof passages representing different type of discourse for asource text-target text comparison on the micro-level.Obviously, it is a comparison of a partial (abridged)translation to two complete translations. The basicdifference in approach by the translators becomes obviousright from after the opening verse in ch.1:

雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷 雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷 雷雷 雷雷 雷雷 雷雷 雷雷 雷雷 雷雷 雷雷 雷雷 雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷，一。一，、、、、、、、、、、、。一。一：，，，，西。(Wu 1: 1)

“In the arithmetic of the universe, 129,600 years make one cycle. Eachcycle can be divided into twelve phases: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII. VIII, IX,X, XI and XII, the twelve branches. Each phase lasts 10,800 years.

Now within a single day, the positive begins at the time I; at II thecock crows; at III it is not quite light; at IV the sun rises; V is afterbreakfast; and at VI one does business. VII is when the sun reaches noon; atVIII it is slipping towards the west; IX is late afternoon; the sun sets at X;XI is dusk; and at XII people settle down for the night.” (Jenner 1: 1) 27

The first striking difference is the replacement of theoriginal Chinese names of the twelve branches by simpleRoman numerals. Jenner obviously decided to make compromisesbetween the source text and the translation, omitting thedetails that he may have seen as difficult to understand fora general reader with no prior knowledge of Chinese culture.According to Berman, though, this is an example of qualitativeimpoverishment of the original. (Berman 1995: 283)

As one of the reviewers remarked, “[t]his is [as]elegant as [it] is readable and comprehensible to an Englishaudience. Although [J]enner forgoes the nitty-gritt[y] ofexact transliteration, he did not excise anything of note,and got the gist of the passage right. One could imaginethis is how the author would have composed [it] in English.”

literal and figurative sense. The following text will show how hereproduces the Chinese original into a ‘transparent’, idiomatic Englishtext, devoid of linguistic and stylistic peculiarities.27 Quotations from the respective translations will be henceforth referred to as “Waley”, “Jenner”, and “Yu”.

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(Luke, n.p.)28 This is an interesting observation for itsupports the impression of Jenner’s text that “thetranslation is not in fact a translation, but the‘original’” (Venuti 1995: 1).

“We heard that, in the order of Heaven and Earth, a single periodconsisted of 129,600 years. Dividing his period into twelve epochs were thetwelve stems of Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, Yu, Xu, and Hai,with each epoch having 10,800 years. Considered as the horary circle, thesequence would be thus: the first sign of dawn appears in the hour of Zi, whileat Chou the cock crows; daybreak occurs at Yin, and the sun rises at Mao; Chencomes after breakfast, and by Si everything is planned; at Wu the sun arrives atits meridian, and it declines westward by Wei; the evening meal comes during thehour of Shen, and the sun sinks completely at Yu; twilight sets in at Xu, andpeople rest by the hour of Hai.” (Yu 2006: 1)

Prof. Yu leaves no doubt that he will take great painsto stay as close to the original as possible. Being exposedto so much non-English terminology right from the beginningmight, however, may be somewhat disturbing to a reader withno background in Chinese. “While maybe not as idiomatic as[J]enner, Yu is even more academic and scholarly in that heattempts to translate every character of the language.Faithfulness to the letter of the text takes foremostpriority, sometimes over read[a]bility.” (Luke, n.p.)

(Unfortunately, Waley omitted this sequence from theoriginal.)

A close reading of a verse part reveals even moredifference between the three translations. (Of course, justin a rare instance where such a comparison is possible sinceWaley excised most of the verse parts in his Monkey). Thispoem from ch.7 is Monkey’s self-introduction at thebeginning of his exchange with Buddha after all the uproarin Heaven he has caused:

雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷，一。，。

28 I am fully aware that quoting semi-anonymous internet reviewers issomewhat tricky and may appear quite non-academic. My point here is,however, exactly this: to give voice to the general audience’s responseto the particular translation in an attempt to map out the world outsideacademia. Luke (nickname: mandelshtam) is an author of 45 book reviewsat Amazon.com that are generally considered to be very helpful. Theprofile of the reviewer is accessible at Amazon.com. 1 February 2009. <http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2FNIVQU5N04F0/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp>

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雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷，。，。雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷雷，。，。

(Wu 1: 76)

This is a typical descriptive poem foreshadowing thecourse events in the novel JW. No big deal of imagination isrequired of the translator to “fill in” the unspoken;however, choosing the appropriate voice for the character tospeak with determines the diction of a poem retelling.Obviously, the biggest difference lies in the last twoverses where the ambiguity of the classical Chinese allowsfor different interpretations.

Born of sky and earth, Immortal magically fused,From the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit an old monkey I am.In the cave of the Water-curtain I ply my home-trade;I found a friend and master, who taught me the Great Secret.I made myself perfect in many arts of Immortality,I learned transformations without bound or end.I tired of the narrow scope afforded by the world of man,Nothing could content me but to live in the Green Jade Heaven.Why should Heaven’s halls have always one master?In earthly dynasties king succeeds king.The strong to the stronger must yield precedence and place,Hero is he alone who vies with powers supreme.

(Waley 74)

Unlike the original that uses the first person singularpersonal pronoun only once, Waley chose here to supply itsix times and often placed it at the beginning of the verse,making Sun Wukong sound quite self-centered and conceited.His verse has a distinct rhythm with caesura, even though itdoes not preserve the rhyme.

“I am”, the Great Sage said,“A miracle-working Immortal born of Heaven and Earth,

An old ape from the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit.My home is in the Water Curtain Cave,

I sought friends and teachers, and became aware of theGreat Mystery.

“I have practiced many a method for obtaining eternal life,

Infinite are the transformations I have learned.

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That is why I found the mortal world too cramped,And decided to live in the Jade Heaven.

“None can reign forever in the Hall of Miraculous Mist;

Kings throughout the history have had to pass on their power.The strong should be honored – he should give way to me:

This is the only reason I wage my heroic fight.”(Jenner 1: 120)

Compared to the original, Jenner’s translation omittedthe rimes and split the poem into verses of unequal length.It has no distinct rhythm; clumsy verses like “I sought friendsand teachers, and became aware of the Great Mystery” hardly make verygood lines of poetry. In several instances, however, Jennerkeeps closer to the original than Waley, preserving theunified terminology. At other places, though, one canchallenge his reading (I sought friends and teachers; [t]hat iswhy I found the mortal world…; [t]his is the only reason I wage myheroic fight) and in general, his verse sounds quiteuninspiring.

The Great Sage said, “I was

Born of Earth and Heaven, immortal magically fused,An old monkey hailing from the Flower-Fruit Mount.

I made my home in the Water-Curtain Cave;I sought friend and teacher to gain the Mystery Great.

Perfected in the many arts of ageless life,I learned to change in ways boundless and vast.

Too narrow the space I found on that mortal earth;I set my mind to live in the Green Jade Sky.

In Divine Mists Hall none should long reside,For king may follow king in the reign of man.

If might is honor, let them yield to me.Only he is hero who dares to fight and win!”

(Yu 1:172)

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It is without doubt that a translation into a Westernlanguage of a very dense Chinese verse makes it “rise”considerably. This particular poem in Prof. Yu’s translationis as compact as it gets (similar to Waley’s), showingskillful handling of English to render the depth of meaningof the original. In spite of being as close to the sourcetext as ever, Yu’s verse still sounds very fresh andbriskly. Compared to Waley’s, it puts even more stress onthe brazen, unabashed manner of speech of Sun Wukong beforehe was converted to Buddhism (cf. the last two lines of eachtranslation) and, arguably, offers the best readability-to-fidelity ratio among the three samples.

In the passage that follows, Monkey is reasoning withBuddha about his right to replace Jade emperor as thehighest ruler of the Celestial Palace. This is the ultimateshow of how cheeky Great Sage Equal to Heaven would become29.In the rising order, we can observe the shift from witty,high-spirited to more down-to-earth, scholarly Englishdiction:

雷雷雷 “雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷 ‘雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷 ’雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷雷 雷雷： ，。： ， 。 ， ， 。，，雷雷 ”！ (Wu 1: 76)

‘He may have begun young,’ said Monkey, ‘but there is no reason why heshould keep the throne forever. There is a proverb that says, “This year, theJade Emperor’s turn; next year, mine.” Tell him to clear out and make room forme. That is all I ask. If he won’t, I shall go on like this, and they will neverhave any peace.’ (Waley 74)

“Although he has trained himself for a long time, ever since he was achild, he still has [n]o right to occupy this place forever,” the Great Sagesaid. “As the saying goes, ‘Emperors are made by turn; next year it may be me.’If he can be persuaded to move out and make Heaven over to me, that’ll be fine.But if he doesn’t abdicate in my favour, I’ll most certainly make things hot forhim, and he’ll never know peace and quiet again.” (Jenner 1: 121)

Compared to Waley’s witty, succinct retelling, Jenner’stranslation sounds quite “inflated”. This is an example ofanother type of deformation, namely expansion (Berman). Healso seems more limited in recreating the full range oftones and satiric emotions and comic mischievousness of the29 One of the many names Monkey uses in the story.

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original. (One should remember that this is the valiantleader of the rebellion against Heaven, not in the leastsubdued in his spirit, talking to the highest celestialauthority!)

Waley here “…is incomparable; though he may sound alittle arch, one has no doubt he is at one with Sun Wukong’sspirit. On the other hand, [J]enner can sound at times alittle too matter-of-factly. There are moments where youwill chuckle in delight reading Waley, but might not do sowith [J]enner.” (Luke, n.p.)

Finally, Anthony Yu’s Journey. As usual, faithfulness tothe letter of the original gets priority, which makes hisMonkey sound quite academic. Prof. Yu is a serious scholarwho tells jokes with a stern face. Proverbs are usually veryconcise in any language, esp. in Chinese, however, in thistranslation become quite wordy:

“Even if the Jade Emperor has practiced religion from childhood,” saidthe Great Sage, “he should not be allowed to remain here forever. The proverbsays, ‘Many are the turns of kingship, and next year the turn will be mine!’Tell him to move out at once and hand over the Celestial Palace to me. That’llbe the end of the matter. If not, I shall continue to cause disturbances andthere’ll never be peace!” (Yu 1:172)

Comparing various types of diction used throughout thenovel (narrator’s voice, descriptive poems, dialogs etc.)can disclose how much attention the translator has paid toheteroglossia (as a Bakhtin’s concept) and how successfullyhe applied it throughout his rendering. From this point ofview, Waley distinguishes himself in his identification withthe main hero and teaching him how to speak perfectcolloquial English. He was aware of the importance of thisaspect of translation, particularly in connection to JW:“[…] This brings us to the question of voices. Whentranslating prose dialogue one ought to make the characterssay things that people talking English could conceivablysay. One ought to hear them talking, just as a novelisthears his characters talk.” (Waley 1963: 185)

As Plaks points out in his literary analysis of the JW(Plaks 1994: 277-282), there are two main aspects of thenovel crucial to its interpretation – (1) structural and

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rhetoric features in relation to other 16th c. “literatinovels”, and (2) allegorical code. As far as rhetoricaldevices of the narrator are concerned, Jenner and Yupreserve them intact as they closely follow the structure ofthe text on the macro-level. On the other hand, even though heretains the ironical overtone of the text, Waley in hisadaptation omits most of the other rhetorical devices,including chapter titles and most of the descriptive poeticpassages. He also selects a number of episodes from the‘journey’ part of the novel (ch.13-100) and condenses theminto single chapters at the expense of the numerologicalpatterns of the original. Omitting large portions of thetext also led to the elimination of some of the crucialconcepts of the original, e.g. stilling of the monkey of themind (雷雷雷, ding xinyuan), from Waley’s translation. The sameis true about the crucial text of the Heart Sutra, quoted wordfor word in the original and translated duly by both Yu andJenner, that is completely excised in Waley.30

In considering the position of a particular JW-translation in the target system, its systemic context plays acrucial role. Intertextual and intersystemic relations,expressed primarily in the allegorical scheme of the novel,are interwoven in the complicated written system of theChinese language, and have proven to be the utmost challengefor the translator. As Plaks sums up, the specific hintsused to set up the external allegorical framework of thenovel are put in a number of predictable locations – thenames and iconographic details of individual characters,parallel couplets-cum-chapter titles, and the many lines ofverse within the narrative. Obviously, Waley left out mostof this context in Monkey. We can observe this on theexample of the names used for Sun Wukong throughout thenovel. The development is most obvious in the first 25chapters describing his birth, early career and thebeginning of the journey. Let us look at the most typical ofthese names, nicknames and epithets in each translation.While in the beginning there is little room for diversity,as both 雷雷, shi hou (雷雷, shi yuan) are translated as ‘the stonemonkey’ (Yu 1: 70), (Jenner 1: 6), or ‘the Stone Monkey’

30 Plaks stresses its importance as “a structural model for the quest” inthe novel.

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(Waley 12), and 雷雷雷, mei hou wang as ‘Handsome Monkey King’(Yu 1: 72), (Jenner 1: 9), (Waley 13). The similar can besaid about 雷雷雷雷 Qi Tian Da Sheng, translated as ‘The Great Sage,Equal to Heaven’ (Yu 1: 124), (Waley 47), and ‘Great SageEqualling Heaven’ (Jenner 1: 65). However, when it comes tomore figurative names, one can observe the difference intranslators’ approach. So the name Sun Wukong ( 雷 雷 雷 ) istranslated as ‘Wake-to-Vacuity’ (Yu 1: 82), ‘Monkey Awakenedto Emptiness’ (Jenner 1: 20), or ‘Aware-of-Vacuity’ (Waley19). This is an important point of divergence as Waleytranslates all later occurrences of this name uniformly as‘Monkey’. Jenner is not consistent as he wavers usuallybetween ‘Sun Wukong’ and ‘Monkey’, and generally seems to berather arbitrary in his selection. Anthony Yu is by far themost consistent, following closely the letter of theoriginal. Another points of substantial difference betweenthe translations can be seen in the names (雷)雷雷, (Sun) xingzhethat Yu renders uniformly as Pilgrim Sun (Yu 1: 301) whileJenner hesitates between Brother Monkey and Sun the Novice(Jenner 1: 266). On the first occurrence of this religiousname, Waley renders it again as ‘(Monkey) Aware-of-Vacuity’(Waley 128) and later sticks to the unified term ‘Monkey’.The above-mentioned allegorical term 雷雷, xinyuan, completelyomitted in Waley, is translated as ‘Monkey of the Mind’ or‘Mind-Monkey’ by Anthony Yu (1: 297, 392) and is dulyannotated. Jenner chose the less lucid term ‘Mind Ape’ (or‘Mind-ape’) and, typically, leaves it without anexplanatory note which makes the term unintelligible to theunaware reader.

Other structural elements in the allegorical setup ofthe novel comprise passages of special significance, e.g.,subduing the bandits of the “six senses” in ch.14. Waleytranslates bandits’ names aptly as ‘Eye that Sees andDelights’, ‘Ear that Hears and is Angry’, ‘Nose that Smellsand Covets’, ‘Tongue that Tastes and Desires’, ‘Mind thatConceives and Lusts’, and ‘Body that Supports and Suffers’(Waley 132). Yu (1: 307) seems to follow his example whileJenner chooses the translation that is less supportive tothe allegorical framework and reminds more of the names ofreal Chinese people, though they are surely very unusual tobe used for human beings: ‘Eye-seeing Happiness’, ‘Ear-

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hearing Anger’, ‘Nose-smelling Love’, ‘Tongue-tastingThought’, ‘Mind-born Desire’, and ‘Body-based Sorrow’(Jenner 1: 272). Unlike Waley and Jenner, who did not intendto explain the novel’s terminology, Anthony Yu’s footnotesserve as the very important guide to the reader.

A further scrutiny into the philosophical terminologyfrom the three major schools of thought in ancient China –Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism – applied in the textwould confirm the findings of this analysis, namely thatProf. Yu’s translation is the most consistent in deliveringthe message of the novel on various semantic levels.However, it is not the intent of this paper to go into afull-scale, in-depth analysis of these translations, nor isit to judge which one is “better” than the other. (For notranslation can be fully adequate, following Toury’sargument.) This comparison merely points at various rolesthat the three versions of the JW have fulfilled in thecultural translation of the narrative, as the next sectionswill show.

2. Some theoretical considerationsIn order to put the JW translations under discussion

into a meaningful relation, one needs to look at the theoryof translation. It is important to stress that neither Waley norYu followed any particular translation theory. (Unfortunately, I havenot been able to verify this in the case of Jenner.) As forArthur Waley, he threw some light on his approach in his“Notes on Translation” that can be best described asintuitive. He believed that literary translation has toconvey feelings as well as grammatical sense: “The authorputs his feelings… into the original. They are there in hisrhythm, his emphasis, his exact choice of words, and if thetranslator does not feel while he reads, and simply gives aseries of rhythmless dictionary meanings, he may think he isbeing ‘faithful’, but in fact he is totally misrepresentingthe original.” (Waley 1963: 181) In addition, he was surethat translation is a craft that can be developed upontranslator’s natural predisposition: “It is not, after all,as though a translator has to be or even had better be acreative genius. His role is rather like that of the

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executant in music, as contrasted with the composer. He muststart with a certain degree of sensibility to words andrhythm. But I am sure that this sensibility could beenormously stimulated and increased[…]” (Waley 1963: 186)

Anthony Yu’s 1975 comments on translating the novel inprogress offer an interesting review of the pitfalls he wasdealing with. He subscribes to George Steiner’s argument inhis After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (1975) who pointsout how certain texts become more intelligible (andtranslatable) with the progress of the scholarly knowledge.By admitting he has profited from the recent findings byNiedham, Sivin, Porkert et al. – particularly in the fieldof Chinese alchemy – he seems to explain for the failure ofWaley to render substantial poetic segments of the text. Healso agrees with Steiner that a translator’s method isusually derived entirely from his practice or experience,without any basis in scholarly knowledge:

“…I am not at all sure whether I can articulate a fully developedphilosophy of translation even if I were asked to do so. Since, however,the translation itself is intended to be a complete reproduction of thenarrative…, I suppose that my efforts are guided consciously andunconsciously by the ideal of the most intelligible fidelity to theoriginal.” (Yu 1975: 86)However, he adds in the same breath that this fidelity

is not to be mistaken for literalism for “every act oftranslation is of necessity an act of interpretation, too.”(ibid.) This interpretation or “interpretive bias”, in hisown words, should be based on understanding the religiousand allegorical elements of Journey to the West. The mostdaunting task of the translator, as he suggests in theconclusion of his essay, is to reconcile the clarity ofinterpretation with the need to leave enough room for thereader’s imagination.

Twenty-five years later, Prof. Yu summed up hisundertaking as one accomplished without the help of anytranslation theory. He admitted that the only source of hisknowledge of translation was his own studies in biblicallanguages and the classical languages of Greek and Latin,and the translations of texts in those languages in English,French, and German.31

31 Prof. Anthony C.Yu, personal communication, Feb 18, 2009.

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The following selection of translation theories issomewhat arbitrary and makes no claims to completeness.

2.1. Friedrich Schleiermacher.Now even though none of these translators seems to have

adhered to a particular theory, their work nevertheless canbe scrutinized from the point of view of various modern (andpre-modern) translation theories. Although long sinceobsolete, the very influential German theorist FriedrichSchleiermacher’s (1768-1834) remarks are still of someinterest to this problem. He defines the only two paths openfor the true translator – ‘alienation’ and ‘domestication’:

“[e]ither the translator leaves the author in peace as much as possibleand moves the reader toward him; or he leaves the reader in peace as much aspossible and moves the writer toward him.” (Schleiermacher 49)

As he further points out, this approach would necessarymean that when the translator seeks to communicate the sameimpression which he or she received from the source text, hehas to decide first what sort of understanding it intends toimitate among the readership of the target text. Thisimpression will depend on their level of education andunderstanding and it is most likely to differ from thetranslator’s own understanding. From the evolutional pointof view, he further makes a point that

“[a]s long as the educated part of a nation has, on the whole, noexperience of a deeper knowledge of foreign tongues… free imitations shouldfirst awaken and whet readers’ appetites for foreign works, and paraphraseprepare for a more general understanding, so as to pave the way for futuretranslations.” (ibid.)

If judged from this perspective, it would be onlylogical that Waley, addressing the readership that had verylittle, if any, previous contact with the Chinese languageand literature, would take just one step ahead of Richard’sMission to Heaven and chose to leave the reader in peace asmuch as possible while moving toward him. As Plaks pointsout, Waley provided generations of readers with one of themost accessible examples of traditional Chinese fiction thathelped them form certain impressions on that remarkableopus. Based on the reading of the Monkey text, theseimpressions were nevertheless highly limited and misleading.He goes on to say, “Waley’s Monkey is a delightful book but

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it is not the same book as the Chinese masterwork thatAnthony Yu… set out to translate.” (Plaks 1116-1117)

(The reason for bringing up the late 18th-early 19th c.theorist is his lasting influence on the contemporarytranslation theory. An array of his “followers” includesLawrence Venuti who in his works - The Translator’s Invisibility: AHistory of Translation and The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics ofDifference (1998) - applies concepts of domestication andforeignization to the modern context, particularly Anglo-American translation culture.)

By the end of 1970s, the knowledge and experience ofthe Western reader – at least in the Anglo-American audience– in dealing with non-Western works have reached a point ofsophistication that left no room for the argument thatcertain material is out of comprehension (or interest) tothe Western reader.32 Anthony Yu took the way that theprevious generations of translators paved for him. He couldperfectly afford to leave the author in peace as much aspossible and move the reader toward him.

2.2. Walter Benjamin In Benjamin’s theory of translation, one can find a

pertinent expression of the ‘original – translation’relationship with respect to the aim of this paper. Heimbues the original literary work with the concept of life –and relegates translation to the role of its afterlifecustodian, giving the original “continued life”. Further, heargues that in its afterlife, the original undergoes achange, a complete transformation over the centuries; thelanguage of the translator undergoes similar transformation.(Benjamin 76-78).

From this perspective, the original Chinese novel musthave found a very rich and entertaining afterlife in all thetranslations under discussion. First, we should agree thattheir endeavor showed that the nature of the novel “lendsitself to translation” and, actually calls for it. Then,though there is no such thing as the perfect or evenadequate translation, Waley, Jenner and Yu have made it

32 In his review, Plaks confirms this Schleiermacher’s theoreticalpresupposition. (Plaks 1117)

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quite close, though each of them from a different side ofthe circle.33

According to Benjamin, what makes a good translation is“expressing the central reciprocal relationship betweenlanguages…” (Benjamin 77) It does so not by seeking to bethe same as the original but by ‘harmonizing’, bringingtogether the two different languages. In this expansive andcreative way, translation both contributes to the growth ofits own language and pursues the goal of a ‘pure’, higherlanguage.

Waley’s interpretative translation domesticated thenovel in English literature, but this cultural deformationnecessarily entailed some kind of reduction, flattening ofthe sense of the original. On the other hand, Anthony Yuwent to great lengths in order to preserve the spirit of theoriginal, to bring the English language out of its shell,stretch and flex it in all directions. And though his effortwas quite a far cry from the reformers and iconoclasts ofthe language such as F. Nietzsche, he deserves his creditfor his innovations, for his relentless effort at whatBenjamin proclaims the task of the translator to be thecapacity to release this ‘pure’ language:

It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that purelanguage which is under the spell of another, to liberate the languageimprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work. (Benjamin 82)

2.3. Polysystem theories: Itamar Even-Zohar, Gideon Toury,José Lambert

From the point of view of the polysystem theory34, asproposed by Even-Zohar, it is obvious that in Anglo-American translated literature a translation of a Chineseclassics both in 1940’s and late 1970’s-early 1980’s wouldoccupy an (extreme) peripheral position. Nevertheless, whileWaley seems to have adopted the best ready-made secondarymodel for the text with a result of a “non-adequatetranslation” (Even-Zohar 204), in his effort to keep the33 For the theoretical questions of translatability, see Benjamin 76.34 It came about in 1970s elevated translated literature from its previous derivative, second-rate form and claimed it to function as a system operating in the larger social, literary and historical systems of the target literature.

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translation as close as possible to the original in terms ofadequacy, Anthony Yu seems have chosen to violate the modelsin the American literary repertoire. As a result, if hisapproach proves to be efficient, “the repertoire oftranslated literature may be enriched and become moreflexible.” (Even-Zohar 203)35 In this comparison, Jenner,again, represents a middle position between the other twotranslations.

Building on the polysystem work of Even-Zohar, GideonToury emphasized the role of translations in the social andliterary systems of the target culture that determines therelevant translation strategy. (Munday 112) In his system,all three translations compared here represent literarytranslations from the point of view of the literaryrequirements of the recipient culture. As we have seen inthe first, prose passage in comparison, Jenner chose the wayof ‘growing standardization’ by smoothing out certainfeatures of the source text and selected linguistic optionsmore common in the target language. Anthony Yu, on the otherhand, resists stubbornly this “law” of translation andrefuses to accommodate to target literary models. He clearlyfavors ‘interference’ by copying certain non-Englishfeatures into his translation. Aware of the rich allegoricalconnotations of the novel, he pays great attention totransplanting the flowery body of Chinese religious lore toAmerican soil as intact as possible. Being in a ratherdifferent position, Waley opted for a large-scalestandardization to the extent of serious distortion of themeaning of the source text. (An example of what Berman callsdestruction of underlying networks of signification.)

In his seminal work, “On describing translations”, JoséLambert put forward a detailed scheme that incorporatedtranslational phenomena in the polysystem complex. It aims

35 Judging from general readers’ comments, it seems that though Yu’s language that is, in general, “clear and lucid, and supports the action very nicely” (Gregory M. Flanders), still features certain “awkwardness of some phrases and terms” (K. Henton) which adds to the very foreign and fantastic flavour of the novel in English. Cf. the review section ofthis translation on Amazon.com. Accessed 28 February 2009. <http://www.amazon.com/Journey-West-Anthony-C-Yu/product-reviews/0226971503/ref=pr_all_summary_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1>

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at replacing the “traditional”, atomistic approach todescribing translations with a functional and semiotic one.In the present case, it seems very useful for comparing thestrategies applied by the translators under discussion, aswell as the relations between the original and thetranslation, as one could see in the previous section ofthis paper.

2.4. Susan Bassnett and André LefevereBassnett and Lefevere’s theoretical approach focuses on

the interaction between translation and culture, on the wayin which culture impacts and constraints translations. Theircollection of essays Translation, history, and culture represents‘the cultural turn’, a move from translation as text totranslation as culture (and politics), which is mostpertinent to the implications set in the last section ofthis paper, especially the concept of translation asappropriation and rewriting, including film, theatre, andelectronic media. After all, the Chinese novel Journey to theWest is a perfect example of the Bassnett-Lefevere’s thesisthat “literature reaches those who are not its professionalstudents much more by way of the ‘images’ constructed of itin translations… [than] by means of ‘originals’, howevervenerable they may be.” (Bassnett-Lefevere 9)

2.5. Eugene EoyangProf. Eoyang represents a different type of translation

theorist – a native Chinese scholar in the English-speakingacademia whose focus of attention includes the reception ofChinese literature in the West. In one of his essays, hequotes a very suggestive metaphor used by William R. Parkerwho compared it to “being kissed through a veil—excitingcontact of a sort, no doubt, if one has never been kisseddirectly” 36. (qtd. in Eoyang 79) The perception of the brideof one's desire through the gauze of a veil underscores thesense of anticipation, and frustration, that translationsinstill in the reader bent on reading a text in another36 Parker, W.R. The Language Curtain. New York: Modern Language Association,1966, p. 98. I didn’t have access to this book.

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language. (Eoyang 79) Even if he has never seen her withoutthe veil, an inquisitive modern reader of classical Chinesenovel in translation will eventually get the idea that shemight actually look somewhat different from his perception.In the situation where there are at least two completetranslations of the JW, along with a number of older andnewer abridgements, available to the English-languagereader, such realization may become the impetus for thesearch of the meaning behind the words, of comparing andsorting out, even without the knowledge of the Chineselanguage. This imposes stricter standards and higherexpectations on translators:

The translator is a changeling, mediating between the world of the nativeand the world of the "barbarian." In the case of Chinese, […] there have beenchanges even among these changelings. The forerunners of the presentgeneration--Arthur Waley and Ezra Pound--were both "sinicized Westerners",translators who resolutely maintained their distinctly English or Americanprofile even while they acquired (or tried to acquire) a Chinese sensibility.Since the Second World War, translators like James J. Y. Liu, D. C. Lau, […][and Anthony Yu] constitute the opposite category: westernized Chinese. Theircenters of gravity lie in Chinese traditions, though long exposure to the Westhas enabled them to negotiate the local linguistic currencies. (Eoyang 68)

He goes on to address the importance of the receivingside, i.e., the audience, in the process of recreating awork in English translation:

Waley and Pound addressed audiences almost exclusively Western: they madetheir mark with English speaking readers who seldom knew Chinese. No Chinese notwesternized would even have had access to their work. But the translators of thelater generation must respond to three audiences: first, the non-ChineseEnglish-speaking readers who do not know Chinese; second, the non-ChineseEnglish-speaking readers who know (or who are learning) Chinese; third, theEnglish-speaking native Chinese readers. This situation means that fewertranslations will go unchallenged, whether from the left, right, or middle.(ibid.)

This is happening at the situation where Monkey hasentered American literature and culture as its integralpart. The JW story thus not just begun its afterlife; in amanner similar to the times of medieval China, it has becomea general property, at disposal of anyone who feels entitledto adapt, supplement, or simply forward it. Moreover, quitein accord with Benjamin’s predictions, in its afterlife, theoriginal undergoes a change, a complete transformation overthe centuries, as the next section will show.

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3. Monkey Learns to Speak Slang English – CulturalTranslation of the Story

I have compared so far three English translations - onealmost seventy-year-old, the other two aged twenty to thirty- of a Chinese novel circulating for more than fourcenturies, loosely based on a story that happened 1,400years ago. Now, in a short excursion to the field ofcomparative literature and culture, it is very tempting tofind out what value they have for a modern-day reader.First, let us look at the practical aspect of fictiontranslation: How much vitality will a text acquire whenreborn into the wholly new surroundings? How much influencecan a 100-chapter novel in 1,800 pages of text (in Yu’stranslation) interspersed with poetry and abstruse exoticterminology exert in our busy everyday lives that leave solittle time for reading? If judging by the sheer number ofreprints and different editions, and retranslations, ArthurWaley’s and W.J.F. Jenner’s versions have been obviouslymuch more of success with the English-speaking readership.(See note Error: Reference source not found, p. 9.)Eventually, Prof. Anthony Yu along with the ChicagoUniversity Press – as the role of the publisher in thetranslation process should not be underestimated37 – musthave realized that the vo-lu-mi-nous-ness of the originaltranslation can deter many a would-be reader. (After all,most of the consumers of the story even in China and EastAsia proper access it nowadays primarily through televisionand cartoons rather than simplified novel editions or,needless to say, the original.) Therefore, with the story ofthe JW already well established in the English-languagecultural space, they came with a down-to-earth abridgementof the four-volume translation that distils some of the epicnovel's most exciting episodes without taking anything away

37 Cf. Venuti’s considerations on the subject.

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from its true spirit.38 Thus, Prof. Yu made the last step incoming in terms with his brilliant predecessor.

And it was just about time. Within two decades afterthe full translation was published, there sprung up inAmerica the whole bunch of monkey-clones, followers anddescendants.39 In 1987 came at first Gerald Vizenor’s Griever:An American Monkey King in China40; two years later Maxine HongKingston published Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book41; finally, theyear 1997 saw the publication of Patricia Chao’s MonkeyKing42. These novels met with an enthusiastic response fromboth critics and readers, and even won prestigious literaryprizes. As Pearson argues, these novelists took the relay

38 Anthony Yu (trans.): The Monkey and the Monk: An Abridgment of the Journey to theWest, Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2006. (paperback, 528 pp.)In this abridgement Yu used the strategy adopted by Waley, that is tokeep most of the story flesh up to chap. 23 where Friar Sand finallyjoins the company, then to select a few of the most entertainingepisodes from the bulk of the novel, and then again follow the plot lineclosely in the final chapters. Thus, he reduced the novel length toroughly one third; he also streamlined some of the verse parts and,finally, replaced the outdated Wade-Giles transcription with pinyin.39 The first in the long line of the Monkey king novels was published,however, by a Chinese-British author Timothy Mo in 1978. He sets theplot of his Monkey King to his native post-war Hong Kong. The novel is ablisteringly funny account of the misadventures of Wallace Nolasco, aMacau native who marries into a wickedly dysfunctional Cantonesemerchant's family. It is interesting to see the bilingual English-Chinese setting of Hong Kong as a meeting point of cultures and theplace of the first appearance of monkey king-inspired originalliterature.40 Gerald Vizenor, Griever: An American Monkey King in China, Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1987. The book tells an adventure storyof an American Indian gone to China in an exchange program to teach. Itis a socio-political novel about the clash of cultures and thesimilarities between Chinese and Native American mythologies.41 Maxine Hong Kingston, Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book, New York: Alfred A.Knopf; distributed by Random House, 1989. This novel centers on a young,literary minded Chinese American man named Wittman Ah Sing, fifth-generation Californian who feels alien to both his Chinese heritage andthe American culture that stereotypes him and others of his race.42 Patricia Chao: Monkey King, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997.In this autobiographic psychological novel, the author subverts thepopular Chinese literary figure in order to criticize both Chinese andNew England culture. The heroic characters of the monkey tales areturned upside-down, suggesting the darker side of the tradition and itseffects on women.

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baton of the Chinese tradition, each in his or her own way,to transform the character of Monkey, create analogues tothe disciples, redefine the meaning of journey, and thenotion of the West. (Pearson 359-373) A recent addition tothe Monkey-story pool is David Kherdian’s Monkey, A Journey tothe West, yet another new abridgement of the JW that appearedin 1992.43 Moreover, a whole bunch of children’s editions ofMonkey stories flooded American market in the past decade,not to mention all the TV series and electronic games.44 Tomention one for all: in 2001, The Monkey King TV series wasproduced based on the novel adaptation by the pre-eminentAsian-American dramatist David Henry Hwang.45 What does thisphenomenon mean? In terms of identity globalization andcultural translation, it is evidence that one of the mostpopular figures in Chinese folklore - Monkey or Sun Wukong -was successfully integrated into American life.46 Moreover,if the role of translation in this process is dulyrecognized, then, according to Even-Zohar’s theory, althoughacting on a peripheral position of a minority literature,the translation of the Chinese classics exerts innovatoryfunction in the system of the target literature. On theexample of Monkey, we can perceive the working ofinterliterary relations materialized in the form of thetranslations.47

Originally, the one and only hero of the originalpilgrimage to the West, the Chinese monk Xuanzang(Tripitaka), although inspiring the whole JW fantastic story43 There are more monkeys to come. Cf. Jerome Yang, American Journey to theWest (manuscript), <http://www.americanwestjourney.com/AgentC.htm>Accessed 18 February 2009.44 According to my own statistics, there are at least ten differentabridgements of the JW, targeted primarily at juvenile audience(including comic strips), that are currently marketed in the U.S. Inaddition, there are numerous individual episodes published in English,mostly by Beijing Foreign Languages Press. Quite surprisingly in thissituation, new editions of Waley and even Richard also sell quite well.45 This interesting contemporary retelling of the story also appeared asa paperback. (David Henry Hwang, Kathryn Wesley: The Monkey King. NewYork : Kensington, 2001)46 As Pearson shows, in the works of minority American authors, the 16th-century Chinese novel has been useful not only to critique Americanculture, but also to heal it. (Pearson 372-373)47 The role of monkey as a ‘mirror’ character has been studied to some extent but its connotations lie far beyond the scope of this paper.

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tradition, over the time got to play the second fiddle inthe plot, a role that was cemented by publication of the“ultimate” 1592 edition in 100 chapters. Monkey’s careerprecedes that of Tripitaka’s and was, in all likelihood,just a confirmation of the public taste prevalent at thetime. There is no doubt that the impetuous, brazen, butultimately resourceful and witty Monkey easily overshadowedthe clumsy, pedantic monk when he emerged as a clear-cutcharacter. Just when exactly this evolution ended is stillbeyond verification, but it is quite probable that he hadplayed the principal role long before 1592.48 Waley palpatedthis trend when focusing his translation on Monkey and thusdecisively set the tone for the reception of the story inthe West. Anthony Yu then supplied an ultimately faithfultranslation to rectify the drawbacks of previousabridgements. In the new surroundings, the JW story starteda new life, coming along two lines – first, as the story ofentertainment, esp. for youngsters, second, as a richmaterial for new, original literary creations.

* The author wishes to express thanks to Prof. Anthony C. Yu forclarifying some aspects of his translation experience with The Journey tothe West.

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48 E.g., one of the few complete earlier editions of the novel, ZhuDingchen’s (雷雷雷) Tang Sanzang xiyou shi’e zhuan 雷雷雷 雷雷雷雷西 [“The Chronicleof Deliverances in Tripitaka Tang’s ‘Journey to the West’”] hasbasically the same structure as the 1592 edition, that is, the story ofMonkey precedes that of Tripitaka’s.

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