Monkey (A Journey to the West)
Now for "just as shallow, but about a slightly higher class subject..."*
I finished reading David Kheridan's Monkey today. Brilliant book. It's his abridged translation of the classic Chinese novel A Journey to the West, perhaps the most popular classic of Asian Literature, probably the most read** book in the modern world. It cuts the original 100 chapters into 23- making the most interesting character into the Main character, by cutting out most of the parts where he wasn't the focus. I've described it to Mr. Tommy as "The Wizard of Oz with Chinese superheroes," this isn't far off. The original Main Character is exactly as useful as Dorothy (Real name Tripitka)- he shows up in the right place at the right time in the beginning & end, solves those problems accidentally, and sits around while the others fix everything in between with their amazing powers.
Sun Wukong (Stone Monkey King, Aware-of-Vacuity, or Great Sage Equal of the Heavens, his titles of choice) is the most hilariously overpowered character I have ever read about, and I used to read God-Man all the time. He fights the entire deific pantheon to a stand-still early on in the book, off-handedly using a 20-ton lump of iron as his weapon, only to be captured when The Buddha*** intervenes. He's trapped, two or three non-Monkey chapters, then he start kicking ass again, and it's him 'til the last few chapters again.
The party's trying to get a fan so that Dorothy can cross a burning mountain (Monkey accidentally caused this 500 years ago fighting the whole of Heaven- he spilled a really, really holy brazier). All the non-Dorothy characters are superheroes and can jump hundreds of miles in a single bound, fly, shapeshift into stone or metal, and simply ignore fire. However, they need an artifact forged during the primodial chaos to blow out said flames to get him across, because Dorothy's soft mortal flesh couldn't take such jumps. So they set of to find Rakashi and her husband, Bull-Demon-King (or something) to borrow the fan. Monkey shows some character growth, but no-one trusts him because he's... well, he's Monkey.
Five chapters of action later, they're in full-out war. Deciding his cause is just and his methods kind, Heaven has sent their whole army out to HELP Monkey. The 8 planets, Stars, moons, the incarnations of light & darkness, EVERYTHING. The Jade Emperor (their equivalent of the Metatron) sends his nephew, basically the source of all magic, down to flank him with Monkey. Every deity in the known universe comes out to help...
Then it flashes back to Dorothy, supposedly the Hero and Main Character, who's sitting by the side of the road, with the last bodyguard who wasn't called in to the fight. "I wonder where Monkey's gone," he says, "and the rest. I haven't seen them in five days."
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After that, Heaven decides his task is done, gives him the Holy Scriptures he set out for 14 years ago, and calls him a divine wind to carry him home. Then the Divine Accountant, going over the story of his adventure, points out that he's technically only overcome 80 holy trials, whereas the requisite number to achieve Buddha-hood is 81. So they give a collective "oops", nix the wind, and just drop him wherever he may land. "Here, we'll make a river impassable to any mortals. You've got 4 days to figure it out. Enjoy!"
*Remember how, almost a year ago, during the Amsterdam trip, I mentioned wanting to do a post on the nature of "High Culture" Vs. "Low Culture"? I still do. Why is a fun, amusing, popular-for-500-years, light read "high culture" whereas fun, amusing, "look at the pretty backup artists" music low culture? The former's foreign, I guess... ironically the latter might be High Culture if they didn't take themselves seriously as artists and musicians, and chose to embrace the superficial performance aspect of the show.
**How many people read The Bible today? I've gone through most of the OT, and a few NT books. I imagine that's more than most. This is a China/India based book anyway, and those two have more population that Christianity does.
***This was also the inspiration for my favorite videogame: Lunar: Eternal Blue. The writer decided it was unjust that Monkey, who has worked so hard and become so powerful, and had been treated with no dignity whereever he went (though he always escalated the problem, he almost never started it), was simply a helpless wriggling bug in the hand of God. So he wrote the game as a philosophical response to humanity's need for a God's guidance, and our helplessness against & without them. This is another of the big "How the HELL is that low-culture" points.
Also, it sets a distinction between "a buddha" and "The Buddha".
I finished reading David Kheridan's Monkey today. Brilliant book. It's his abridged translation of the classic Chinese novel A Journey to the West, perhaps the most popular classic of Asian Literature, probably the most read** book in the modern world. It cuts the original 100 chapters into 23- making the most interesting character into the Main character, by cutting out most of the parts where he wasn't the focus. I've described it to Mr. Tommy as "The Wizard of Oz with Chinese superheroes," this isn't far off. The original Main Character is exactly as useful as Dorothy (Real name Tripitka)- he shows up in the right place at the right time in the beginning & end, solves those problems accidentally, and sits around while the others fix everything in between with their amazing powers.
Sun Wukong (Stone Monkey King, Aware-of-Vacuity, or Great Sage Equal of the Heavens, his titles of choice) is the most hilariously overpowered character I have ever read about, and I used to read God-Man all the time. He fights the entire deific pantheon to a stand-still early on in the book, off-handedly using a 20-ton lump of iron as his weapon, only to be captured when The Buddha*** intervenes. He's trapped, two or three non-Monkey chapters, then he start kicking ass again, and it's him 'til the last few chapters again.
The party's trying to get a fan so that Dorothy can cross a burning mountain (Monkey accidentally caused this 500 years ago fighting the whole of Heaven- he spilled a really, really holy brazier). All the non-Dorothy characters are superheroes and can jump hundreds of miles in a single bound, fly, shapeshift into stone or metal, and simply ignore fire. However, they need an artifact forged during the primodial chaos to blow out said flames to get him across, because Dorothy's soft mortal flesh couldn't take such jumps. So they set of to find Rakashi and her husband, Bull-Demon-King (or something) to borrow the fan. Monkey shows some character growth, but no-one trusts him because he's... well, he's Monkey.
Five chapters of action later, they're in full-out war. Deciding his cause is just and his methods kind, Heaven has sent their whole army out to HELP Monkey. The 8 planets, Stars, moons, the incarnations of light & darkness, EVERYTHING. The Jade Emperor (their equivalent of the Metatron) sends his nephew, basically the source of all magic, down to flank him with Monkey. Every deity in the known universe comes out to help...
Then it flashes back to Dorothy, supposedly the Hero and Main Character, who's sitting by the side of the road, with the last bodyguard who wasn't called in to the fight. "I wonder where Monkey's gone," he says, "and the rest. I haven't seen them in five days."
-----------------------
After that, Heaven decides his task is done, gives him the Holy Scriptures he set out for 14 years ago, and calls him a divine wind to carry him home. Then the Divine Accountant, going over the story of his adventure, points out that he's technically only overcome 80 holy trials, whereas the requisite number to achieve Buddha-hood is 81. So they give a collective "oops", nix the wind, and just drop him wherever he may land. "Here, we'll make a river impassable to any mortals. You've got 4 days to figure it out. Enjoy!"
*Remember how, almost a year ago, during the Amsterdam trip, I mentioned wanting to do a post on the nature of "High Culture" Vs. "Low Culture"? I still do. Why is a fun, amusing, popular-for-500-years, light read "high culture" whereas fun, amusing, "look at the pretty backup artists" music low culture? The former's foreign, I guess... ironically the latter might be High Culture if they didn't take themselves seriously as artists and musicians, and chose to embrace the superficial performance aspect of the show.
**How many people read The Bible today? I've gone through most of the OT, and a few NT books. I imagine that's more than most. This is a China/India based book anyway, and those two have more population that Christianity does.
***This was also the inspiration for my favorite videogame: Lunar: Eternal Blue. The writer decided it was unjust that Monkey, who has worked so hard and become so powerful, and had been treated with no dignity whereever he went (though he always escalated the problem, he almost never started it), was simply a helpless wriggling bug in the hand of God. So he wrote the game as a philosophical response to humanity's need for a God's guidance, and our helplessness against & without them. This is another of the big "How the HELL is that low-culture" points.
Also, it sets a distinction between "a buddha" and "The Buddha".