BOOKS OF THE DAY
A Comic Classic
Monkey. By Wu Ch'eng-en. Translated from the Chinese by Arthur Waley. (Allen and Unwin. I2S. 6d.) LovEEs of poetry have for long been indebted to Mr. Arthur Waley for his excellent translations of Chinese poems, which have created even more sympathy with China than the Analects of Confucius or the sayings of Mencius, and here is a translation by Mr. Waley of the most famous of Chinese novels, which dates from the sixteenth century and has been, we are told, " more widely- read in the whole Far East than any other."
At the centre all things are the same, so we need not be sur- prised if this novel is described by the publishers as a sort of Pilgrim's Progress, although in most respects it is utterly unlike that book. I would prefer to compare it with Don Quixote, or my own Henry Airbubble, for it is essentially a serious comic novel. There have been very few great comic writings, but all the best have been passionately serious. The combination of humour with passion demands a very high degree of civilisation in the people that possess it and it may not be a mere coincidence that the Chinese, the Russians, the Americans and ourselves, notwithstanding 41 our defects, have always been notoriously more humorously wise than the Germans (whose fanatical earnestness has indeed proved deadly), and are none the less capable of passionate devotion to a cause. There are, however, many kinds of humour, and I am not referring to that deprecating, self-excusing facetiousness which is the negative side of modern Western humour and indicates a certain intellectual decay.
The humour of Monkey comes from an all-prevailing intellectual vigour. The author, Wu Ch'eng-en, who lived roughly between 1505 and 158o A.D., is a man who knows, and can therefore afford to let himself go in the wildest of fantasies. He purports to tell the story of the real Hsiian Tsang (given, in Monkey, the name of Tripitaka), who in the seventh century A.D. actually made a famous pilgrimage from China to India in search of religion. He tells it in the form of a fairy tale, in which the saint and his three disciples pass through the most extraordinary adventures, in describing which the Eastern love of the marvellous is given full scope. A European reader must look at these adventures as he looks at an entirely foreign and novel landscape which is full of new and delightful features bu:, in spite of its strangeness, is not without a monotony of its own. This monotony will make itself felt in the middle section of this book, after a brilliant opening.
The first seven chapters dealing with the birth of Monkey are a riotous delight. Monkey, Mr. Waley tells us in his all-too-brief preface, represents Genius, and Tripitaka the ordinary man. I doubt if what we call genius has ever before been so dazzlingly, delightfully, and at the same time humorously, depicted. True to his nature, whenever Monkey is on the scene the book sparkles. Here is a fragment of the dialogue between Monkey and his first master :
" What sort of wisdom are you now hoping to learn from me? " " I leave that to you," said Monkey. " Any sort of wisdom—it's all one to me." " There are three hundred and sixty schools of wisdom," said the Patriarch, "ano all of them lead to self-attainment. Which school do you want to study? " " Just as you think best," said Monkey. "I am all attention." " Well, how about Art? " said the
Patriarch. . . . What sort of wisdom is that? " asked Monkey. "You would be able to summon fairies and ride the Phoenix . . and know how to avoid disaster and pursue good fortune." "But should I live for ever? " asked Monkey. "Certainly not," said the Patriarch. "Then that's no good to me," said Monkey.
Monkey, for the same reason rejects Natural Philosophy, Quietism, Activity. The sage gives him the religious name of Aware-of-Vacuity and his adventures begin. He becomes a disciple of Tripitaka, who is sent by the Emperor of China to fetch the sacred scriptures from India. After many years of wandering they teach India and come into the presence of the Lord Buddha, who instructs two disciples to give them a selection of the scriptures : "I would give them you all, but the people of China are foolish and boisterous, they would mock at my mysteries and would not understand the hidden meaning of our Order.'
After leaving with the scriptures they suddenly discover that the sacred scrolls are blank, and they turn back, whereupon they are Seld:
"It is such blank scrolls as these that arc the true scriptures. But I quite see that the people of China are too foolish and ignorant to believe this so there is nothing for it but to give them copies with some writing on."
This is done, and the book ends with their return with the written scriptures to the Emperor of China. As far as I can judge, Mr. Arthur Waley has done his work of selection and translation supremely well. This is not everybody's book, but those who like
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