MDMD Journey to the West (341.1)

[John Bailey]

Good call. I don't know how popular the Monkey King myth is in the States, 
but the old TV series is shown pretty regularly here as well. A friend of 
mine helped with the local DVD release; it sells well. when I was younger it 
was considered classic kitsch, though now knowing a little more about the 
story behind it, it's a far more meaningful show. If you can get past the 
occasional disco scenes, that is.

Journey to the West is such a central part of Chinese folklore (and there's 
a Zhang coming up!) that's it's hard not to see parallels. At the same time, 
it's not like 'Journey' and 'West' aren't words you'd find on every other 
page in M&D, so I'm reluctant to commit to this particular junction. Worth 
keeping in mind, though, yeah?

>From: Doug Millison <millison at online-journalist.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: MDMD  Journey to the West (341.1)
>Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 17:21:22 -0800
>
>http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9711&msg=21479&sort=date
>Date:	Tue, 18 Nov 1997 22:18:37 -0800
>To:	pynchon-l@[omitted]
>From:	millison@[omitted] (Doug Millison)
>Subject: MDMD (11) Journey to the West
>
>
>It may not carry any significance, but the capitalization makes it hard not
>to notice "Journey to the West" at 341.1. "The Journey to the West" is also
>the title of a classic 16th century Chinese novel (Xi You Ji, in standard
>pin yin romanization).
>
>In Chapter 34, this Journey to the West takes Mason and perhaps Dixon to
>the site of the masscre.
>
>For those of you who may not be familiar with this wonderful work, the
>Chinese novel finds its historical roots in the journey of the monk Xuan
>Zang (596-664) who first brought Buddhist scripture from India back to
>China. In the novel, the monk is accompanied by Sun Wu Kung, the Monkey
>King (a great trickster figure; his weapon of choice is a cudgel that he
>can shrink to the size of a pin or expand infinitely; he can also leap
>amazing distances, and can transform himself into an infinite number of
>forms) and Zhu Ba Jie the pig (personification of sloth, gluttony, and the
>rest of the sensual appetites), the Blue-Faced Monk, and a magic horse.
>
>The novel is basically a series of encounters with various magicians,
>monsters, demons (including the infamous White-Boned Demon, a nickname for
>Jiang Qing -- Madame Mao, leader of the Gang of Four) mad monks, and so on;
>they usually get in trouble because of Pig's appetites (perhaps a parallel
>with Dixon there, another fictional character who can't resist the pull of
>his sensual appetites); Xuan Zang whimpers a lot (perhaps not quite as
>melancholy as Mason, but there's a certain fatalism to his Buddhist
>belief); and Sun Wu Kung pulls them out of the fire with his magical
>powers. It's a marvelous novel, available in a lively translation (four
>volumes) by Anthony C. Yu, University of Chicago Press, 1977.
>
>You can still visit the Great Wild Goose Pagada which was built to house
>the Buddhist scriptures that Xuan Zang brought back to Changan (present-day
>Xian), the capital of China at that time, (the Chinese end of the Silk
>Road, too). (I don't know if the actual scriptures are still there or not.)
>When I lived in Xian for several months in 1986, you could climb the
>winding staircase to the top of the rather tall tower for a great view of
>the city and the surrounding countryside, then buy all manner of cold soda
>pop and Sun Wu Kung and Xuan Zang memorabila in the park surrounding the
>pagoda.
>
>The Journey to the West has also been turned into a TV series that plays
>constantly in the PRC, and is occasionally broadcast on the local Chinese
>TV station here in the SF Bay Area. There are also adaptations of the books
>and various of its episodes for children, comic books, etc. -- it's a key
>element of Chinese literary and popular culture, in the PRC and among the
>overseas Chinese. Sun Wu Kong is commonly seen in TV, magazine, newspaper,
>and billboard ads in China, but they haven't yet managed to smooth out the
>attitude (one well-known part of his story  is the time when he ate all the
>Jade Emperor's immortal peaches, got drunk as a skunk and raised hell in
>heaven). He can kick Mickey Mouse's butt any day.




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