Rebekah May's Reviews > Monkey King

I have had Journey to the West in the back of my mind for a few years so when I saw this beautiful, abridged, newly translated edition in Waterstones I decided to pick it up.

This novel is so much fun to read. I'm kind of sad this is an abridged version because I loved the translation so much, and I think that is why I enjoyed this as much as I did. The actual content of the book is a great fantasy novel and I really enjoyed both the first part about Monkey and the second part about the actual journey. It is compared to The Canterbury Tales on the little sleeve I got with it, which I haven't read but definitely want to bump up my tbr now if this is true! I would say this is mostly just the conflicts that the party has due to it being an abridged version but I kind of loved that I was hopping from fight to fight, especially as I spent so long with this one.

As mentioned, though, I think the translation is really clever. Now, this is an old book. Usually, in translating and updating old books, people update the language used and modernise it. Usually, I don't like this. In this, though, it worked so well and it was so subtle. It really makes the humour shine.

I would definitely recommend this translation of the book, though I haven't read any others so can't compare it. I really enjoyed it, though!