Acquisitions (95): Journey to the West

Wu Cheng'en: The Journey to the West (2012)

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Anthony C. Yu (1938-2015)

Anthony C. Yu: The Journey to the West (2012)
[BookMark, Devonport - 28/6/2023]:

The Journey to the West. Trans. Anthony C. Yu. 1977-1983. Rev. ed. Vol. 1 of 4. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 2012.

Anthony C. Yu. The Journey to the West (4 vols: 1977-83)

Monkey!

I've already written quite a bit about the four (or six - depending on which tradition you follow [1]) Classic Chinese novels. They are, in approximate chronological order:

1. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms [Sānguó Yǎnyì] (14th century)
2. The Water Margin [Shui Hu Zhuan] - aka Outlaws of the Marsh - (mid-14th century)
3. Journey to the West [Xī Yóu Jì] - aka Monkey - (c.1592)
4. The Plum in the Golden Vase [Jin Ping Mei] - aka The Golden Lotus - (c.1610)
5. The Scholars [Rúlín Wàishǐ] - aka Unofficial History of the Scholars - (c.1750)
6. The Red Chamber Dream [Honglou Meng] - aka The Story of the Stone - (c.1791)

For a start, there's my essay "In Love with the Chinese Novel: A Voyage around the Hung Lou Meng" which appeared in brief 37 (2009): 10-28 (after being long-listed for the Landfall Essay Prize). This was supplemented by a post called "Classical Chinese Novels" on my blog The Imaginary Museum (22/6/2008). I also wrote a longer summary of the subject as the sixth in a series on The True Story of the Novel (22/12/2013).

As well as that, in late 2018 I wrote an "acquisitions" piece on the first two of these novels, Luo Guanzhong's Three Kingdoms and Shi Nai’an's Outlaws of the Marsh, on the occasion of their republication in new, deluxe Folio Society editions.

As you can see, it's been on my mind.

For the moment, though, I'd like to concentrate on number three in the list above, The Journey to the West, a copy of which I came across in a secondhand bookshop the other day.

Monkey (52 episodes: 1978-80)

This is probably the most familiar image of the fab four - Sandy, Monkey, Pigsy, and the monk Tripitaka (not to mention the latter's dragon-disguised-as-a-horse) - who undertake the journey west to India to locate Buddhist scriptures and bring them back to China. It comes from the Japanese TV adaptation Saiyūki which entranced all of us here down under in the early 1980s. You may even recall its earworm of a theme song:

Born from an egg
on a mountain top
The punkiest monkey
that ever popped
He knew every magic trick
under the sun
To tease the Gods
And everyone
and have some fun
Monkey magic, Monkey magic ...
& so on.

So I was very pleased to pick up a copy of volume 1 of the revised edition of Anthony C. Yu's complete translation of the entire novel. I already own his original 4-volume translation of 1977-83, but this one seems to have a greatly extended introduction, as well as updated notes and text.

Anthony C. Yu: The Journey to the West (vol. II: 2012)

Anthony C. Yu: The Journey to the West (vol. III: 2012)

Anthony C. Yu: The Journey to the West (vol. IV: 2012)

Mind you, I still need the other three volumes to complete the set, but I doubt the suspense will kill me. I have read it before. I know how it all turns out.

Arthur Waley: Monkey (1968)

So where did all this monkey business begin? Well, for English-language readers, at least, it started with Arthur Waley's 1942 translation Monkey: A Folk-Tale of China. I call it a translation, but the original novel was so heavily abridged and reworked by Waley that it would probably be more accurate to refer to it as an adaptation.

Whatever you call it, though, it caused a sensation when it first appeared. The strange, half-supernatural world of the Monkey King (aka 'Great Sage Equal of Heaven') and his fellow-pilgrims - a kind of amalgam of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Carroll's Alice - was not really assimilable to any Western genre.

Is it satirical of contemporary mores in Ming China? Yes - there's a great deal of that in the book. Is there an underlying substratum of genuine spirituality? Well, yes, most critics would agree that that's there too. Is it basically the most entertaining on-the-road story since Huckleberry Finn? Certainly it is - in Waley's version, at any rate.

Anthony C. Yu: The Monkey and the Monk (2006)

It's usually attributed to a sixteenth-century author called Wu Cheng'en. The stories his Hsi-yu Chi (or "Journey to the West") was based on long predate him, though, and had a number of folktale and dramatic incarnations before being edited into this immense "novel" - or long prose narrative, at any rate. So it's no accident that Anthony C. Yu lists no author at all at the head of his translation.

C. C. Low et al.: The Adventures of the Monkey God (4 vols: 1975)

With the exception of the above Chinese-English graphic novel adaptation, Yu was the first translator to undertake a version of the entire immense novel. His translation remains a landmark of careful scholarship, though perhaps a bit less of a page-turner than readers of Waley's lively abridgement may have led non-Chinese speaking readers (such as myself) to expect.

W. J. F. Jenner: Journey to the West (3 vols: 1982)

This beautifully-presented - albeit somewhat zanily translated - Beijing Foreign Languages Press edition also purports to be a complete version of the novel. While I hugely enjoyed reading it, it lacks annotations, and it would probably be unwise to trust it overmuch if you have the alternative of consulting Yu's immense labour of love.

For sheer entertainment value, though, Jenner runs Waley a close second. And, given the immense repetitiveness of the novel in its complete form, that's really quite a tribute.

All of which brings us to some of the other manifestations of Monkey in popular culture.

The New Legends of Monkey (20 episodes: 2018-2020)

As well as innumerable feature films, stage plays, comics and other graphic adaptations, there are also a number of TV series, among them the classic Japanese Saiyūki, mentioned above, but also the Australasian-produced New Legends of Monkey, which attempts to update the story for a new generation of kids.

Xuanzang (602-664)

But wait - there's more. Though it may sound like one complication too many, it's important to point out that the whole story is actually based on truth. There was indeed a 7th-century monk, Xuanzang, who undertook a long trek westwards to collect Buddhist texts, and even wrote a travelogue, The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, about his journey to India and back in 629–645.

He's the original for Tang Sanzang, the central character in the novel, as Arthur Waley explains in the book below. However, where the original Xuanzang was a wise and experienced traveller, his fictional counterpart (called "Tripitaka" by Waley) is depicted as a naive young monk with little power of discernment, who's constantly upsetting the plans of the wily Monkey.

Arthur Waley: The Real Tripitaka (1952)

As for Sun Wukong, the Monkey King himself, his origins are somewhat more obscure. His resemblance to the monkey god Hanuman from the Sanskrit epic Ramayana is unmistakable. However:

Lu Xun pointed out there is no proof that the Ramayana has been translated into Chinese or was accessible to Wu Cheng'en. Instead, Lu Xun suggested the 9th Century Chinese deity Wuzhiqi, who appears as a sibling of Sun Wukong in older Yuan Dynasty stories, as another potential inspiration.

Sun Wukong may have also been influenced by local folk religion from Fuzhou province, where monkey gods were worshipped long before the novel. This included the three Monkey Saints of Lin Shui Palace, who were once fiends, who were subdued by the goddess Chen Jinggu ... The two traditional mainstream religions practiced in Fuzhou are Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. Traditionally, many people practice both religions simultaneously. However, the roots of local religion dated back many years before institutionalization of these traditions.

- Wikipedia

Certainly this fusion of Daoist and Buddhist deities and traditions is one of the most striking aspects of the novel - to a Western reader, at any rate.

---

[1] C. T. Hsia's The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction (1968) claims that the six listed above "remain the most beloved novels among the Chinese." However, as Wikipedia reminds us:

The Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Water Margin and The Plum in the Golden Vase were grouped by publishers in the early Qing ... as Four Masterworks. Because of its explicit descriptions of sex, The Plum in the Golden Vase was banned for most of its existence. Despite this, Lu Xun, like many if not most scholars and writers, places it among the top Chinese novels. Several Western reference works consider Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, and Dream of the Red Chamber as China's Four Great Classical Novels.

Rua Yai City Pillar Shrine in Suphan Buri, Thailand (1952)

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Wu Cheng'en (c.1500-1582)

Journey to the West [Hsi-yu Chi]
(c.1592)

Books I own are marked in bold:

Translations:


1. Wu Ch’êng-Ên. Monkey: A Folk-Tale of China. Trans. Arthur Waley (1942)
   • Wu Ch’êng-Ên. Monkey. Trans. Arthur Waley. 1942. Illustrated by Duncan Grant. London: The Folio Society, 1968.
   • Wu Ch’êng-Ên. Monkey. Trans. Arthur Waley. 1942. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.
   • Wu Ch’êng-Ên. Dear Monkey. Trans. Arthur Waley. Abridged by Alison Waley. Illustrated by Georgette Boner. 1947. London & Glasgow: Blackie, 1973.
2. C. C. Low & Associates. The Adventures of the Monkey God. 4 vols (1975)
   • Low, C. C. & Associates. The Adventures of the Monkey God. Pictorial Stories of Chinese Classics. Trans. C. C. Low & Associates. 4 vols. 1975. Singapore: Canfonian Pte Ltd., 1989.
3. Anthony C. Yu. The Journey to the West. 4 vols (1977-1983; 2012)
   • The Journey to the West. Trans. Anthony C. Yu. 4 vols. 1977-1983. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980, 1982, 1980, 1984.
   • The Monkey and the Monk. Abridged by Anthony C. Yu. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
   • The Journey to the West. Trans. Anthony C. Yu. 1977-1983. Rev. ed. Vol. 1 of 4. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
4. Tung Yueh. Hsi-yu pu. Tower of Myriad Mirrors. Trans. Shuen-fu Lin & Larry J. Schultz (1978)
   • Tung Yueh. Hsi-yu pu. Tower of Myriad Mirrors: A Supplement to Journey to the West. Trans. Shuen-fu Lin & Larry J. Schultz. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1978.
5. Excerpts from Three Classical Chinese Novels. Trans. Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang (1981)
   • Excerpts from Three Classical Chinese Novels: The Three Kingdoms, Pilgrimage to the West & Flowers in the Mirror. Trans. Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang. Beijing: Panda Books, 1981.
6. Wu Cheng’en. Journey to the West. Trans. W. J. F. Jenner (1982)
   • Wu Cheng’en. Journey to the West. Trans. W. J. F. Jenner. 1982. 3 vols. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1990.
7. Wu Cheng’en. Monkey King: Journey to the West. Trans. Julia Lovell. Penguin Classics. London: Penguin, 2021.



Julia Lovell, trans.: Monkey King: Journey to the West (2021)


Miscellaneous:


8. Monkey [“Saiyūki”]: Season One: Episodes 1-13, based on the novel by Wu Ch’eng-en – with Masaaki Sakai, Masako Natsume, Shiro Kishibe, Toshiyuki Nishida, Tonpei Hidari, Shunji Fujimura – (Japan: Nippon TV, 1978). 4-DVD set.
9. Monkey [“Saiyūki”]: Season One: Episodes 14-26, based on the novel by Wu Ch’eng-en – with Masaaki Sakai, Masako Natsume, Shiro Kishibe, Toshiyuki Nishida, Tonpei Hidari, Shunji Fujimura – (Japan: Nippon TV, 1978). 4-DVD set.
10. Monkey [“Saiyūki”]: Season Two: Episodes 27-39, based on the novel by Wu Ch’eng-en – with Masaaki Sakai, Masako Natsume, Shiro Kishibe, Toshiyuki Nishida, Tonpei Hidari, Shunji Fujimura – (Japan: Nippon TV, 1979). 4-DVD set.
11. Monkey [“Saiyūki”]: Season Two: Episodes 40-52, based on the novel by Wu Ch’eng-en – with Masaaki Sakai, Masako Natsume, Shiro Kishibe, Toshiyuki Nishida, Tonpei Hidari, Shunji Fujimura – (Japan: Nippon TV, 1980). 4-DVD set.
12. Pisu, Silverio. The Ape. Illustrated by Milo Manara. New York: Catalan Communications, 1986.
13. Journey to the West Playing Cards. Shandong: Heze Printing House, n.d.



Silverio Pisu & Milo Manara: The Ape (1986)


Secondary:


14. Dudbridge, Glen. The Hsi-Yu-Chi: A Study of Antecedents to the Sixteenth-Century Chinese Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
15. Hegel, Robert E. "The Tower of Myriad Mirrors: Mind as Morass." In The Novel in Seventeenth-Century China. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981. 142-66.
16. Hsia, C. T. "Journey to the West." In The Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction. 1968. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. 107-52.
17. Lu Hsun. A Brief History of Chinese Fiction. 1923-24. Trans. Yang Hsien-Yi & Gladys Yang. 1959. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1982.
18. Plaks, Andrew H. "Hsi-yu chi: Inversion of Emptiness." In The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel: Ssu ta ch'i-shu. 1987. Princeton Legacy Library. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016. 183-278.
19. Waley, Arthur. The Real Tripitaka and Other Pieces. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1952.
20. Yu, Anthony C. "Liu I Ming on How to Read the Hsi-yu chi (the Journey to the West)." In How to Read the Chinese Novel. Ed. David L. Rolston. With contributions from Shuen-fu Lin, David T. Roy, Andrew H. Plaks, John C. Y Wang, David L. Rolston, Anthony C. Yu. Princeton Library of Asian Translations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. 295-315.

Wu Cheng'en (c.1501-1582)

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• category - Chinese Literature: Chinese Fiction

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Acquisitions (58): Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence Durrell: Judith: A Novel (2012)

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Lawrence Durrell


Lawrence Durrell: Judith: A Novel (2012)
[Fishpond.co.nz - ordered: October 30 / received: November 19, 2021]:

Lawrence Durrell. Judith: A Novel. 1962-66. Ed. Richard Pine. New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2012.

Lawrence Durrell: The Alexandria Quartet (1957-60)


Capitals of Memory

'Alexandria, the capital of memory ...'

There can't be many bookish people who haven't, at one time or another, succumbed - however guiltily - to the charm of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. For some of us the attraction has been more infectious, resulting in a lifetime of servitude to his astonishing body of work.

Is it an adolescent taste? Undoubtedly. But so what? Nobody ever met anybody in the least like Durrell's Justine ouside a fever dream - but that doesn't make her, or (more to the point) the city which provides the essential backdrop to her existence, any the less memorable.

It may come as a shock to the admirers of his younger brother Gerald, but some of us read all the way through the latter's Corfu Trilogy solely because of what Larry himself referred to as the 'Dickensian caricature' it provides of the young L.G.D. [Lawrence George Durrell; L. G. Darley, narrator of Justine; or (in the Blakean terms employed by his character Pursewarden): 'Lineaments of Gratified Desire'].

Opinions differ about Durrell's poetry. T. S. Eliot liked it. It doesn't do a lot for me, I must confess. But his prose ...! All those 'landscape notes' scattered through the Alexandria Quartet ... Who knew that you were actually allowed to write like that?

Since his death thirty-odd years ago, his reputation has certainly taken a bit of a beating. But somehow the books have continued to sell: the novels and the travel books, that is. And there have been a couple of recent additions to the canon which I'm afraid it took small persuasion for me to add to my Christmas shopping list.

One of these was a book of his uncollected travel essays:

Lawrence Durrell: From the Elephant's Back: Collected Essays & Travel Writings
Ed. James Gifford (2015)

The other, a novel called Judith, written over the period 1962-66, had a somewhat more complicated genesis. The publisher's blurb describes it as follows:

It is the eve of Britain’s withdrawal from Palestine in 1948, a moment that will mark the beginning of a new Israel. But the course of history is uncertain, and Israel’s territorial enemies plan to smother the new country at its birth. Judith Roth has escaped the concentration camps in Germany only to be plunged into the new conflict, one with stakes just as high for her as they are for her people.

Initially conceived as a screenplay for the 1966 film starring Sophia Loren, Lawrence Durrell’s previously unpublished novel offers a thrilling portrayal of a place and time when ancient history crashed against the fragile bulwarks of the modernizing world.

Daniel Mann, dir.: Judith
with Sophia Loren, Jack Hawkins, Peter Finch (1966)

Sure enough, when you visit the Wikipedia page for this Sophia Loren vehicle, you'll find it specified as having been "directed by Daniel Mann and produced by Kurt Unger from a screenplay by John Michael Hayes, based on the story by Lawrence Durrell."

It's a film treatment, in other words: presumably one designed to cash in on the success of the Leon Uris film Exodus (1960), as well as banking on the cachet of Durrell's then recent success with The Alexandria Quartet. That's not to say that the theme had no personal resonance for him, however.

He had, after all, been married to Eve Cohen, a Jewish Alexandrian (and the inspiration for Justine), from 1947 until their divorce in 1955. His next wife, Claude-Marie Vincendon, was also a Jewish woman born in Alexandria. They married in 1961, just before he started work on Judith. She died of cancer in 1967.

Nor was the subject of Britain's post-war colonial withdrawal, and the moral compromises and injustices that entailed, entirely alien to him. His travel book / memoir Bitter Lemons (1957) describes the three years, from 1953 to 1956, which he spent living on Cyprus after resigning from the British Foreign Service. These years saw the growth of Greek and Turkish nationalism on the island. The one thing both sides agreed on, besides their hatred for each other, was the need to get rid of the British. Durrell left after assassination threats had been made against him personally.

I look forward to reading what he made of these themes in his novel. It is, I suppose, likely to be little more than a curiosity, a pendant rather than a real addition to our sense of his life's work. With a talent of this size, however, one can't afford to neglect any possible gems.

After all, few Durrell fans have paid much attention to his 1947 novel Cefalu (retitled The Dark Labyrinth in subsequent reprints). It is in many ways my favourite book of his, however, and it shows how unwise it can be to neglect even the deserted byways of a favourite author's oeuvre!

Lawrence Durrell: The Dark Labyrinth (1947)

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Lawrence Durrell (1959)

Lawrence George Durrell (1912-1990)

Books I own are marked in bold:

Poetry:



Lawrence Durrell: A Private Country (1943)



1. Quaint Fragments: Poems Written between the Ages of Sixteen and Nineteen (1931)
2. Ten Poems (1932)
3. Transition: Poems (1934)
4. A Private Country (1943)
5. Cities, Plains and People (1946)
6. On Seeming to Presume (1948)
7. Collected Poems (1957)
   • Collected Poems. 1957. Second Edition. London: Faber, 1968.
8. The Poetry of Lawrence Durrell (1962)
9. Selected Poems: 1953–1963. Ed. Alan Ross (1964)
   • Selected Poems: 1953–1963. Ed. Alan Ross. 1964. London: Faber, 1965.
10. The Ikons (1966)
11. The Suchness of the Old Boy (1972)
12. Collected Poems: 1931–1974. Ed. James A. Brigham (1980)
    • Collected Poems: 1931–1974. Ed. James A. Brigham. London: Faber, 1980.
13. Selected Poems of Lawrence Durrell. Ed. Peter Porter (2006)

Lawrence Durrell: Collected Poems: 1931-1974 (1980)


Fiction:



Lawrence Durrell: The Black Book (1938)



14. Pied Piper of Lovers (1935)
    • Pied Piper of Lovers. 1935. Ed. James Gifford. Afterword by James A. Brigham. Victoria, BC: ELS Editions, 2008.
15. [as ‘Charles Norden’]. Panic Spring: A Romance (1937)
    • Panic Spring: A Romance. 1937. Ed. James Gifford. Introduction by Richard Pine. Afterword by James A. Brigham. Victoria, BC: ELS Editions, 2008.
16. The Black Book: A Novel (1938)
    • The Black Book: A Novel. 1938. Faber Paperbacks. London: Faber, 1977.
17. Cefalu (1947)
    • The Dark Labyrinth: A Novel. [‘Cefalu’, 1947]. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber, 1964.
18. White Eagles Over Serbia (1957)
    • White Eagles Over Serbia. 1957. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber, 1973.
19. Justine (1957)
    • Justine. 1957. The Alexandria Quartet, 1. London: Faber, 1964.
20. Balthazar (1958)
    • Balthazar. 1958. The Alexandria Quartet, 2. London: Faber, 1963.
21. Mountolive (1958)
    • Mountolive. 1958. The Alexandria Quartet, 3. London: Faber, 1963.
22. Clea (1960)
    • Clea. 1960. The Alexandria Quartet, 4. London: Faber, 1967.
23. The Alexandria Quartet (1957-60)
    1. Justine (1957)
    2. Balthazar (1958)
    3. Mountolive (1958)
    4. Clea (1960)
    • The Alexandria Quartet: Justine; Balthazar; Mountolive: Clea. 1957, 1958, 1958, 1960. London: Faber, 1962.
    • The Alexandria Quartet: Justine; Balthazar; Mountolive; Clea. 1957, 1958, 1958, 1960, & 1962. Faber Paperbacks. London: Faber, 1983.
24. Tunc: A Novel (1968)
    • Tunc: A Novel. London: Faber, 1968.
25. Nunquam: A Novel (1970)
    • Nunquam: A Novel. 1970. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber, 1971.
26. The Revolt of Aphrodite (1968-70)
    1. Tunc (1968)
    2. Nunquam (1970)
    • The Revolt of Aphrodite: Tunc and Nunquam. 1968, 1970. London: Faber, 1974.
27. Monsieur: or, The Prince of Darkness (1974)
    • Monsieur: or, The Prince of Darkness: A Novel. 1974. London: Faber, 1976.
    • Monsieur, or The Prince of Darkness. The Avignon Quintet, 1. 1974. London: Faber, 1986.
28. Livia: or, Buried Alive (1978)
    • Livia: or, Buried Alive: A Novel. London: Faber, 1978.
    • Livia, or Buried Alive. The Avignon Quintet, 2. 1978. London: Faber, 1986.
29. Constance: or, Solitary Practices (1982)
    • Constance: or, Solitary Practices: A Novel. 1982. London: Faber, 1983.
    • Constance, or Solitary Practices. The Avignon Quintet, 3. 1982. London: Faber, 1986.
30. Sebastian: or, Ruling Passions (1983)
    • Sebastian: or, Ruling Passions: A Novel. London: Faber, 1983.
    • Sebastian, or Ruling Passions. The Avignon Quintet, 4. 1983. London: Faber, 1985.
31. Quinx: or, The Ripper's Tale (1985)
    • Quinx, or The Ripper’s Tale. 1985. London: Faber, 1986.
    • Quinx, or The Ripper’s Tale. The Avignon Quintet, 5. 1985. London: Faber, 1986.
32. The Avignon Quintet (1974-85)
    1. Monsieur: or, The Prince of Darkness (1974)
    2. Livia: or, Buried Alive (1978)
    3. Constance: or, Solitary Practices (1982)
    4. Sebastian: or, Ruling Passions (1983)
    5. Quinx: or, The Ripper's Tale (1985)
    • The Avignon Quintet: Monsieur: or, The Prince of Darkness; Livia: or, Buried Alive; Constance: or, Solitary Practices; Sebastian: or, Ruling Passions; Quinx: or, The Ripper's Tale. 1974, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1985. London: Faber, 1992.
33. Judith. 1962-66. Ed. Richard Pine (2012)
    • Judith: A Novel. Ed. Richard Pine. New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2012.

Lawrence Durrell: The Alexandria Quartet (1957-60)


Humour:



Lawrence Durrell: 3 Antrobus Books (1957, 1958, 1966)



34. Esprit de Corps: Sketches from Diplomatic Life (1957)
    • Esprit de Corps: Sketches from Diplomatic Life. Illustrated by V. H. Drummond. 1957. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber, 1963.
35. Stiff Upper Lip (1958)
    • Stiff Upper Lip. Illustrated by Nicolas Bentley. 1958. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber, 1966.
36. Sauve Qui Peut (1966)
    • Sauve Qui Peut. Illustrated by Nicolas Bentley. 1966. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber, 1969.
37. Antrobus Complete (1985)
    • Antrobus Complete. Drawings by Marc. 1985. London: Faber, 1986.

Lawrence Durrell: Antrobus Complete (1985)


Travel:



Lawrence Durrell: Prospero's Cell (1945)



38. Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corcyra (1945)
    • Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corcyra. 1945. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber, 1973.
39. Reflections on a Marine Venus: A Companion to the Landscape of Rhodes (1953)
    • Reflections on a Marine Venus: A Companion to the Landscape of Rhodes. 1953. London: Faber, 1959.
40. Bitter Lemons (1957)
    • Bitter Lemons. 1957. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber, 1959.
41. Spirit of Place: Letters and Essays on Travel. Ed. Alan G. Thomas (1969)
    • Spirit of Place: Letters and Essays on Travel. Ed. Alan G. Thomas. 1969. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber, 1971.
    • Spirit of Place: Letters & Essays on Travel. Ed. Alan G. Thomas. 1969. London: Faber, 1975.
42. Blue Thirst (Santa Barbara, CA: Capra Press, 1975)
43. Sicilian Carousel (1977)
    • Sicilian Carousel. 1977. London: Faber, 1978.
44. The Greek Islands (1978)
    • The Greek Islands. 1978. Faber Paperbacks. 1980. London: Faber, 1981.
45. Caesar's Vast Ghost: Aspects of Provence (1990)
    • Caesar's Vast Ghost: Aspects of Provence. Photographs by Harry Peccinotti. 1990. Faber Paperbacks. London: Faber, 1995.
46. From the Elephant's Back: Collected Essays & Travel Writings. Ed. James Gifford (2015)
    • From the Elephant’s Back: Collected Essays & Travel Writings. Ed. James Gifford. Foreword by Peter Baldwin. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: University of Alberta Press, 2015.

Lawrence Durrell: Blue Thirst: Tales of Life Abroad. Two Lectures (1975)


Miscellaneous Prose:



Richard Pine, ed.: Lawrence Durrell's Endpapers and Inklings 1933-1988
Volume One: Autobiographies, Fictions, Spirit of Place (2019)



47. A Key to Modern British Poetry (1952)
48. Seignolle, Claude. The Accursed: Two Diabolical Tales. 1963. Trans. Bernard Wall. Foreword by Lawrence Durrell. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1967.
49. The Plant Magic Man (1975)
    • The Capra Chapbook Anthology: Henry Miller: On Turning Eighty (1972); Faye Kicknosway: O, You Can Walk on the Sky? Good (1972); Lawrence Durrell: The Plant Magic Man (1975); Ross Macdonald: On Crime Writing (1973) ; Ray Bradbury: Zen & the Art of Writing (1973); Victor Perera: The Loch Ness Monster Watchers (1973); Colin Wilson: Tree by Tolkien (1974); James D. Houston: Three Songs for My Father (1974); William F. Nolan: Hemingway: Last Days of the Lion (1974); Ursula Le Guin: Wild Angels (1975); Mark Vinz: Letters to the Poetry Editor (1975). Ed. Noel Young. Santa Barbara, CA: Capra Press, 1979.
50. A Smile in the Mind's Eye (1980)
    • A Smile in the Mind's Eye. 1980. A Paladin Book. Frogmore, St. Albans, Herts.: Granada Publishing Limited, 1982.
51. Lawrence Durrell's Endpapers and Inklings, 1933-1988. Volume One: Autobiographies, Fictions, Spirit of Place. Ed. Richard Pine. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019.
52. Lawrence Durrell's Endpapers and Inklings, 1933-1988. Volume Two: Dramas, Screenplays, Essays, Incorrigibilia. Ed. Richard Pine. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019.

Richard Pine, ed.: Lawrence Durrell's Endpapers and Inklings 1933-1988
Volume Two: Dramas, Screenplays, Essays, Incorrigibilia (2019)


Plays:



Lawrence Durrell: Sappho: A Play in Verse (1950)



53. [as 'Gaffer Peeslake']. Bromo Bombastes (1933)
54. Sappho: A Play in Verse (1950)
    • Sappho: A Play in Verse. 1950. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber, 1967.
55. An Irish Faustus: A Morality in Nine Scenes (1963)
56. Acte (1964)

Lawrence Durrell: Acte (1964)


Translation:



Lawrence Durrell: Six Poems From the Greek of Sikelianós and Seféris (1946)



57. Six Poems From the Greek of Sikelianós and Seféris (1946)
58. George Seferis. The King of Asine and Other Poems. Trans. with Bernard Spencer & Nanos Valaoritis (1948)
59. Emmanuel Royidis. The Curious History of Pope Joan (1954)
    • Emmanuel Royidis. The Curious History of Pope Joan. 1866. Trans. Lawrence Durrell. 1954. Rev. ed. 1960. London: Sphere Books Ltd., 1971.

Emmanuel Royidis: The Curious History of Pope Joan (1960)


Edited:



Lawrence Durrell, ed.: The Henry Miller Reader (1959)


60. The Henry Miller Reader (1959)
    • The Best of Henry Miller. 1959. Mercury Books. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1964.
61. New Poems 1963: A P.E.N. Anthology of Contemporary Poetry (1963)
62. Wordsworth: Selected by Lawrence Durrell (1973)

Lawrence Durrell, ed.: Wordsworth (1973)


Letters:



Lawrence Durrell & Henry Miller: A Private Correspondence (1963)



63. Art & Outrage: A Correspondence About Henry Miller Between Alfred Perles and Lawrence Durrell (1959)
64. Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller: A Private Correspondence. Ed. George Wickes (1962)
65. Literary Lifelines: The Richard Aldington–Lawrence Durrell Correspondence (1981)
    • Literary Lifelines: The Richard Aldington–Lawrence Durrell Correspondence. Ed. Ian S. MacNiven & Harry T. Moore. London: Faber, 1981.
66. 'Letters to T. S. Eliot'. Twentieth Century Literature Vol. 33, No. 3 (1987): 348–358.
67. The Durrell-Miller Letters: 1935–80 (1988)
    • The Durrell-Miller Letters: 1935–80. Ed. Ian S. MacNiven. 1988. London: Faber / Michael Haag Ltd., 1989.
68. Letters to Jean Fanchette. Ed. Jean Fanchette (1988)

Lawrence Durrell & Richard Aldington: Literary Lifelines (1981)


Secondary:



Gerald Durrell: The Corfu Trilogy (1956-78)



69. Durrell, Gerald. The Corfu Trilogy (1956-78)
    1. My Family and Other Animals. 1956. Penguin Book 1399. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964.
    2. Birds, Beasts and Relatives. 1969. Fontana Books. London: Collins Clear-Type Press, 1970.
    3. The Garden of the Gods. 1978. Fontana Paperbacks. London: William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1980.
70. Durrell, Gerald. Fillets of Plaice. 1971. Fontana Books. London: Collins Clear-Type Press, 1973.
71. Durrell, Gerald. The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium. 1979. Fontana Paperbacks. London: William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1981.
72. Fraser, G. S. Lawrence Durrell: A Study. With a Bibliography by Alan G. Thomas. London: Faber, 1968.
73. [with Mark Alyn] The Big Supposer: A Dialogue. Illustrated by Lawrence Durrell. 1972. Trans. Francine Barker. London: Abelard-Schuman Limited, 1973.
74. Bowker, Gordon. Through the Dark Labyrinth: A Biography of Lawrence Durrell: Fully Revised Edition. 1996. Pimlico. London: Random House, 1998.
75. MacNiven, Ian S. Lawrence Durrell: A Biography. London: Faber, 1998.

The Durrells (2016-19)

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• category - English Prose (post-1900): Authors

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Acquisitions (9): Royall Tyler

Royall Tyler, trans.: The Tale of the Heike
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Royall Tyler

Royall Tyler's Tale of the Heike (2012)

[Acquired: Thursday, May 9, 2013]:

The Tale of the Heike. Trans. Royall Tyler. Viking Penguin. London: Penguin, 2012.

Tyler, Royall, trans. Before Heike and After: Hōgen, Heiji, Jōkyūki. 2012. Lexington, KY: An Arthur Nettleton Book, 2013.

I can't count how many times I've picked it up and tried to read it, always in vain. For someone who's a rabid fan of the Tale of Genji and who's therefore read more than his fair share of medieval Japanese literature in translation, the Heike Monogatari looks like a dead cert. But it always seemed so dead on the page: so lacking in visual as well as narrative appeal - in the earlier translations I tried, at any rate:

Hiroshi Kitagawa & Bruce T. Tsuchida, trans.:
The Tale of the Heike (1975)

Helen Craig McCullough, trans.: The Tale of the Heike (1988)

The second of the two pictured above is actually an extremely accurate rendition of the original - or so Royall Tyler told me. I met him, you see. It was at a translation conference in Melbourne in July 2011, while he was putting the finishing touches on this book.

He gave a fascinating paper on the performance tradition associated with the Heike, which is still - just - continuing in modern Japan. I couldn't resist complimenting him on it afterwards, and taking the opportunity to ask him a few things about his earlier translation of the Tale of Genji.

When I mentioned that I had two copies of his version - one (hardback) at home, the other (paperback) in the office for quick reference - I think he realised that he was dealing with a bona fide fan (or do I mean monomaniac?). The colleague he was with, Meredith McKinney, herself the author of a lovely version of Sei Shōnagon's classic Pillow Book, was even more impressed when she heard that I'd tracked down a copy of Ivan Morris's complete, two-volume translation of Sei Shōnagon, rather than being content with the abridged Penguin edition.

Royall Tyler, trans.: Atsumori (1992)

It was quite a weird encounter, actually. I don't think they could understand somebody who was so evidently enthusiastic about Japanese literature, and yet had not felt inspired to plunge into immediate study of the language itself. I can see their point. It doesn't really make sense to me either. The fact remains, though, that just as in the case of the classic Chinese novels, these English translations exist, and continue to proliferate, and I get so much pleasure from reading and comparing them and imagining what their distant originals must be like ...

Anyway, whether that makes sense or not, that's the way it is, and the main thing I got from our talk was a strong disposition to check out Tyler's "opera libretto" arrangement of the Heike text as soon as it became available, in the hopes of finally getting to the end of it.

As an added bonus, though, it's nice to see that he's also issued a companion volume of translations of the various chronicles which supplement and complete the Heike story:

Royall Tyler, trans.: Before Heike and After (2012)

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• category - Japanese Literature: Prose: Classical

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