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.

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[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 (57): Murasaki Shikibu

Dennis Washburn, ed. & trans.: The Tale of Genji: Norton Critical Edition (2021)

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Dennis Washburn (2011)


The Tale of Genji: Norton Critical Edition (2021)
[Fishpond.co.nz - ordered: October 23 / received: November 10, 2021]:

Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji: Norton Critical Edition. Ed. & trans. Dennis Washburn. 2015. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2021.

Hiroshige: Murasaki Shikibu (c.1855)

The Many Faces of Murasaki Shikibu

Some time ago now, in 2013, I wrote a blogpost about the Japanese monogatari tradition.

Since then I've made a few more significant acquisitions, and have been accused by no less an authority than my friend and colleague Jo Emeney, who studied Japanese at Cambridge University with Richard Bowring and Ivan Morris, translators (respectively) of Lady Murasaki's Diary and The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, of being a complete Tale of Genji 'fangirl'.

I'm forced to acknowledge the truth of her comment. I am, indeed, a Murasaki fangirl, though I might have chosen a slightly different appellation for this state of swooning adoration of all things Genji.

Reading The Tale of Genji: Sources from the First Millennium.
Ed. Thomas Harper & Haruo Shirane (2015)

The above, for instance, which I acquired a couple of months after the hardback edition of Dennis Washburn's translation, is a most interesting work. What may seem - to us - the extreme perversity of some of the early readings of the Genji goes someway towards underlining the sheer weight of time between us and its author.

While it's tempting to construct a Lady Murasaki according to our own understanding of such a 'literary figure' - a kind of Japanese Virginia Woolf avant la lettre - it's misleading to do so. If we're to have any chance of reading the Genji at all, as opposed to the Proustian pastiche created by its first translator, Arthur Waley, we'd better pay at least as much attention to the gaps as the continuities in the thousand-year-old tradition of trying to fathom this, the first and greatest of all psychological novels.

There are, now, four complete translations of the Genji into English - as well as a number of abridged and partial versions, ranging through the partial Suematsu translation of 1882, Helen McCullough's abridged version of 1994, Kazuyuki Hijiya's translation of the last ten 'Uji' chapters of 2013, and now Melissa McCormick's English version of the 1510 Genji Album, the oldest set of Genji illustrations known to exist.

Kenchio Suyematz, trans. Genji Monogatari (1882)

Kenchio Suyematz, trans. Genji Monogatari: The Most Celebrated of the Classical Japanese Romances. London: Trubner, 1882.

Viscount Suematsu Kenchō (1855-1920)

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Helen McCullough, trans. Genji & Heike (1994)

Helen Craig McCullough, trans. Genji & Heike: Selections from The Tale of Genji and The Tale of the Heike. Stanford University Press, 1994.

Helen McCullough, trans. Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology (1990)

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Kazuyuki Hijiya, trans. The Tale of Genji: The Uji Chapters, Part I (2013)

Kazuyuki Hijiya, trans. The Tale of Genji: The Uji Chapters, Part II (2013)

Kazuyuki Hijiya, trans. The Tale of Genji: The Uji Chapters. 2 vols. Kyoto: Yamaguchi Shoten, 2013.

Kazuyuki Hijiya

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Melissa McCormick. The Tale of Genji: A Visual Companion (2018)

Melissa McCormick. The Tale of Genji: A Visual Companion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018.

Professor Melissa McCormick

Of course, it's far more important to chart the 'big four' - the four attempts at a complete translation of the novel (although Waley's pioneering version does, admittedly, omit one whole chapter, no. 38: 'The Bell Cricket'). Lucy Day W. has made an excellent summary of their respective advantages and disadvantages in her article "What’s the best translation of The Tale of Genji?" (20/3/21) on the welovetranslations.com website, so there doesn't seem much point in repeating all that here.

I do have my own views on the matter, mind you, but for the main part I'd prefer just to illustrate the various choices: the iconography of Genji translation, if you like:

Arthur Waley, trans.: The Tale of Genji (6 vols: 1925-33)

Lady Murasaki. The Tale of Genji: A Novel in Six Parts. Trans. Arthur Waley. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1935.

1. The Tale of Genji (1925)
2. The Sacred Tree (1926)
3. A Wreath of Cloud (1927)
4. Blue Trousers (1928)
5. The Lady of the Boat (1932)
6. The Bridge of Dreams (1933)

Arthur Waley, trans.: The Tale of Genji (1960)

Arthur Waley (1889-1966)

Arthur Waley (1925-33):


1. Murasaki, Lady. The Tale of Genji: A Novel in Six Parts. Trans. Arthur Waley. 1935. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957.


2. Murasaki, Lady. The Tale of Genji. A Novel in Six Parts: The Tale of Genji, The Sacred Tree, A Wreath of Cloud, Blue Trousers, The Lady of the Boat, The Bridge of Dreams. Trans. Arthur Waley. 1935. New York: The Modern Library, 1960.


3. Murasaki, Lady. The Tale of Genji: A Novel in Six Parts. Volume One: Part 1. The Tale of Genji; Part 2. The Sacred Tree; Part 3. A Wreath of Cloud. Trans. Arthur Waley. 1925, 1926, 1927. 2 vols. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1965.


4. Murasaki, Lady. The Tale of Genji: A Novel in Six Parts. Volume Two: Part 4. Blue Trousers; Part 5. The Lady of the Boat; Part 6. The Bridge of Dreams. Trans. Arthur Waley. 1928, 1932, 1933. 2 vols. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1973.


5. Murasaki, Lady. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Athur Waley. 1935. 2 vols. Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1970.

Arthur Waley, trans.: The Tale of Genji (1952)

What can I say about Arthur Waley? Not only did he first bring the novel to the attention of English-speaking readers everywhere, but he also alerted many Japanese, uncomfortable with the archaic language of the original, to the importance of Lady Murasaki in world literature.

His version is still very readable, despite changing fashions in just how many concessions need to be made for a contemporary Western audience. Perhaps it's just we've just spent a lot more time with Japanese culture since then. Nevertheless, if you're keen on the Genji and haven't read Waley's version, you're denying yourself a treat.

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Edward Seidensticker, trans. The Tale of Genji (1976)

Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Edward Seidensticker. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.

Edward Seidensticker, trans. The Tale of Genji (1981)

Edward Seidensticker (1921-2007)

Edward G. Seidensticker (1976):


1. Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Edward Seidensticker. 1976. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981.


2. Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Edward Seidensticker. 1976. 2 vols. Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1997.


3. Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji. Trans. & abridged Edward Seidensticker. 1985. Vintage Classics. New York: Random House, Inc., 1990.


4. Seidensticker, Edward G. Genji Days. Tokyo & New York: Kodansha International Ltd., 1977.


5. Seidensticker, Edward G. Genji Days. 1977. Tokyo & New York: Kodansha International Ltd., 1983.

Edward G. Seidensticker: Genji Days (1977)

This is where I came in. Ever since I first saw - and immediately bought - the massive Penguin paperback of Seidensticker's Genji in 1981, in St. Andrews, Scotland (and very inconvenient it was to cart it round with me for the next six weeks or so on our European family holiday), I've been reading in and around and through it, in an attempt to penetrate its obscurities.

While it appealed to me most, initially, as an aesthetic object, I have to say that I still get a kick from Seidensticker's sparse, allusive prose - as well as his excellent versions of the many, many poems included in the text. All those years spent translating Kawabata and Mishima and other modern Japanese novelists were a great assistance to him in finding a tone calculated to appeal to aficionados of that type of writing.

It has been criticised, since (mainly by rival translators), for its lack of explanatory notes and appendices and all those other contextualising gestures beloved of scholars. Seidensticker had the soul of a poet, though, and it's a shame if his version, which I would think is by far the most accessible to the general reader of the four now in existence, has fallen into eclipse.

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Royall Tyler, trans.: The Tale of Genji (2001)

Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Royall Tyler. 2 vols. New York: Viking, 2001.

Royall Tyler, trans. & abridged. The Tale of Genji (2006)

Royall Tyler (1936- )

Royall Tyler (2001):


1. Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Royall Tyler. 2 vols. New York: Viking, 2001.


2. Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Royall Tyler. 2001. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003.


3. Royall Tyler. A Reading of The Tale of Genji. NSW: Blue-Tongue Books, 2016.

Royall Tyler: A Reading of The Tale of Genji (2016)

I certainly approve in principle of most of Royall Tyler's translation strategies for the Genji. I just wish that the result read more like a novel and less like an annotated crib. Anyone seriously interested in the subject, though, cannot possibly ignore the massive rethinking of the whole subject contributed by this version and its attendant commentaries.

Expertise in medieval Japanese language and culture is seldom accompanied by supreme literary talent, unfortunately. Waley and (to some extent) Seidensticker made up for this fact with the breadth of their cultural sympathies - as evidenced by the latter's charming (though, at time, somewhat irascible) translator's diary, Genji Days (1977).

Royall Tyler has translated Japanese Nō Plays, folktales and a range of other texts, together with The Tale of the Heike. He's certainly a very accomplished writer. And yet, perhaps, in the final analysis, it takes a poet to translate the Genji convincingly. We may still be waiting for that version.

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Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji. Trans. Dennis Washburn (2015)

Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Dennis Washburn. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2015.

Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji. Trans. Dennis Washburn (2015)

Dennis Charles Washburn (1954- )

Dennis Washburn (2015):


1. Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Dennis Washburn. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2015.


2. Murasaki Shikibu. The Tale of Genji. Trans. & abridged Dennis Washburn. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2016.

Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji. Trans. & abridged Dennis Washburn (2016)

Interestingly enough, this, the most recent of the four translations - note the diminishing gaps of time between them:

1933-1976: 43 years between Waley & Seidensticker
1976-2001: 25 years between Seidensticker & Tyler
2001-2015: 14 years between Tyler & Washburn

- got the biggest drubbing to date from reviewers.

Lucy Day W summarises their strictures as follows:

It is considered verbose as explanations are typically inserted into the text. You can see the difference in the length of [my] extract from Chapter 1 (according to my count, Washburn uses 569 words, Tyler uses 347).

She concludes:

If you feel strongly that a translation should be as literal as possible within the constraints of the grammar and vocabulary of the target language, you will be horrified at the extent to which Washburn departs from the source material, and you shouldn’t read Waley either. Waley made the text sound archaically Western; Washburn makes it sound too modern.

Arguably, though, whatever the text loses in terms of subtle style, it gains in readability in Washburn’s hands. If you want to pretend that you are reading a contemporary novel, and not a book painstakingly handed down through the ages and presented to you by scholars eager to signpost all their research, knowledge, and guesswork, this is the translation for you.

I can't really comment myself as I haven't (yet) made much progress in reading his version. After a chapter or two, I found the anachronistic nature of his style a bit too much to swallow when rereading a book which has meant so much to me over the years.

I don't despair of it, though. That's my main reason for buying Washburn's Norton Critical Edition of the novel, with its apparatus of notes and other critical materials. I mustn't let my sneaking love of Japonaiserie overcome my desire to experience as many approaches to Murasaki's great original as possible (for a non-Japanese speaker, that is).

Lady Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji: The Manga Edition (2022)

So how should I conclude? In many ways The Tale of Genji has now to be seen as more of a world than a novel: I haven't yet tried the manga, but I have read the fictional version of its author's life in Liza Dalby's weirdly compelling, though somewhat mawkish, Tale of Murasaki.

Liza Dalby: The Tale of Murasaki (2000)

There's a poem-sequence based on the Genji by expatriate New Zealand writer Mark Young; there are commentaries, and chapter-by-chapter summaries - not to mention editions of her other great work, the Diary.

Richard Bowring, trans: The Diary of Lady Murasaki (1982)

As well as that, there's an ever-growing library of translations of other classic works of Heian Japanese literature - whether one approaches them as illustrative of the Genji, or as masterpieces in their own right.

In short, the picture looks far more rosy now than it did forty years ago, when I first started reading the novel ... for Genjiomanes, at least. Long may this - hopefully life-enhancing rather than cliché-affirming - cultural exchange continue!

Ivan Morris: Three Classic Works on Heian Japan

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Suzuki Harunobu: Five Cardinal Virtues: Murasaki Shikibu as 'Fidelity' (c.1767)

Murasaki Shikibu [Lady Murasaki]
(c.973-c.1014/25)

Diary:


1. Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan: The Sarashina Diary; Diary of Murasaki Shikibu & Diary of Izumi Shikibu. Trans. Annie Shepley Omori & Kochi Doi. Introduction by Amy Lowell. 1935. Tokyo: Kenkyushu Ltd., 1961.


2. Bowring, Richard, trans. The Diary of Lady Murasaki. 1982. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.

Secondary & Miscellaneous:


3. Bowring, Richard. Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji. Landmarks of World Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.


4. Dalby, Liza. The Tale of Murasaki. 2000. London: Vintage, 2001.


5. Harper, Thomas, & Haruo Shirane, ed. Reading The Tale of Genji: Sources from the First Millennium. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.


6. Carpenter, John, & Melissa McCormick. The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019.


7. McCormick, Melissa. The Tale of Genji: A Visual Companion. 1510. Princeton & London: Princeton University Press, 2018.


8. Morris, Ivan. The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan. 1964. Peregrine Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.


9. Morris, Ivan, trans. The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon: Introduction & Translation. vol. 1 of 2. London: Oxford University Press, 1967.


10. Morris, Ivan, trans. The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon: A Companion Volume. vol. 2 of 2. London: Oxford University Press, 1967.


11. Morris, Ivan, trans. As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a Woman in Eleventh Century Japan. 1971. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.


12. Young, Mark. Genji Monogatari. Rockhampton, Queensland: Otoliths, 2010.

Yoshitaka Amano: The Tale of Genji (2006)

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• category - Japanese Literature: Prose: Classical

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