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 (90): Ernest Bramah

Ernest Bramah: The Celestial Omnibus (1963)

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Ernest Brammah Smith ['Ernest Bramah'] (1868-1942)


Ernest Bramah: The Celestial Omnibus (1963)
[St. John Opportunity Shop, Wairau Park - 11/4/2023]:

Ernest Bramah. The Celestial Omnibus. Introduction by John Connell. London: Published by John Baker for the Richards Press, 1963.

Simone de Beauvoir: Must We Burn de Sade? (1953)

Must We Burn Kai Lung?

It's a legitimate question, I'm afraid. In both cases. Even in the brief period of press freedom after the French Revolution, the Marquis de Sade was considered beyond the pale. It's actually quite difficult to understand how any of his works survived into the modern age, given the disgust and hostility they've aroused in almost all commentators.

The world of Chinoiserie and ethnic stereotyping which lies at the heart of Ernest Bramah's "Kai Lung" stories would probably be almost equally offensive to contemporary critics if it weren't for the fact that most of them have never heard of him.

Recently, however, I found a number of Bramah's works for sale in a local opportunity shop, which has had the effect of reminding me how very amusing I found them when I was a child.

My father was a big fan, and was constantly quoting such Kai Lung-isms as “However entrancing it is to wander unchecked through a garden of bright images, are we not enticing your mind from another subject of almost equal importance?” - or, particularly: “There are few situations in life that cannot be resolved promptly by either suicide, a bag of gold, or thrusting a despised antagonist over a precipice on a dark night.” That's certainly one that's stayed with me.

But what exactly are we talking about? Before going further in this investigation, I'd better try to give you some idea of the sheer scale (6 major collections and one novel, including at least 47 separate stories, some of considerable length) and duration (from 1896 to 1940 - more than 40 years of publications) of the Kai Lung phenomenon:

I retire to leafy bowers
And immerse myself in Kai-Lung's Golden Hours

- Ogden Nash, Collected Verse from 1929 On (1961): p.452

Ernest Bramah: The Wallet of Kai Lung (1900)



1. The Wallet of Kai Lung (1900)
   1. The Transmutation of Ling
   2. The Story of Yung Chang
   3. The Probation of Sen Heng
   4. The Experiment of the Mandarin Chan Hung
   5. The Confession of Kai Lung
   6. The Vengeance of Tung Fel
   7. The Career of the Charitable Quen-Ki-Tong
   8. The Vision of Yin, the Son of Yat Huang
   9. The Ill-Regulated Destiny of Kin Yen, the Picture-Maker



Ernest Bramah: Kai Lung’s Golden Hours (1922)



2. Kai Lung’s Golden Hours (1922)
   1. The Story of Wong Ts'in and the Willow Plate Embellishment
   2. The Story of Ning, the Captive God, and the Dreams That Mark His Race
   3. The Story of Wong Pao and the Minstrel
   4. The Story of Lao Ting and the Luminous Insect
   5. The Story of Weng Cho or the One Devoid of Name
   6. The Story of Wang Ho and the Burial Robe
   7. The Story of Chang Tao, Melodious Vision and the Dragon
   8. The Story of Yuen Yan, of the Barber Chou-hu, and of His Wife, Tsae-che
   9. The Story of Hien and the Chief Examiner
   10. The Story of the Loyalty of Ten-teh, the Fisherman



Ernest Bramah: Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat (1928)



3. Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat (1928)
   1. The Story of Wan and the Remarkable Shrub
   2. The Story of Wong Tsoi and the Merchant Teen King's Thumb
   3. The Story of Tong So, the Averter of Calamities
   4. The Story of Lin Ho and the Treasure of Fang-Tso
   5. The Story of Kin Weng and the Miraculous Tusk
   6. The Story of the Philosopher Kuo Tsun and of His Daughter, Peerless Chou
   7. The Story of Ching-kwei and the Destinies



Ernest Bramah: The Moon of Much Gladness (1932)



4. The Moon of Much Gladness (1932)



Ernest Bramah: Kai Lung Beneath the Mulberry-Tree (1940)



5. Kai Lung Beneath the Mulberry-Tree (1940)
   1. The Story of Prince Ying, Virtuous Mei and the Pursuit of Worthiness
   2. The Three Recorded Judgments of Prince Ying, from the Inscribed Scroll of Mou Tao, the Beggar
   3. The Ignoble Alliance of Lin T'sing with the Outlaw Fang Wang, and How It Affected the Destinies
   4. The Story of Yin Ho, Hoa-mi, and the Magician
   5. The Story of Ton Hi, Precious Gem and the Inconspicuous Elephant
   6. The Story of Sam-Tso, the Family Called Wong, and the Willing Buffalo
   7. The Story of Saho Chi, the No-longer Merchant Ng Hon, and the Docile Linnets
   8. The Story of the Poet Lao Ping, Chun Shin's Daughter Fa, and the Fighting Crickets



Ernest Bramah: The Celestial Omnibus (1963)



6. The Celestial Omnibus (1963)
   1. The Transmutation of Ling
   2. The Vengeance of Tung Fel
   3. The Confession of Kai Lung
   4. The Encountering of Six Within a Wood
   5. The Inexorable Justice of Mandarin Shan Tien
   6. The Out-Passing into a State of Assured Felicity
   7. The High-minded Strategy of the Amiable Hwa-mei
   8. The Malignity of the Depraved Ming Shu
   9. The Story of Prince Ying
   10. The Story of the Poet Lao Ping



Ernest Bramah: Kai Lung Raises His Voice (2010)



7. Kai Lung Raises His Voice (2010)
   1. The Subtlety of Kang Chieng
   2. Ming Tseun and the Emergency
   3. Lam-Hoo and the Reward of Merit
   4. Chung Pun and the Miraculous Peacocks
   5. Yeun Yang and the Empty Lo-Chee Crate
   6. Sing Tsung and the Exponent of Dark Magic
   7. Kwey Chao and the Grateful Song Bird
   8. Li Pao, Lucky Star and the Intruding Stranger
   9. The Cupidity of Ah Pak or Riches No Protection Against Thunderbolts
   10. The Romance of Kwang the Fruit Gatherer
   11. The Destiny of Cheng, the Son of Sha-kien of the Waste Expanses
   12. The Romance of Kwang the Fruit Gatherer
   13. The Emperor Who Meant Well

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Ernest Bramah: The Eyes of Max Carrados (1923)

Mind you, that's not all that Ernest Bramah wrote. His other most celebrated creation is Max Carrados, the blind detective. He, too, has his fans (and, for all I know, detractors), but I've never really studied him in detail. No, given my own passion for Chinese fiction - classical and modern - it was always the Kai Lung books I gravitated to.

You'd think I'd know better, really. After all, it you've read the complete texts (albeit only through the occluded medium of their various English translations) of the four great Chinese classical novels (The Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, The Journey to the West, and The Red Chamber Dream), why on earth would you bother with the tepid ditch water of Kai Lung?

Luo Guanzhong: San Kuo (1925)

First of all, because I suspect that Bramah had done the same thing. It's apparent from internal evidence that he'd at least consulted, if not read through C. H. Brewitt-Taylor's 2-vol translation of the San Kuo, or Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1925) - the first complete English version of that work.

Shi Nai’an: Shui Hu Chuan (1933)

He may also have read Pearl Buck's adaptation of the Water Margin - All Men are Brothers [Shui Hu Chuan].. 2 vols (New York: The John Day Company, 1933) - though that I'm not so sure about. It would, in any case, have come too late to influence the tenor of the Kai Lung stories, which were mostly already written and published by then.

Robert van Gulik, trans.: Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (1949)

Anon. Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (Dee Goong An): An Authentic Eighteenth-Century Detective Novel. Trans. Robert van Gulik. 1949. New York: Dover, 1976.

Secondly, because he's not the only one to indulge in this kind of Chinese-inflected fiction: Robert Van Gulik's Judge Dee mysteries are, admittedly, a more complex case, but they highlight a lot of the same questions. Van Gulik, a Dutch sinologist, came across a genuine 18th-century Chinese detective novel, Dee Goong An, whilst working as a diplomat in the Guomintang capital Chongqing during the Second World War. This he translated into English under the title Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (1949).

The main character of this book, Judge Dee, was based on the real statesman and detective Di Renjie, who lived in the 7th century, during the Tang Dynasty (AD 600–900), though in the novel itself elements of Ming Dynasty China (AD 1300–1600) were mixed in.

Van Gulik then went on to compose a long series of novels of his own about this character, who has since been taken up by French author Frédéric Lenormand and a series of other mystery writers. I only own two of Van Gulik's books myself, but it's fair to say that they pose a pretty puzzle in what can (and cannot) be called "authentic":

Robert van Gulik: The Haunted Monastery & The Chinese Maze Murders (1961 & 1957)

Robert van Gulik. The Haunted Monastery & The Chinese Maze Murders: Two Chinese Detective Novels. 1961 & 1957. New York: Dover, 1977.

Keith West: Ma Wei Slope (1944)

And then there are such isolated examples of literary ventriloquism as Keith West's Ma Wei Slope: A Novel of the T’ang Dynasty (London: The Cresset Press, 1944), a version of the story of Yang Guifei, the inspiration for Bai Juyi's "Song of Everlasting Sorrow", which describes the Emperor Xuanzong's love for her and perpetual grief at her loss.

Walter Bitner: 100 Years of Jack Vance (2016)

Thirdly, because the influence of the typical, infinitely resourceful Kai Lung hero is clearly mirrored in the omnicompetent protagonists of such SF authors as A. E. Van Vogt and (in particular) Jack Vance.

Recently, while rereading the stories selected for The Celestial Omnibus (the title a rather cheeky reminder of E. M. Forster's collection of the same name), I was struck by how closely Bramah and Vance resemble each other. A Vance hero generally takes the most sensible course of action, thus outwitting his more devious adversaries, and vindicating the application of logic to human affairs.

It's certainly easy to see the influence of John W. Campbell's Nietzschean "man-plus" theories in the evolution of the Vance protagonist - as one can in Van Vogt, Frederick Pohl, L. Ron Hubbard, and other SF-writers of the 1940s. There's a bit more to it than that in Vance at least, though. As I remarked in an earlier post about his work:

There's generally a superman type in each of his stories, who applies intelligence and cunning (with occasional bouts of compassion) to the sacred task of getting his own way. Some of these are more reprehensible than others (Cugel, for instance), but they are - to a man - unflappable: a little like Raffles or those other Edwardian sensation heroes: Dornford Yates' Berry, or Sapper's Bulldog Drummond.

The other thing he excels in is endlessly inventive descriptions of new alien planets. His favourites ('Big Planet', for instance) tend to be extremely large, quite populous, and full of diverse landscapes - peaks, canals, space-ports. In his fantasy settings ('Lyonesse', for instance), he subtracts technology and amps up the environmental richness, but otherwise there's not a great deal of difference. If you like Vance's SF, you'll like his fantasy, and vice versa and contrariwise.

I hadn't, at that point, noted the resemblance to Kai Lung in both of these aspects of his work, but it is, in retrospect, pretty obvious. I suspect, too, that if one were to expand this search through his speculative fiction-writing contemporaries, a great many more parallels of this kind could be found.

Simone de Beauvoir: Faut-il brûler Sade ? (1951-52)

Must we burn Kai Lung, then? The obvious answer would be 'yes'. His stories present an outdated caricature of Chinese culture, complete with pigtails, joss-sticks, and sinister Mandarins.

But, as Beauvoir reminds us, burning Sade would not necessarily have helped us in our attempts to understand some of the stranger recesses of human psychology and culture. On the contrary, in fact. Could the same lofty claim be made for Ernest Bramah? Probably not. But those of us interested in the evolution of popular fiction, especially the easy-to-miss crossovers between seemingly distinct genres, would feel the lack of certain essential clues coded within his work.

To call it harmless might perhaps be going a bit too far. But the stories remain - when taken with a considerable grain of salt - really quite delightful at times. Admirers of Wodehouse or Chesterton will find it almost impossible to resist Kai Lung.

Chinoiserie is certainly something we're right to be suspicious of, but the misinterpretation and caricature of other cultures is - whether we'd like to admit it or not - the source of a great deal of vigour in all the creative arts. Take Ezra Pound's Cathay (1915), for instance. Or the late 19th / early 20th century influence of the Japanese print on European painting and design.

Ernest Bramah: Kai Lung: Six (1974)

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Ernest Bramah: Complete Works (2023)

Ernest Brammah Smith
(1868-1942)

Books I own are marked in bold:

Fiction:

Kai Lung:


1. The Wallet of Kai Lung (1900)
   • The Wallet of Kai Lung. 1900. Introduction by Grant Richards. 1923. London: The Richards Press Ltd. Publishers, 1951.
   • The Wallet of Kai Lung. 1900. London: Penguin, 1936.
2. Kai Lung's Golden Hours (1922)
   • Kai Lung’s Golden Hours. Preface by Hilaire Belloc. 1922. London: the Richards Press Ltd., 1942.
3. Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat (1928)
   • Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat. London: The Richards Press Ltd. Publishers, 1928.
   • Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat. 1928. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1954.
4. The Moon of Much Gladness [US: 'The Return of Kai Lung'] (1932)
   • The Moon of Much Gladness. London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1932.
5. The Kai Lung Omnibus (1936)
   1. The Wallet of Kai Lung
   2. Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat
   3. Kai Lung's Golden Hours
6. Kai Lung Beneath the Mulberry Tree (1940)
   • Kai Lung beneath the Mulberry-Tree. 1940. London: the Richards Press, Ltd., 1951.
7. The Celestial Omnibus (1963)
   • The Celestial Omnibus. Introduction by John Connell. London: Published by John Baker for the Richards Press, 1963.
8. Kai Lung: Six (1974)
   1. The Story of Lam-Hoo and the Reward of Merit
   2. The Story of Chung Pun and the Miraculous Peacocks
   3. The Story of Yeun Yang and the Empty Soo-Shong Chest
   4. The Story of Sing Tsung and the Exponent of Dark Magic
   5. The Story of Kwey Chao and the Grateful Song Bird
   6. The Story of Li Pao, Lucky Star and the Intruding Stranger
9. Kai Lung Raises His Voice (2010)

Max Carrados:


10. Max Carrados (1914)
11. The Eyes of Max Carrados (1923)
12. Max Carrados Mysteries (1927)
13. The Bravo of London (1934)
14. Meet Max Carrados. BBC (1935)
15. Best Max Carrados Detective Stories (1972)
16. The Eyes of Max Carrados Omnibus (2013)

Miscellaneous:


17. What Might Have Been [aka 'The Secret of the League', 1907)] (1900)
18. The Duplicity of Tiao. The Woman at Home (1900)
19. The Impiety of Yuan Yan. Macmillan's Magazine (1904)
20. While You Wait. The Bystander (1905)
21. The Mirror of Kong Ho (1905)
22. The Red Splinter. Wickepin Argus (1913)
23. The Specimen Case (1924)
    1. Ming-Tsuen and the Emergency [Kai Lung]
    2. The Delicate Case of Mlle. Celestine Bon
    3. The Dead March
    4. A Very Black Business
    5. The Bunch of Violets [Max Carrados]
    6. Revolution
    7. Smothered in Corpses
    8. Fate and a Family Council
    9. Lucretia and the Horse-Doctor
    10. The War Hawks
    11. The Great Hockington Find
    12. Hautpierre's Star
    13. The Goose and the Golden Egg
    14. The Making of Marianna
    15. Bobbie and Poetic Justice
    16. The Heart of the Pagan
    17. Once in a Blue Moon
    18. The Marquise Ring
    19. The 'Dragon' of Swafton
    20. The Dream of William Elgood
    21. From a London Balcony
24. Short Stories of To-day and Yesterday (1929)
    1. Hien and the Chief Examiner [Kai Lung]
    2. Wong Pao and the Minstrel [Kai Lung]
    3. Chang Tao, Melodious Vision and the Dragon [Kai Lung]
    4. Wong T'sin and the Willow Plate Embellishment [Kai Lung]
    5. The Secret of Headlam Height
    6. The Curious Circumstances of the Two Left Shoes
    7. The Missing Actress Sensation
    8. The Delicate Case of Mlle. Celestine Bon
    9. A Very Black Business
    10. Smothered in Corpses
    11. The Goose and the Golden Egg
25. A Little Flutter (1930)

Plays:


26. Blind Man's Buff (1918)

Non-fiction:


27. English Farming and Why I Turned It Up (1894)
28. A Handbook for Writers and Artists: A Practical Guide for Contributors to the Press and to Literary and Artistic Publications; by a London editor (1897)
29. A Guide to the Varieties and Rarity of English Regal Copper Coins: Charles II – Victoria, 1671–1860 (1929)

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• category - Mystery & Occult: Fiction

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Acquisitions (19): Shi Nai'an

Shi Nai’an: Outlaws of the Marsh (2018)

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Shi Nai’an (c.1296-1372)

Outlaws of the Marsh (2018)
[Acquired: Christmas Day - Tuesday, 25 December, 2018]:

My Christmas presents this year will include the book below:

Shi Nai’an. Outlaws of the Marsh: The Water Margin. Trans. J. H. Jackson. 1937. Introduction by Frances Wood. Illustrations from the Rong Yu Tang edition. 2 vols. London: The Folio Society, 2018.

Outlaws of the Marsh (2018)

But how can I know that, ahead of opening all the packages on Christmas morning? Well, because for some time now our family has adopted the approach of telling each other what to buy (within a preset budget, that is). While this may sound a bit prosaic, as well as eliminating the happy serendipity of the perfect, unexpected gift, it does have the advantage of stopping us wasting our money on things which other people don't want. All that anxious cogitation has been replaced by simple expediency.

Outlaws of the Marsh (2018)

That's not to say that the element of surprise is entirely avoided. There will always be some spontaneous gifts we don't known about in advance, but they're now in the minority. I would have hesitated to buy something as sumptuous as the book above for myself, but I'm very happy indeed to have it bought for me.

Outlaws of the Marsh (2018)

One explanation for this uncharacteristic restraint is because I already own no fewer than four complete English translations of the Shui Hu Chuan (including the one selected for the Folio Society edition):

The Water Margin [Shui Hu Chuan]
(late 14th century)

Pearl Buck, trans.: All Men are Brothers (1933)



1. Buck, Pearl, trans. All Men are Brothers [Shui Hu Chuan]. 2 vols. New York: The John Day Company, 1933.




J. H. Jackson, trans.: All Men are Brothers (1937)



2. Shih Nai-an. Water Margin. Trans. J. H. Jackson. 2 vols. 1937. Hong Kong: The Commercial Press, 1963.




Sidney Shapiro, trans.: Outlaws of the Marsh (1980)



3. Shi Nai’an & Luo Guanzhong. Outlaws of the Marsh. Trans. Sidney Shapiro. 3 vols. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1980.




John & Alex Dent-Young, trans.: The Marshes of Mount Liang (1994-2002)



4. Shi Nai’an & Luo Guanzhong. The Marshes of Mount Liang. Trans. John & Alex Dent-Young. 5 vols. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1994-2002.
   • Vol. 1: The Broken Seals (1994)
   • Vol. 2: The Tiger Killers (1997)
   • Vol. 3: The Gathering Company (2001)
   • Vol. 4: Iron Ox (2002)
   • Vol. 5: The Scattered Flock (2002)

Do I need any more copies of it? No, probably not. Do I want any? Well, I'm afraid, when they're as beautiful as this, I'm afraid that I definitely do.

I suppose that the real reason for this profligate behaviour, though, is the fact that I already have a copy of the sumptuous Folio Society edition of the Three Kingdoms, the first of the four great classic novels in Chinese tradition (the other two are Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West (better known as Monkey) and Cao Xueqin's Red Chamber Dream (aka A Dream of Red Mansions or The Story of the Stone):

Luo Guanzhong: The Three Kingdoms (2013)

Luo Guanzhong. Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel. Trans. Moss Roberts. 1991. Introduction by Ma Jian. 4 vols. London: The Folio Society, 2013.

In that case, the only other translation of the novel I have is C. H. Brewitt-Taylor's San Kuo, or Romance of the Three Kingdoms (2 vols. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1925). It did occur to me, though, that perhaps the Folio Society is planning a long-term project of reprinting illustrated versions of all the classic Chinese novels. Such things go out of print fairly fast, so it seems best to start collecting them from the word go.

Or is that just the usual kind of collectors' rationalisation for adding yet another expensive white elephant to one's hoard? They are very, very pretty, though.

For more on this subject, you could do worse than have a look at my blogpost on 'Classical Chinese novels' here.

Folio Society: Press Release (2018)

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• category - Chinese Literature: Chinese Fiction

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