Translation
Arthur Waley's abridged translation was published in 1942, and has also been published as Adventures of the Monkey God; and Monkey: Folk Novel of China and The Adventures of Monkey, and in a further abridged version for children, Dear Monkey. Whereas previous abridged versions of Journey to the West retained the original number of chapters but reduced their length significantly, Waley adopted the opposite approach; he translated only 30 chapters out of 100 episodes, but did so nearly in full.
The structure of Journey to the West may be roughly divided into three parts; firstly, the introduction including the origin of Monkey, Tripitaka, Pigsy, and Sandy; secondly, the actual journey to the west, which has an episodic nature; and lastly, the ending, telling what happens when the pilgrims reach their destination. Waley chose to translate the entirety of the introductory and ending chapters, as well as three episodes, each several chapters long, of the journey to the west.
Read more about this topic: Monkey (novel)
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