La Pérégrination vers l’Ouest (1991)

Translator: André Lévy

Publisher: Gallimard

Format: Hardback

Genre: Fantasy

Date: 15-05-1991

Pages: 1180 pages

ISBN: 9782070112036

SALT: 2070112039

Language: French

Also known as: Xiyouji

Adaptation: Retelling

Summary:

Xiyou ji is arguably the most extravagant novel ever written. Its theme centers on a monk who, in the seventh century, set out for India (towards the Western Paradise) to seek the texts that would allow him to recover the Buddha's true sutras. He chronicled this journey. Storytellers seized upon the narrative framework. The monk’s account—historical and geographical—served as a springboard for the storytellers' imaginations, enabling them to summon and assemble the full cast of characters from the Chinese spiritual imagination, drawing from both Taoist and Buddhist traditions. This structural framework accommodated ghosts, spirits, and monsters, with the plot allowing the various tales to be linked together. In the sixteenth century, the most likely compiler—Wu Cheng'en—gathered this vast body of stories into a single work. While he retained the traditional narrative arc, he constantly wove it into something irrational—whether out of necessity or playfulness—creating a Buddhist phantasmagoria open to a multitude of interpretations; yet the very profusion of these meanings constantly leads the sense back to nonsense. At its core, the novel represents the persistent and diligent cultivation of Emptiness, as suggested by the name of the main character—a monkey—which translates to "Awareness of the Emptiness of the World."

Source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_P%C3%A9r%C3%A9grination_vers_l%27Ouest