Wednesday, July 26, 2017

More rewards from Arthur Waley

Finally I treated myself to a masterpiece that everyone had told me to read.  I suppose that I am not the only person who for unfathomable reasons resists what it seems that everyone estimable recommends: for example, I put off watching "The Seventh Seal" for decades.
But finally I downloaded the eBook edition of "Monkey".
If there is no one, at just this moment in history, who has not read "Monkey", or who supposes that Waley's translation of Genji is surpassed by the later one (though both are excellent) or that "Monkey" is any less relevant than it ever was, or less joyous, let me risk putting off anyone who suffers from the same resistance to recommendations as I have had, that though it is never too late to read it (the extra Introduction by the Chinese scholar-ambassador, Hu Shih, also is very fine, in the edition available online dated at the end of Arthur Waley's preface to 1942) makes this the edition of choice, I think.
I won't even hint at "Monkey"'s perennially pleasures, but if you need any help, read the front matter first.  If you find the daily news just fine, well...