Rating: 
Summary: Great epic, bad presentation.
Review: Journey to the West is indeed a great epic, and the prose is actually quite good. Its concise and easy to follow. I'm not sure about how accurate the translation is (I can't read Mandarin). However, the one thing that really makes me angry, is the numerous silly spelling errors throughout the book. Its as if no one bothered to edit it (there are one or two errors per chapter). There is even a spelling error in the summary at the back of the book (they used 'isa' instead of 'is a'). The paper and print quality is below average. The book is damaged and creased easily. Although the story is great and the translation is good, the book is presented in a haphazard manner.
Rating: 
Summary: Wacky hijinks and humorous monkey business
Review: Journey to the West is probably the most well-known tale amongst Chinese folk the world over. It is a story that has been adapted in the form of operas, television series, cartoons and movies many times over. To be able to read a complete and unabridged version of this epic is a joy indeed. My only regret is that as a Western-educated Chinese, I am not able to read this masterpiece in it's original language. Although the translator does a very good job at translating the book, I am sure many nuances and subtleties of the Chinese language have been lost in the translation. The story is a simple one. Set during the early Tang dynasty (the peak of Chinese civilisation), a holy Buddhist monk has to travel from China to India to collect the true Mahayana Buddhist scriptures from the Lord Buddha himself, in order to bring enlightenment to his fellow country men. The journey is a long and ardous one, not least because numerous demons lie waiting in ambush for a chance to capture and eat the monk, as his holy body will confer immortality on whoever eats it. Thus, the Goddess of Compassion assembles a strange group of bodyguards for the monk: the proud and mischievous Monkey, the lustful and greedy Pig, the loyal and steadfast Friar Sand, and a Dragon Prince transformed into a horse. Their various adventures are so full of humor and wacky hijinks that I cannot help myself from laughing out from time to time. Monkey is the ultimate Chinese version of the universal trickster-hero. Do yourself a favor and pick up this book. You will not regret it for a moment.
Rating:
Summary: violent on the outside, deep on the inside
Review: Journey to the West may contain some undoubtly violent language-but all for the cause of compassion. The book is perfect for teaching your children loyalty and the meaning within books. The book is about a monk(the emperor's brother mind you) and his three disciples, Monkey(yeah, a monkey who almost destroyed heaven), Pig(a big show-off, and green with envy at Monkey), and Friar Sand(the nice-guy, the kind who pulls everyone together and still not perfect). It talks about their journey to see the Tathagata Buddha, in which they deal with demons, and spirits. Now, you all know this book is the old heroes always win type, so you might read it like a critic, exploring the ingenuity of it's author as he sets his character in pain, joy and loyalty. If you're looking for something influential, you've got the wrong number. If you're looking for pure enjoyment, come right in(I wouldn't give the printing and editting a lot of praise, but it's also not bad enough to cause a lot of blaming).
Rating: 
Summary: Adventure aspects -GREAT! Translation - Blecccck!
Review: Perhaps I want something different from a translation than most. While many translators strive for fidelity, I seek readibility. While many scholars want the reader to see the flavor of the Chinese original, I want the work to stand on its own in my language. I don't want to have to learn Chinese in order to appreciate the work. With these thoughts in mind, I am disappointed in Jenner's translation of "Journey to the West". I am no scholar. While I have read a few works here and there, the reading was solely for my amusement. To be sure, some of the works of ancient Chinese literature have truly moved me (I have read "Three Kingdoms" four times, straight through, and have perused it uncountably often). I challenge any reader to find a better adventure tale than Shapiro's retelling of "Outlaws of the Marsh", and "The Scholars" has an immediacy even in todays world. However, while the saga of the Monkey King can be at times engaging, I often lose focus sifting through the religious imagery and boring poetry (yes, I suppose it is very good, but most of these poems sound the same, so that in the end, every poetic retelling of a battle or a landscape might as well be the first). I think that the elements of a TREMENDOUS story are present (indeed, Monkey is a household name among Asian children, even today), but few children or adults can suffer through the tedium of passages such as "Most benevelont and merciful Boddhisattva" or "Enlightened Teacher of the Way and Most Compassionate Buddha" over and over. Call me sacreligious, but this is too much. I wish that Jenner's work more resembled Shapiro's, where poetry is often translated as prose or deleted altogether, so as NOT to give away the plot of an entire chapter. Five stars to the work, one to the translation for an average of three altogether.
Rating:
Summary: Lao's review
Review: The Journey to the West has remained of the most popular and enduring works of fiction in China since it was first published in the late sixteenth century. It is an allegory of Buddhist doctrine, based on the real life pilgrimage of Tripitaka, a Chinese monk who traveled to India in search of religions scripture in (I believe) the seventh century. The very descriptive text contains some of the most astoundingly beautiful poetic passages I have ever encountered. Footnotes contain references to everthing from historical notes to daily customs of the period. This set of books is among the most treasured in my library.
Rating:
Summary: Refers to translation by W.J.G. Jenner
Review: This is a wonderful translation of the Journey to the West. It is an unabridged translation, therefore it is 3 books long. But it is worth it. Not only is it written clearly, but it keeps the style of the original, meaning that interwoven between pharagraphs of prose are poems. This give the book a wonderful charm that the abridged, prose versions lack. The ancient Chinese thought, such as yin and yang, Daoism, Chinese Buddhism, also give the book an authentic flavor that enriches the experience of reading this classic. It is still the same wonderful story of the michevous Monkey King, his difficulties with the gods in heaven, and his redeeming pilgramage with the Buddhist monk/priest Sanzang to find sutras. For anyone seriously interested in this story and who doesn't read Chinese, this is the edition for them!
Rating:
Summary: All about the Monkey King, and then some
Review: This is the most complete and faithful translation of Journey to the West I have yet found. It is the third version of the story I've read, and unlike those other versions ("Adventures of Monkey King"/ISBN 0962076511 and "Monkey : A Journey to the West [ABRIDGED]"/ISBN 1570625816), it contains the complete and unabridged story, preserving very faitflly both the style and content of the original story. This extreme faithfulness is both a strength and a weakness. It's a strength in that you get a real feeling for the scope of the original work, and you get to hear all the interesting little back-stories and side-stories that make Journey to the West one of the great works of Chinese literaure. It's a weakness because these stories often seem completely irrelevant, and may be quite confusing to someone who is not familiar with Chinese culture and religion. For example, every time something happens in Heaven, Hell or in the palace of the Tang Emperor, the book includes a complete list of everyone who attended. In Heaven, at least, many of the names are descriptive (names of stars, constellations, etc.) and are therefore translated. In the Tang Emperor's palace, though, you'll get a list of 10 or 20 names in Chinese, and only some of the names ever get stories attached to them in the book (and I challenge any non-Chinese speaker to remember the names when they do show up again). There's also a lot of poetry, and though the translations are good, translated poetry can never equal the original. In one sequence, a fisherman and a woodsman argue in verse for 10 or more pages of very small type, frequently singing songs set to tunes few non-Chinese would recognize by name. These characters are important only in that the end of their conversation sets up a conflict, so the only purpose of the sequence is to provide a chance to read the poetry. It's good poetry, to be sure, but it really can drag a bit. You can't just automatically skip over all the poems, as you might do with Tolkien, either. Elements of the story are often told in verse. You can usually skim if you're not interested in a particular bit of verse, but don't skip it entirely. The structure of the work is also surprisingly complex at times, especially given its age. It will at times veer far from the main thrust of the story to recount the entire life history of a character, and has many side stories that somehow tie back into the main plot several chapters later. You may at times find yourself wondering just why the author chose to include a particular bit of story, but there's almost always a payoff waiting somewhere down the line. Another problem is that the style of the storytelling is not very concise. If someone in the story needs to recount what has happened to them, you'll get a second, (fortunately much abridged) version of an earlier portion of the story, written as dialog, this time. You could make similar sorts of complaints about many of the early great works of English fiction, or probably just about any other country's older fiction, so this is not really a strong criticism given the work's great age, but I often found myself wishing the author (or the translator) had just written, "he told them what had happened" and left it at that. There were also many quirks of the translation that bothered me. The word "memorial" was used throughout instead of "memorandum". It took me quite a while to figure out that was what was going on. I read all of the abridged translation that also made the same mistake throughout, but still didn't figure it out until I was several chapters into this one. Will all these complaints, you're probably wondering why I gave the book 4 stars. The fact is, for all its faults and quirks, "Journey to the West" is still one of the greatest works of fiction ever written. The Monkey King is without a doubt my favorite character in any work I have ever read or watched. The story of his journey is a brilliant parable on the jouney to enlightenment, while at the same time a story of great humor and exciting action. It also provides fascinating insight into the history and traditional culture of China. If you want to get the whole story and can't read Chinese, this edition is your absolute best bet. (Indeed, it's pretty much your only bet.) Some of the other translations may be a faster read, but none are as satisfying.
Rating:
Summary: Highly readable version of an epic tale
Review: This is the second complete English translation of "A Journey to the West", the first being Yu's. Jenner's version makes compelling reading and I found it very difficult to put the book down. The translation is sprightly and idiomatic and the extensive passages in verse are attractively rendered. The only demerits are the lack of footnotes to explain some of the references to individuals and doctrines (for which one needs Yu's version) and the relatively poor standard of printing and typography: better proof-reading would have helped! However, I cannot say that these shortcomings impaired my enjoyment of these volumes and I would strongly recommend them to anyone in search of a readable version of this engrossing epic.
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