In particular, [info]monshu found an abridged bilingual edition of 西游記--with pictures!
Assuming I parsed those characters right, I've been reading the English side of a bilingual edition translated by W.J.F. Jenner. (It's five volumes, so if it's abridged I'm not sure I want to see the unabridged version.) I wouldn't call its English colorless, but of course I have nothing to compare it to.
I veritably raced through the backstory involving the Monkey King, which struck me as reminiscent of Silver Age comic books and Warner Brothers cartoons in its headlong power escalation ("And that's how Sun Wukong became double super extra immortal, even more than the last five times"), devotion to fights on a ridiculous scale, and kitchen sink crossovers ("So Laozi, Guanyin, Confucius and the Jade Emperor walk into a bar-- er, a banquet..." I especially like the bit where the Bodhisattva of Compassion offers to drop a vase on Monkey's head.) But I seem to have bogged down once the actual Journey to the West gets going in earnest; Sanzang doesn't strike me as so compelling a character and the confrontations seem to get repetitive. I may pick it up again and see if I just hit a bad patch.
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Assuming I parsed those characters right, I've been reading the English side of a bilingual edition translated by W.J.F. Jenner. (It's five volumes, so if it's abridged I'm not sure I want to see the unabridged version.) I wouldn't call its English colorless, but of course I have nothing to compare it to.
I veritably raced through the backstory involving the Monkey King, which struck me as reminiscent of Silver Age comic books and Warner Brothers cartoons in its headlong power escalation ("And that's how Sun Wukong became double super extra immortal, even more than the last five times"), devotion to fights on a ridiculous scale, and kitchen sink crossovers ("So Laozi, Guanyin, Confucius and the Jade Emperor walk into a bar-- er, a banquet..." I especially like the bit where the Bodhisattva of Compassion offers to drop a vase on Monkey's head.) But I seem to have bogged down once the actual Journey to the West gets going in earnest; Sanzang doesn't strike me as so compelling a character and the confrontations seem to get repetitive. I may pick it up again and see if I just hit a bad patch.