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Two works of Oriental literature of which I have recently become aware:
The Epic of King Geser: I learned about this while reading Sergei Lukyanenko's excellent (excellent) novel Night Watch. Geser is a Tibetan/Mongolian epic poem that tells the story of King Geser of Ling, his semi-divine origins, his battle against the kingdom of Hor (Mongolia) and the Enemies of the Four Directions, before he briefly descends to hell and finally ascends to heaven. It's around a thousand years old, one of the very few epic poems still surviving in oral tradition, and is considered to be the longest work of literature in the world - if it were written down in its entirety (presumably, including all the local variations), it would run to over 20 million words. The Wikipedia article's a bit confused - the talk page might shed a bit more light. Or perhaps not.
[Did I mention how good Night Watch is, by the way?]
Journey to the West: better known in the West as Monkey, the title of the translation by Arthur Waley and the 1970s TV series (originally Japanese, dubbed into English by the BBC), both of which my flatmates have on DVD :-). You can see the highly earwormy opening theme here (or here with Japanese introduction). It could be described, very inaccurately, as a Buddhist/Taoist Pilgrim's Progress with animal spirits and kung fu. It tells the story of Prince Tripitaka's pilgrimage from China to India to fetch lost Buddhist sutras, accompanied by three immortal helpers: the invulnerable, irrepressible, battle-loving Monkey, the disgraced angel turned pig spirit Pigsy, and the disgraced angel turned cannibal water-monster Sandy. The translations of the character names, by the way, seem to be due to Waley - "Tripitaka" is actually a translation back into Sanskrit of the nickname used for the character throughout most of the book. The TV series at least is a wonderful mix of adventure, silliness, fighting, and Buddhist thought and allegory, and my understanding is that the novel is much the same, and also a satire on Ming dynasty politics. Tripitaka (or Xuanzang to give him his Sunday name) was a real person, and he made a pilgrimage to India through modern-day Uzbekistan and Afghanistan from 626-645AD, and spent much of the rest of his life translating the texts he brought back into Chinese. The first account of his journey is his own Journey to the West in the Great Tang Dynasty of 646. Legends around his journey grew up almost from the moment he returned, and theatrical versions have apparently been performed continuously since the 13th century; the novel usually called Journey to the West was written in the 1590s, and is usually ascribed to Wú Chéng'ēn. It's considered one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. Me, I didn't even know that there were Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature until a few days ago.1
I can't help but feel that one or other of these must have been the inspiration for the Great Circling Poets of Arium...
1 That is, I'd assumed there were at least four classic novels in the Chinese literary canon, but I didn't know there was a standard choice of the four Greatest :-)
The Epic of King Geser: I learned about this while reading Sergei Lukyanenko's excellent (excellent) novel Night Watch. Geser is a Tibetan/Mongolian epic poem that tells the story of King Geser of Ling, his semi-divine origins, his battle against the kingdom of Hor (Mongolia) and the Enemies of the Four Directions, before he briefly descends to hell and finally ascends to heaven. It's around a thousand years old, one of the very few epic poems still surviving in oral tradition, and is considered to be the longest work of literature in the world - if it were written down in its entirety (presumably, including all the local variations), it would run to over 20 million words. The Wikipedia article's a bit confused - the talk page might shed a bit more light. Or perhaps not.
[Did I mention how good Night Watch is, by the way?]
Journey to the West: better known in the West as Monkey, the title of the translation by Arthur Waley and the 1970s TV series (originally Japanese, dubbed into English by the BBC), both of which my flatmates have on DVD :-). You can see the highly earwormy opening theme here (or here with Japanese introduction). It could be described, very inaccurately, as a Buddhist/Taoist Pilgrim's Progress with animal spirits and kung fu. It tells the story of Prince Tripitaka's pilgrimage from China to India to fetch lost Buddhist sutras, accompanied by three immortal helpers: the invulnerable, irrepressible, battle-loving Monkey, the disgraced angel turned pig spirit Pigsy, and the disgraced angel turned cannibal water-monster Sandy. The translations of the character names, by the way, seem to be due to Waley - "Tripitaka" is actually a translation back into Sanskrit of the nickname used for the character throughout most of the book. The TV series at least is a wonderful mix of adventure, silliness, fighting, and Buddhist thought and allegory, and my understanding is that the novel is much the same, and also a satire on Ming dynasty politics. Tripitaka (or Xuanzang to give him his Sunday name) was a real person, and he made a pilgrimage to India through modern-day Uzbekistan and Afghanistan from 626-645AD, and spent much of the rest of his life translating the texts he brought back into Chinese. The first account of his journey is his own Journey to the West in the Great Tang Dynasty of 646. Legends around his journey grew up almost from the moment he returned, and theatrical versions have apparently been performed continuously since the 13th century; the novel usually called Journey to the West was written in the 1590s, and is usually ascribed to Wú Chéng'ēn. It's considered one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. Me, I didn't even know that there were Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature until a few days ago.1
I can't help but feel that one or other of these must have been the inspiration for the Great Circling Poets of Arium...
1 That is, I'd assumed there were at least four classic novels in the Chinese literary canon, but I didn't know there was a standard choice of the four Greatest :-)
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