Week 13 EC Reading Notes: The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung, Part A

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Sun Wu Kung (Wikimedia)

Week 13 EC Reading: The Monkey King Sun Wu Kung, Part A

Handsome King of the Apes:

· Wonder if this mountain rock burst could be referencing a volcanic eruption, would also explain the idea of a high rock mountain in the middle of the ocean. Also explains supernatural creative gifts, as volcanoes certainly have plenty of that (ie making islands)

· Explanations and occurrences for the gods are always funny, “This magic rock monkey is shooting light beams from his eyes, no biggie though” It could be fun to retell this story and any others like it making fun of this aspect or even just having the gods speak to each other as teenagers would now. Would also be interesting to do a modernized retelling where the monkey king is just an angsty teen and the heavens they rebel against are their parents.

· All of the sudden there are now other apes, wonder if this is in references to humans as apes or just monkeys, or even some hybrid

· Really interesting backstory here, would make a great movie. Would also make a good retelling for just what life on this kind of island is like

The Great Sea:

· I like the concept of Death, the Ancient, as an entity. Helps bring the sense of ultimate doom / inescapable fate to the character.

· Interesting parallel to story of Eden, monkey’s live in perfect safe happy place but desire for and obtainment of knowledge pushes, at least this character, from the perfect place.

· Monkey King is not very kind to the first fisherman he meets

· I wonder what area they are referencing here when they describe “the west”

Sun Wu Kung Gets His Name:

· I was hoping for a big more reasoning behind the name Sun Wu Kung than simply this is your name, I wonder if that name translates to anything, might be an opportunity for retelling.

· Interesting that Sun Wu Kung must lay aside his wild nature, Footloose comes to mind but what a wild story mashup that would be

Bibliography
"The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens

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