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

Bibliography: Notes are on stories from the The Monkey King unit. Story source: "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

Reading Notes

For this week I'll be reading about The Monkey King and taking notes! Though I enjoyed the entire reading, I'm going to focus in on the "starting a story" technique for today. I'll look at the start of this story unit and think about some ways that I can improve how I begin stories in my own writing.

The Monkey King unit (specifically, "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" story) begins like this: "FAR, far away to the East, in the midst of the Great Sea there is an island called the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits. And on this mountain there is a high rock."

The imagery here is absolutely beautiful. In just the first paragraph, the author has already drawn readers in with this description. The setting is detailed here as "far away," before we are told of a special island with a mountain in the middle of a "Great Sea." The authors has painted a somewhat mystical picture that hooks readers with its strong descriptive language. In my own stories, I will attempt to emulate this by creating strong scenery with intriguing descriptions.

Following this opening paragraph, that "high rock" is described and readers meet the main character! Take a look: "Now this rock, from the very beginning of the world, had absorbed all the hidden seed power of heaven and earth and sun and moon, which endowed it with supernatural creative gifts. One day the rock burst, and out came an egg of stone. And out of this stone egg a stone ape was hatched by magic power. When he broke the shell he bowed to all sides."

The rock clearly has amazing power, and the phrase "from the very beginning of the world" gives this scene a sort of eternal significance. Readers have to be greatly impressed by the rock, and then suddenly the rock is broken open! Whatever comes out of that rock has to be special is the clear signal being given to readers. And sure enough, the egg that emerges from the rock hatches (by "magic power" no less!) our main character. This vivid and impressive origin story gives the Monkey-King special standing in the eyes of readers from the very beginning. In my own writing, I can introduce major characters with fun and creative back-stories in order to quickly endear them to readers. This introduction was energetic and powerful. I hope to emulate this style of grabbing audience attention in my own stories for this course!

Japanese depiction of the Monkey-King by artist Yashima 

Gakutei from approx. 1824. Source: Wikimedia

By focusing on the intro this week, I have considered ways in which my own stories could start in more compelling, exciting ways. The Monkey-King unit had my attention from the beginning, and I hope to replicate that feeling in my own readers.