MONKEY by Wu Cheng-en, translated by Arthur Waley. London: Penguin Books, 2006, 352 pp., £9.99 (paper).

After many years out of print, this famous translation, originally published in 1942, is this autumn back in the bookstores. It is a partial rendering of a 16th-century Chinese classic text, otherwise known as "The Journey to the West," by Wu Cheng-en, a collection of stories about the real-life journeys of a seventh-century monk, Hsuan Tsang.

Here the monk becomes the very mortal and not-too-bright Tripitaka who undertakes a dangerous quest to travel to India to retrieve sacred Buddhist scriptures. In his various adventures he is accompanied by his three disciples, the porcine Pigsy, the riverine Sandy, and miraculous Monkey, himself.

They have their problems as well. Toward the end of the account these are described: "Monkey was by nature too restless, Pigsy too coarse, and Sandy too simple." Yet, like the hero's three helpers in the Momotaro saga, a Japanese tale clearly inspired by this one, they indicate that nevertheless solidarity is the answer to difficulties.

Though their various magical talents help him out of his various scrapes, it is their company that Tripitaka counts on for comfort. "Dear Monkey," is a frequent exclamation in these pages, and though there is much mutual trouncing, there is also affection as well. As in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Kings," another saga that owes a lot to "The Journey to the West," it is comradeship that makes the trip possible and helps make this ancient text readable at all.

The main reason we in the West know about this text and still read it with pleasure is due to its rendition into English, the work of one of the ablest of all translators from the Chinese and the Japanese. Arthur Waley finished the work in the middle of World War II and its heroics fit well the English wartime mood.

To be sure he had somewhat manhandled the original, as was his occasional way. His editing of "The Tale of Genji" in his 1921-23 translation is well known. For "Monkey," he translated only 30 of the original's 100 chapters and included all of the long opening section (which has nothing to do with the journey), most of the closing part after the quest is successfully accomplished, and just three episodes of the actual journey itself. (The "story" in this edition starts up on Page 133; the "plot" kicks in on Page 162.)

Nonetheless, the conciliatory theme ("Never again follow false doctrines, nor follow foolish courses, but know that the Three Religions are one") fell on grateful postwar ears and, in any event, the original is so primordial -- all anecdote and little else -- that no damage seems done. (Unlike in the translator's editing of the more sophisticated "Tale of Genji.")

Reading "Monkey," a succession of duels, battles and magical feats, all quite heralding the endless wonders of such films as Yimou Zhang's "Hero" and "House of the Flying Daggers," thus reminds one of an equally primitive, equally popular form of narrative -- the manga.

Here, too, action is the only story, character is caricature, and the plot is repetition. This minimalism of narrative is popularly welcomed as indicating a like simplicity in life itself, and the lack of consequence (as skill, magic or "fate" makes everything all right again) is seen as attractive. And even though such lack of means may sometimes make Monkey (forever "hopping and skipping") as irritating as his puny descendant, Mickey Mouse, there is always the comfort that though we may be surprised we will never be disturbed.

This feeling, which cartoons and comics amply afford, is aided by Waley's style. Intentionally or not, he makes "Monkey" as English as "The Wind in the Willows." "You impudent stableman, you half-witted red-bottom," cries the Bodhisattva; his protagonist shouts: "Stand your ground, and eat old Monkey's fist!" And the Great King calls his servants "to set the tables, grind the knives, rip out Tripitaka's heart, and then flay and carve him, and to see to it that there was music." All of this sounds in the great traditions of the English pantomime -- you can just see the Hobbits scrambling.

Edith Sitwell was a great admirer of "Monkey" and once wrote Waley that his translation "has given me that sense of inevitability, of excitement with peace, that your work always does give me." And here it is back, to delight and exasperate us all.