#hardback

⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

One of the most unsettling books I’ve ever read. Kunzru perfectly depicts the way online extremism seeps into everyday life through algorithms and social media ecosystems.

What makes this book especially effective is how realistic the narrator’s fear feels, and Kunzru powerfully conveys the narrator’s hopelessness at the thought of living in a country ruled by a right-wing-ruled country, and rather than depicting dictatorship as a fantastical dystopia, he shows how easily democratic societies can drift toward fear, surveillance, and ideological conformity, and the atmosphere of dread lingers long after the book ends.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The five stages of grief, indeed.

This is the second time I’ve finished a Hendrix book in floods of tears, and I don’t know if I want to hug him or fight him.

The way he writes sibling relationships is so true to life in my experience, and I fear I see shades of my sister and I in Louise and Mark fighting - although I can’t really see myself cutting her arm off. I mean, who knows if/when the time comes? But that’s where I stand as of now.

I also love how his writing is terrifying and silly at the same time. One moment it’s poetic and graphic, and the next it’s a delightful word salad.

And as someone who’s been terrified dolls, puppets, and clowns my entire life - thanks a lot Are You Afraid of The Dark? - I’m so mad that I was baited into this thinking it was about the house itself and not Mother’s creepy collection.

Aside from that, the emotional agony is so raw and real, and I somehow feel lighter and cleaner now.

It’s leaf-peeping season in Cabot Cove, but for someone, it’s killing season!

Author: Wu Cheng'en Translator: Julia Lovell / Gene Luen Yang Publisher: Penguin Classics Format: Paperback Genre: Fantasy Date: February 9, 2021 Pages: 384 pages ISBN: 9780143107187 ASIN: 0143107186 Language: English Adaptation: Retelling

Summary:

One of the world's greatest fantasy novels and a rollicking classic of Chinese literature, in a sparkling new translation and published in a Clothbound Classics edition. A shape-shifting trickster on a kung-fu quest for eternal life, Monkey King is one of the most memorable superheroes in world literature. High-spirited and omni-talented, he can transform himself into whatever he chooses and turn each of his body's 84,000 hairs into an army of clones. But his penchant for mischief repeatedly gets him into trouble, and when he raids Heaven's Orchard of Immortal Peaches, the Buddha pins him beneath a mountain. Five hundred years later, Monkey King is finally given a chance to redeem he must protect the pious monk Tripitaka on his journey in search of precious Buddhist sutras that will bring enlightenment to the Chinese empire. Joined by two other fallen immortals - Pigsy, a rice-loving flying pig, and Sandy, a depressive river-sand monster - Monkey King does battle with Red Boy, Princess Jade-Face, the Monstress Dowager, and all manner of dragons, ogres, wizards and femmes fatales ; navigates the perils of Fire-Cloud Cave, the River of Flowing Sand and the Water-Crystal Palace; and is serially captured, lacquered, sautéed, steamed and liquefied - but always hatches an ingenious plan to get himself and his fellow pilgrims out of their latest jam. Comparable to The Canterbury Tales or Don Quixote, Monkey King is at once a gripping adventure, a comic satire and a spring of spiritual insight. With this new translation by the award-winning Julia Lovell, the irrepressible rogue hero of one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature has the potential to vault, with his signature cloud-somersault, into the hearts of a whole new generation of readers. This Penguin Classic is performed by Kevin Shen, and was translated by Julia Lovell. One of the world's greatest fantasy novels and a rollicking classic of Chinese literature, in a sparkling new translation.

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54732970-monkey-king?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=0wwAmeI2Ed&rank=1