Banished to the human world for slighting the laws of heaven, a Buddha disciple reincarnates as a monk and embarks on a quest for sacred scriptures to atone for his sins. With a motley crew of former gods—a monkey, a man pig, and a river ogre—he must fight demons and evil spirits and overcome trials to fulfill his mission and return to his celestial home.
That is the premise of Journey to the West, a 16th century novel by Wu Chung'en based on the historical journey to India of Jintu Temple monk Xuanzang and written in the larger-than-life style of shenmo fictional reality.
What is shenmo?
Gods and demons fiction or shenmo xiaoshuo, as coined in the early 20th century by writer and literary historian Lu Xun, literally means fiction of gods and demons.
Shenmo is a fantasy sub-genre melding realistic human themes with fantastical fiction where men and immortals mingle freely. In a narrative style that drifts between social commentary and supernatural fantasy, shenmo re-imagines history with a combination of action, humor, and spiritual lessons framed by traditional Chinese legends and folk religion.
The jubilant casualness with which writers treat the embellishment of historical events with Chinese mythology is one of shenmo's curious charms.
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Shenmo's distinctive traits
Through characterization, adventures, settings, and allegories, shenmo elevates fantastic motivation to nonhuman level with its peculiar attributes:
1. Actuality of immortals
Shenmo's unapologetic alteration of the human world compels readers to accept its unique fictional proposition of a contemporary society co-inhabited by Chinese divinities, immortals, and human heroes.
The default reality is that supernatural beings are persons by nature, whether they take recognizable physical forms or not.
2. Surreal setting
With its knack for crafting human settings with not-too-human props, shenmo offers readers a world where reality is stretched beyond recognizable generic boundaries and traditional limitations are supplanted by the marvelous confines of Chinese mythology.
