Tower of Myriad Mirrors: A Supplement to Journey to the West (Michigan Classics in Chinese Studies) (35 page)

Yü (sage ruler)

Yü, Beautiful Lady

Yü Shun

Yü Sun

Yüeh (state of)

Yüeh Fei

Yün-meng Marshes

We should like to take the opportunity of this ebook conversion to briefly address the questions that have been raised regarding the author of
The Tower of Myriad Mirrors.
This short novel was first printed in 1641, under the authorship of “Master of the Studio for Quiet Whistling” (Ching-hsiao-chai chu-ren
) who was also named as the writer of the “Answers to the Questions (on the work)” that we appended to our translation. Since the second half of the 17th century, Master of the Studio for Quiet Whistling has largely been identified as Tung Yüeh
. The Chinese character for this author's given name has always been read “Yüeh” by modern scholars, even though it can also be read “Shuo,” “Shui,” and “T'o” depending on its meanings in different contexts. In a 2006 publication entitled
Studies on the Ming Loyalist Tung T'o
(Ming i-min tung t'o yen-chiu
), Professor Zhao Hongjuan
offers convincing evidence that our author's name should be pronounced “Tung T'o.” We agree with Professor Zhao's analysis; however, we have maintained “Tung Yüeh” for the author's name to avoid confusion vis-a-vis previous editions.

The authorship of this novel has been a matter of dispute among scholars of Chinese fiction since 1985 when Gao Hongjun
published an article in which he challenged the traditional view and argued that Tung T'o's father Tung Ssu-chang
wrote the book because “Quiet Whistling” was the name of his studio. Gao's argument was immediately contested by Feng Baoshan
and Xu Jiang
who argued that Tung Ssu-chang had never used “Master of the Studio for Quiet Whistling” as a pseudonym, and that there was no taboo in late Ming against a son using his father's studio name as part of his own pseudonym. In her 2006 book, Zhao Hongjuan presents an abundance of evidence from various sources including the novel itself to reconfirm that Tung T'o is the author. Nonetheless, in the introduction to his 2011 publication
A Supplement to Journey to the West with Textual Criticism and Commentary
(Hsi-yu pu chiao-chu
), Professor Li Qiancheng
continued to support Gao's argument by critiquing some details in the counter argument and advancing what he felt to be proofs of Tung Ssu-chang's authorship from the latter'
s
writings.

The first edition of our translation was published in 1978. It should be noted that when we were revising that translation in preparation for the 2000 second edition, we were fully aware of the dispute in the authorship of this novel. But after reviewing all of the arguments and evidence presented by scholars involved in the debate, we decided to continue the traditional designation of Tung T'o as the author. We came to this decision chiefly because we felt that the advocates of Tung Ssu-chang's authorship had not correctly understood a key piece of evidence: Tung T'o's own reference to having written the novel. This reference is expressed in a couplet in one of ten poems written in 1650 under the group title of “Random Thoughts” (
Man-hsing shih
):
Journey to the West
--I have supplemented it with (my own) fictional writing: / I return to the empty Tower of Myriad Mirrors, having passed the Provincial Examination.” (
) Tung T'o also added a personal note to these lines, saying, “Ten years ago, I wrote a ‘supplement’ to
Journey to the West
, (in which) there is the episode of ‘The Tower of Myriad Mirrors.’” (
)