Essential Chinese Mythology
Martin Palmer & Zhao Xiaomin

Essential Chinese Mythology begins with an extended introduction that raises some interesting points about the influence of China's governments to the myths. It's obvious that the writer truly believes in his assertion and points out the purity of the stories themselves have been modified in the interest of propaganda. Although his statements are strong and logical considering China's controlling government, he presents little facts and generally ruins the entertainment value by placing his theories in the front of the book.

The author of the introduction rails that much literature and traditions were lost due to the many emperors -- but isn't it the same with all civilizations (like the Greeks and the Turks)? It is disturbing that this collection of stories begins with marked biases by the author as he mentions other books published by Penguin and the Foreign Language Press, his insistence in using "Shamanism" to describe Chinese mythology and the copious use of the term "gods" in the same sense of the Greeks. No other books pertaining to the Chinese tradition uses these terms as freely as the writer does. Moreover, although he displays a holistic knowledge of Chinese history and philosophy, his sweeping generalizations about the origins of Chinese traditions are poorly made, simplistic and inadequate. The introduction runs along for 40 pages and covers nearly a fourth of the book before the exhausted reader actually gets to the main text.

As a collection of Chinese stories and folklore, Essential Chinese Mythology has the usual assortment of tales such as Yi the Archer and the story of Kuan Yin. It does provide some rare gems not found even in E.T.C. Werner's comprehensive but dated collection, Myths and Legends of China. To the book's credit, it includes summarized versions of Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West (Monkey) and Lo Kuan-chung's Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This is handy for those who cannot acquire the rare books or lacks the patience to wade through the 1000 page volumes.

The narration and writing style in this book is much simpler and a step above E.T.C.Werner's flat reporting. However, it lacks the enthusiasm of Yakumo Koizumi's Kwaidan or the verve of A.B. Mitford's Tales of Old Japan.

There is something to be said about classifying the folktales under either Yin and Yan, Confucian, Taoist or Buddhist traditions. The categories make it easier for reading and organizes the stories nicely. Unfortunately, again, it is not necessarily accurate as these traditions are not known to be linear.

In general, Essential Chinese Mythology does cover most of the bases and offers adequate content to the casual reader but cannot be considered a serious or robustly entertaining collection.

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