Llama

Five hundred years ago Wu Ch'eng-en of Kiangsu in China wrote an enchanting enormous sprawling charming profound absurd story called Monkey. This allegory was translated in inimitable style by Arthur Waley the great Scholar of most things Chinese. It chronicles the travels of a monk Tripitaka and his three faithful animal servants Monkey Pigsy and Sandy. The four of them bring three baskets containing the five thousand and forty eight scrolls of The Great Vehicle the Mahayana Buddhist scriptures from India to China. En route the tale pokes fun at Emperors and bureaucrats saints and sinners whether on earth or their mirror images in the sky. When is a novel not a novel? When it is an allegory? The Oxford dictionary's definition of 'allegory' is delphic; Allegory: Speaking otherwise than one seems to speak.... Description of a subject under the guise of some other subject of aptly suggestive resemblance. Monkey an allegory if there ever was one has long been my favourite bed-time reading. Over the years I found myself almost as if in a trance writing a modern sequel in between spells of writing documentaries and running a tv production company. My sequel interweaves science global affairs espionage and religion; the subjects that have dominated my working life both before and after television. The tale chronicles the events that follow a mistake in The Incarnation Office where the records of all creatures living and dead are stored. Llama the hero of my story should have been the abbot of a Tibetan monastery but by mistake is reincarnated as one of the four-footed variety in the Andes. The adventures of Llama and his faithful band of animals on their way back from the Andes to Tibet form my story. And I only hope that the reading brings as much pleasure as did the writing.