Journey to the West
Journey to the West is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. In English-speaking countries, "Monkey", Arthur Waley's popular abridged translation is well known.
Hamlet
In the 1920s, James Joyce managed "a more upbeat version" of "Hamlet"—stripped of obsession and revenge—in "Ulysses", though its main parallels are with Homer's "Odyssey". In the 1990s, two novelists were explicitly influenced by "Hamlet". In Angela Carter's "Wise Children", "To be or not to be" is reworked as a song and dance routine, and Iris Murdoch's "The Black Prince" has Oedipal themes and murder intertwined with a love affair between a "Hamlet"-obsessed writer, Bradley Pearson, and the daughter of his rival. In the late 20th century, David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest draws heavily from "Hamlet" and takes its title from the play's text; Wallace incorporates references to the gravedigger scene, the marriage of the main character's mother to his uncle, and the re-appearance of the main character's father as a ghost.