I keep meaning to write a review of this book, but I agree totally. One thing I would add, is how all the stories weave together, and it's VERY reminiscent of a lot of Chinese legends, in which different stories have rather distant relationships to each other through seemingly coincidental run-ins between characters. Reading WtMMtM took me a bit back to when I first read my grandfather's English-version Sun Wu Kong epic... so many seeming digressions which all end up working their way into a single narrative of life.